When the Bronx-bred pianist Zita Carno auditioned for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1975, she played short excerpts from the orchestra’s repertoire for the music director, Zubin Mehta.

“Then Mehta said, ‘Come back tomorrow. I want to hear you play the Boulez,’” she recalled years later, referring to the French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez.

“Well, I said, ‘I eat that stuff for breakfast,’ which made him laugh.”

Ms. Carno was hired and spent the next 25 years as the orchestra’s pianist, capping a career as a widely praised classical keyboardist (she also played the harpsichord and organ) who was also an expert on the music of the innovative jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

Ms. Carno died on Dec. 7 in an assisted living facility in Tampa, Fla. She was 88.

Her cousin Susanna Briselli said the cause was heart failure. Ms. Carno had moved to Tampa with her mother after her retirement from the Philharmonic to be near the spring training facility of the Yankees, her favorite baseball team.