Have you ever played a cocktail version of any Michael Jackson tune? I have never heard any song of his played as a nice cocktail piano ballad.

Also, did he ever write his own songs? I always assumed he performed songs others had written or that there were ghost writers and that he would just put his name on it. I remember seeing the Martin Barshay interview where Jackson said he composed songs all the time in his home studio, I somehow doubted it. Also, could he play piano well?

Jazz+,

this guys plays cocktail and covers a lot of pop tunes, including MJ. :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyhVRrQoRIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slXrlsSB0JU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7EK4mic9YM

Not exactly cocktail... but....

"I'll Be There" works nicely as a solo piano piece!

strange how one stumbles upon old threads...

i happen to love MJ... while loving so many classical composers. in his autobiography, Moonwalk, he said that he wrote many of his own songs. In fact, as soon as he could get out of Motown, he tried to put many of his own songs in this albums.

he wrote the entire "beat it", for example. he also wrote "billie jean".

"i'll be there", "earth song", "human nature", "she's out of my life" are all pretty good for parlor piano playing. don't you think?