Larry Vuckovich (born December 8, 1936) is an American jazz pianist from Yugoslavia. Career Born in Kotor, a small Montenegrin coastal town in the former Yugoslavia, the pianist was classically trained as a child but was also drawn to the jazz he heard on Armed Forces Radio and Voice of America during World War II and the Communist regime that followed. After the war, Tito's communists took his home, including the family piano, and imprisoned his father and brother. Jazz came to symbolize freedom. In 1951, when he was 14, his family was granted political asylum in the United States, arriving in San Francisco. The young pianist began listening to KJAZ radio, hanging out at record shops, and frequenting clubs to hear Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bill Evans. He heard and performed with John Handy and Brew Moore with he later began his professional career. At the Black Hawk club he met Cal Tjader and Vince Guaraldi, who agreed to engage him as his only piano student. Guaraldi featured Vuckovich in a two-piano quintet, Powder Keg, and sent him to substitute as accompanist for vocalists Irene Kral and David Allyn. When Mel Tormé came to San Francisco, Vuckovich became his first-call pianist. He began an association with Jon Hendricks that included performances in the musical Evolution of the Blues and two Hendricks recordings. He toured with Hendricks and led the house band at Domicile club in Munich, Germany. He worked with trumpeter Duško Gojković and became a member of his International Quintet, recording a live album with the band at the Domicile. He performed with drummer Philly Joe Jones at the club and toured Europe with him. He met Dexter Gordon and performed at the Montmartre jazz club in Copehagen, Denmark. He performed at festivals at Nurnberg, Cologne, Berlin, Vienna, Bologna, Lugano, Pescara, and Ljublijana (Yugoslavia). During his Domicile residency he met his first wife. Linda was an artist who specialized in graphic design and stained-glass works. With Linda he started Tetrachord Music to publish his compositions. Vuckovich worked with Philly Joe Jones in San Francisco at the Keystone Korner, where he was a resident pianist for five years. He played with Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, Charles McPherson, Leon Thomas, Scott Hamilton, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, with whom he appeared on a Savant Records album from a live Keystone recording. He has recorded for Concord, Hot House,