Miguel Siglo, one of the most brilliant Transit Bar pianists, arrived one night with a suitcase and no personal history. Or so he said. It took us nearly half a year after he'd left to realize who he was. Last week a letter arrived addressed to the bartender, and we learned a couple of things including his stint as bandleader and arranger at the Tropicana nightclub in Havana, Cuba...

 
Dan Anderson is the pianoplayer who works at the Transit Bar in Stockholm. People are always asking him why he wraps his hair ...

 
Daniel appeared out of nowhere in an oversized brown suit, a pair of dead man's shoes and a funny grey hat, carrying an old suitcase which he claimed to be "full of possibilities." Occasionally he'd sit down at the piano, and though he didn't really know how to play, he'd approach it in the same way as the toy piano he carried in his suitcase - he'd just start in at it and keep going for a while. One day he left without saying good-bye, and he never came back. Lately Daniel has been sighted in various cities, playing for free on the street corner, wearing one of a number of different hats.

 
Just before the first Transit Bar opened in Kassel, as we were installing the drink rails, Luigi walked in. He was too good looking, we figured, ever to have done much else in life except smile, but he pulled the dusty drop cloths off the piano and began to play. We forgave him his beauty.

 
One fairly crazy season (the year Sonja left with Toots and Jeremy, taking the baby) there were two guys named Peter, one behind the bar and one at the piano. Piano-Peter was quiet. He'd turn up a minute or two before the first set of the evening, put on his bomber jacket and tutu, and then, no matter what was going on around him, you could tell that once he began to play, Peter and the piano became one being. If someone requested a tune, say one of Vera's tangos, or one of Daniel's themes, he'd just gaze at that person and maybe shrug. Women who like enigmatic men found him charming, and there'd always be someone around the piano whenever it was Peter's night. But it isn't as if he was trying...