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Warren Shadd, the CEO of Shadd Pianos & Keyboard, USA, is the first African-American piano manufacturer in the world. Now a top player in his field, Shadd’s pianos are in high demand and have been featured everywhere from concerts to top television series.

Shadd, a Washington, D.C. area native and Howard University graduate, was a child prodigy drummer who played his first concert at the age of 4. As word of his talent spread, he was the subject to ugly incidents of racism. One of the most chilling came as an eight-year-old in 1964, when someone made violent threats against his parents ahead of a Jazz In Concert series he was set to play at Washington’s Watergate hotel.

In another story Shadd recalled, he played a concert with his mother standing on stage and carrying a gun in her purse to head off any threats.

As a professional drummer, Shadd has played alongside several greats such as Wynton Marsalis, Dizzy Gillespie, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, and his aunt, Shirley Horn, among countless others. As a piano technician, he’s tuned or repaired the pianos of Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, George Clinton, Quincy Jones, and Smokey Robinson, among other people and entities who used his services.

Little Known Black History Fact: Warren Shadd  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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