Robert L. Talley, 75, an accomplished jazz pianist and one of the original members of the old Blues Alley All Star Band, died of heart failure Tuesday at Memphis Veterans Administration Hospital. Services for Talley, a Little Rock native who most recently played at Beale Street Barbecue co-owned by Paul Savarin, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at M. J. Edwards & Sons Funeral Home. Burial will be in Haven of Rest Cemetery in Little Rock. Savarin, who owned Blues Alley where Talley began playing in the house band in the 1970s, said Memphis has lost one of its best piano players. "He's a well-respected musician among all the musicians who knew him. He was a great man, and he will be sorely missed," said Savarin. "He's been playing for me since 1978. He was an extraordinarily great piano player." Savarin said many bands that came to town and needed a piano player looked up Talley. Memphis-born actress and singer Cybill Shepherd also enlisted Talley for several of her recordings and in rehearsals, Savarin said. Rudy Williams of the Rudy Williams Beale Street Jazz and Swing Band played trumpet in the Blues Alley All Star Band. He said Talley didn't mess around when it came to music. "I worked with Talley for 10 years at Blues Alley. He was a perfectionist. He wanted it just right. And he would insult you, man, if you messed up," said Williams, who still plays Beale Street. "A lot of the students from Memphis State hung around Talley because of his jazz collection and his knowledge of jazz. He was an asset to a lot of young musicians here in the city," said Williams. Talley also played with such Memphis legends as B. B. King and Al Jackson, said A. J. Burnett, a former dancer who befriended Talley in the 1940s when both were working in the Dreamland Ballroom in Little Rock. "He could really play all the instruments, but his main instrument was the piano. He was a very good, good writer and arranger, too," she said. "You couldn't have met a better person. He was quiet, and the same everytime you saw him. That just knocked the bottom out of me when I came downtown today and learned he was dead." Savarin said he is planning to put together a band to give Talley a musical sendoff on Beale Street Sunday afternoon. Williams said he plans to participate and lead a procession down Beale Street in Talley's honor. "He said, 'That's the way I want to go when I go,'" said Savarin. Talley was a World War II veteran and a former postal worker. Talley, the husband of Antonia C. Talley, also leaves three daughters, Kathleen Sorsby of Glenwood, Ill., Phyllis R. Talley of Chicago and Jackie Burnett of Texas, and five grandchildren. (By Quintin Robinson, Published in The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, on 8/4/1995)

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