Chad Willetts, a Chicago musician who drew crowds to the Rogers Park neighborhood at the intimate jazz club Le Piano, died earlier this month.

Willetts — a pianist, drummer and longtime Rogers Park resident — died suddenly on Friday, Oct. 17, according to his former wife, Amy Willetts. He was visiting friends in Michigan at the time.

Willetts was 61.

A native of Monroe, Michigan, Willetts attended Michigan State University and Columbia College Chicago before restaurateur Gordon Sinclair brought him on as musical director at Gordon Restaurant, formerly at 500 N. Clark St. in River North, in the mid-1980s.

Willetts played piano at the fine dining restaurant for several years, and also provided the musical accompaniment at the Knickerbocker Hotel and the Palm Court at the Drake Hotel.

In 2018, Willetts and business partner Joe Quinlan opened Le Piano at 6970 N. Glenwood Ave., along a cobblestoned right-of-way right across from the Chicago Transit Authority Red Line tracks and just north of the Morse station.

The space had a long history as a neighborhood draw. It had been home for more than two decades to the No Exit Café, a coffeehouse with roots dating back to 1958, where patrons drank strong coffee and smoked cigarettes as they enjoyed folk music concerts, indie acoustic open mic nights, and improv performances.

Still using the No Exit name, the space was taken over in the 2000s by the Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre company before that operation moved to its current location on the Evanston side of Howard Street. When Willetts turned the space into Le Piano, he transformed the space into what the website for the club describes as "Chicago's most intimate and romantic North Side room."

The design for Le Piano was inspired by the Latin Quarter in Paris. The sturdy old upright piano on which No Exit open mic emcee Pat Hall had played Leon Russell songs became a distant memory as Willetts' grand piano dominated the room, bathed in blue light as crowds enjoyed cocktails and small plates.

Singer, writer, producer and booking agent Barb Bailey — who called Willetts her best friend in Chicago — noted that he encouraged and inspired amateurs to get up and perform.

"He had a funny moniker. It was, 'Destroy your reputation' — in other words, come to the piano if you've always had the urge to sing and play music at Le Piano, and just step up to the microphone. He would welcome you," Bailey said, "and believe me, a lot of talent was discovered at Le Piano."

Visitors to Le Piano have had the opportunity to enjoy a different style of music every night — jam sessions, cabaret nights, Latin and swing jazz, Hammond B-3 organ performances, and Willetts' own quartet, with Willetts himself on drums, Bradley Williams on piano, Stacy McMichael on bass, and Dez Desermeaux on tenor sax.

During the summer months, the live jazz action has spilled out onto Glenwood Avenue, which has been closed to traffic for the performances.

Willetts was also known at Le Piano for inviting guests to lie down on a pile of pillows under the grand piano as he played. Among the visitors to take a spot beneath the piano over the years was CBS News Chicago reporter Sabrina Franza, who got a bonus experience when she spoke with Willetts about al fresco dining for a story in April 2022. 

Willetts told Franza at the time that as many as nine people had climbed under his piano at once to hear his music from a different perspective. The space beneath the piano was even once the site of a marriage proposal.

At Le Piano, Willetts also hosted visual artists who would create paintings and drawings in real time as the music was presented, Bailey said. At the end of the evening, he would have the artists come up and show their work and then raffle off the artworks and give the proceeds to the artists, Bailey said.

And when Le Piano had to close during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Willetts converted the business into a makeshift mask factory.

Bailey emphasized how dedicated Willetts was to every element of artistry and service at Le Piano. She said recently, a truck that was supposed to be delivering beignets had not arrived, so she joined Willetts as they personally drove two hours to Indiana to pick up the beignets, ensuring they would be available for that evening and the rest of the week.

Bailey also recalled a performance at Le Piano that Willetts held for her.

"Most people know that I started out my life being found in a cardboard box in Wheeling, West Virginia," she said.

Bailey said she became known as the Tally Ho Baby because the box inside which she was left behind was dropped off in front of a six-flat apartment building called the Tally Ho, and was found by the caretaker when he stumbled over the box at 6 a.m.

"[Willetts] loved the story so much that I did a show called the Tally Ho Baby that I debuted there, and he insisted on having a life-size box made for me to be wheeled in. So here I am inside a box that has an address on it — a return address on it like a real box, it was a large cardboard box my height with a front door," Bailey said. "Then I was wheeled out of the box, still nobody knew until I was centerstage, and then [Willetts] introduced me when I emerged from the box."

"Nobody forgot that, including me," Bailey added.

Bailey said Willetts also threw her a surprise wrap party on one occasion when she was performing in New York, and said he "did things like that for everybody."

In the warmer months, Willetts also played an upright piano on the beach in Rogers Park, Bailey said.

Willetts is survived by his adult children, daughter Chloe (Willetts) Capaldi and son Mason Willetts, and his sister, Tal Dmytro. He was preceded in death by his mother Barbara and father Frank Willetts, and his brother Kip Willetts.

A celebration to honor Willetts' life, coinciding with the seventh anniversary of the opening of Le Piano, is planned for Saturday, Nov. 22, and Sunday, Nov. 23 at the venue.