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Jimmy Binkley

 


Jimmy Binkley | Peoria Jazz | tc300

Jazz pianist Jimmy Binkley refuses to divulge his age or personal details, even to journalists:

“Ask the ageless Jimmy Binkley how old he is and the following often happens:

His head tilts backward. His eyes widen and illuminate behind his lightly tinted eyeglasses. His smile expands and exposes both rows of perfectly aligned white teeth. His laugh escalates quickly into a trademark chest-heaving, barrel-full-of-monkeys expulsion of air and throaty ha-ha-has that sound like his whole heart is laughing.

Then he doesn’t tell you.

“I’m out there playing to the public all the time,” he said after the laughter stopped, though the smile remained. “Some things I got to keep private. For me.””

Jimmy Binkley died on January 26, 2015.

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