Jazz pianist Pete Terrana was patriarch of a musical family

ST. PETERSBURG — Chances are that if you were a bar-hopping adult in the 1970s, you saw the Pete Teran Trio in one club or another, guys wearing matching suits with wide lapels and platform shoes. Behind a two-tiered organ, Peter Terrana took risks, soaring to improvisational heights. He established a mood that defined the space, a sharp contrast with the street.

You were in his house now, and he was going to take care of you.

To pay bills, he also played Top 40 and worked in retail stores during the day.

Mr. Terrana, who played thousands of gigs in a 65-year career, including every New Year's Eve since 1944, died Thursday, six weeks after an injury. He was 79.

In Buffalo in the 1950s, he played with house musicians at the Town Casino that regularly backed up stars like Sammy Davis Jr. and Sarah (Whatever Lola Wants) Vaughn. After moving to St. Petersburg 28 years ago, the Pete Teran Trio played in nightspots north and south.

"In my memory, you used to hear the Pete Teran Trio all over the area," said talent agent Gerry Cachia. "At one time, he was it."

Mr. Terrana got his first nightclub gig at 14, playing the accordion in Buffalo. At 19, he married Dolores O'Shei, who told her parents she was dating a "Peter O'Toole" so they wouldn't disapprove. In fact, Mr. Terrana's father had emigrated from Sicily. The couple had four sons; all grew up to be musicians.

"The whole family is mega-talented," said Cachia. "I would never want to liken them to The Partridge Family, but it's that kind of thing, because you know that they can all break out into song and it's going to be phenomenal."

The patriarch moved his family to St. Petersburg in 1971. The Pete Teran Trio played from 1973 to 2000, changing tunes and outfits with the times.

"In the '60s, when Nehru jackets were in style for two days, he had Nehru jackets," said his son, drummer Jerry Terrana.

He liked the song My Way, and was known to browbeat musicians he felt were incompetent. "There were some venues where people sat in who couldn't really play and really had no business being there," said Jerry Terrana, 54. "He got a little anxious, I'll put it that way."

Later he worked hotels such as the Holiday Inn and the Ramada Inn, civic clubs and the retirement circuit. Backstage at Ruth Eckerd Hall in the late 1980s, Mr. Terrana caught up with Sammy Davis Jr. Davis, who died of cancer a year later, remembered him.

In recent years, Mr. Terrana performed at area Lions and Elks clubs as well as the Moose Lodge — what he called the "zoo circuit" — and retirement communities.

The Terrana Brothers toured the country in a Beatles tribute.

"As kids we'd rehearse like crazy," his son said. "We'd want to turn down gigs. We'd say, 'Oh, I'm not good enough to play in a place like that.' "

Nonsense, their father said. Mr. Terrana implanted a firm principle they never forgot, one that carried the force of law.

"He'd say, 'Book the gig, then worry about whether you can play it.' "