Standards important to pianist Baker

Like any professional musician, Phil Baker will play -- or give a shot at playing -- just about anything somebody might request.

Still, Baker, who performs in Salvatore's Italian Restaurant at the Suncoast, does admit to a special fondness for the timeless standards.

"I love to play the older standards, because the stories they tell are beautiful," he explains. "Newer songs, they come out, they're great, but they don't last long. A year later, you don't even remember the songs."

But the standards, Baker says, "people will remember."

Baker grew up in Chicago and comes from a musical family whose members include a singer/guitarist uncle, an opera-singer aunt and a professional violinist father.

Consequently, "I always loved music," Baker says.

In grammar school, Baker was introduced to the piano, learning to play on a cardboard keyboard. After high school, he continued formal music studies at a Chicago conservatory and began playing professionally around town.

Later, he and his brother teamed up as "The Baker Boys," and the duo came to Las Vegas in 2001. Since then, Baker's resume, either as a solo act or part of a duo, includes gigs at Turnberry Place, Wynn Las Vegas and Fellini's restaurant. Now, at Salvatore's, Baker continues his avocation of playing timeless classics to appreciative audiences.

It's gratifying, he says, because "every day I get people who come up to me and say, 'I love that music. I haven't heard that music for years.' "

Phil Baker plays in the piano bar of Salvatore's Italian Restaurant at the Suncoast at 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

-- By JOHN PRZYBYS