Chuck Binna started playing the piano at age 6 and was still playing five days before he died at age 96. He died May 31 in a Littleton care facility.
Binna was a schoolteacher and made extra money playing with various bands. When he died, he had been a member of the Musicians Union for 75 years, said a longtime friend, Bob Allen of Denver.
Binna played with bands at Lakeside and Elitch Gardens amusement parks, with Dick Westerberg’s band and the Pete Smythe Band (which played for local society events), at civic clubs and at churches. He also played for an El Jebel band, the Dixieland Syncopators, for 10 years.
He didn’t always arrive on time at his church – First Unitarian on Capitol Hill – so he would entertain churchgoers afterward.
Binna was never far from a piano. When he and his wife, Flora, were traveling, he would find one on a cruise ship or in a city where they docked.
He loved popular music and “abhorred” rock and roll, said his daughter, Judy Taylor of Denver.
He was in his 60s before he took up ragtime, and he loved it. After that, he took lessons from famed jazz pianist Ralph Sutton.
Binna loved to make up limericks, and he loved to tell jokes. But he only “half memorized” the jokes, said his daughter, so friends and family usually had to remind him of the punch line. But he rarely forgot piano pieces.
Nor did he forget his favorite quip: “Here’s to it from it and to it again; if you ever get to it and don’t do it, may you never get to it to do it again.”
Charles Binna was born Feb. 3, 1910, in Chicago. He and his brother, Leander, were reared by two aunts because their mother had died. Chuck Binna earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Illinois.
He met Flora Rittenhouse in college, and the two eloped in 1930. Their honeymoon was spent hitchhiking with their bed roll cross-country on Route 66 to California.
Binna joined the Army and was recruited to play in an Army band.
After teaching in public schools, Binna decided he wanted a more lucrative profession, so he began traveling, selling building products.
He loved cars and over the years had five Porsches, usually driving one on his selling trips in the Western U.S. He and his wife traveled the world, making friends they corresponded with for years.
In addition to his daughter, Binna is survived by five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife and by a daughter, Jan Haddow.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
