When I was in my 20s, I took jazz piano lessons. It was a crazy time in my life. I was working at the Niagara Gazette. Then I quit the Gazette, and after a while I was broke, and so the jazz piano lessons had to lapse. Hahaha … I was really living the artist lifestyle!
A year or two later I was hired by The Buffalo News, with the amazing title of Comics and Puzzles Editor, and so the lessons were back on. I remember calling my teacher, Ron Eschner, and telling him: “My ship has come in!” A happy memory!
Because I am going to be assisting Howard in his upcoming job at the Hyatt, I have been practicing up on a lot of songs I used to play, and learning new ones too — a random assortment, just things I love. That is my criterion. Do I love the song, I mean, really love it? If the answer is yes, I do it.
It is weird, the songs you really love! However that is another topic for another day.
Back to these jazz lessons. I went looking for this binder because now I need it. As you can tell from the picture at the top of this post, it was not pretty. It was an old industrial binder I picked up somewhere for nothing. “Resistance and Its Potential Clinical Significance,” it says on the cover.
Way led on to way. I did a lot of playing — I played for several years in the great band Ladies First, still active in our area. And I am proud to say I played for dinner at the Calumet Arts Cafe. However the binder receded in my consciousness. When I moved to this house I stuck it in the basement and there it has stayed. It had not budged for 30 years. Opening it up felt weird. I remember so much the person I was.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was living in my old Delavan Avenue apartment, I had roommates, and I was thinking I was going to have to scout out more roommates. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. I was following an ignorant agenda. Haha … that is a phrase I got from jazz great Wynton Marsalis. He said it in an interview once, remembering some time in his life, and I always remembered it.
But there were good times. And these jazz lessons, they were fun! My editor at the Niagara Gazette, Karen Caar Keefe, she got me started on them. She studied with Ron Eschner. How lucky is that? You have a job and your boss takes jazz piano lessons.
Karen and I would sit in the break room working on our arrangements. People would walk in and find us sitting there talking about Cole Porter, dreaming up harmonies, music paper all over the place.
At home I would sit for hours at my old Gulbransen upright — I bought that piano at a garage sale — playing “Easy to Love,” “Manhattan,” whatever songs Ron assigned me. Because I worked nights at the Niagara Gazette, I could practice during the day. I told that I worried I was wasting these beautiful summer days, sitting at the piano.
“That’s not wasting a day,” Ron said. “That’s enjoying a day!”
Funny the things that come back to you!
My calligraphy cracks me up. I had forgotten how much fun I used to have writing the song titles.
It’s funny. I kind of want to do now as I did in the old days.
Go running to that old upright.
And play!