Below is another letter from “Spike” of Smalls Jazz. So well said. Applicable to all forms of life.
Dear Friends:
I recently paid a visit to my father who lives on the New Jersey shore. I took him out for a steak at a local steak house that had been there forever. We sat in the dimly lit restaurant and there in the corner was a piano and an old-timer playing it. We ordered our food and conversed and I listened and observed this pianist. It was something that I hadn’t seen in a long time – a real cocktail pianist. Having donned a tuxedo and sat behind dimly lit pianos playing for indifferent audiences for many years, I have a deep sympathy and admiration for those that can do it. This gentleman (who turned out, I found out later, to be 80 years old) played in a style that no longer exists. One tune after another, great old chestnuts such as “Dancing In The Dark”, “Deep In A Dream”, “Indian Summer” – one after the other in a continuous segue. Not jazz either, no “blowing” or hip originals or far out harmonies or grandstanding but just the tunes – played clearly and simply and with the most correct chord changes you’ll ever hear. I mentioned to my Pop – “this is a rarity, like seeing a dinosaur”. I observed this guy play, with a gentleness and grace, while televisions blared and people talked at the top of their lungs and some stupid kid walks by and plays “chopsticks” while the guy is in the middle of tune. He is unfazed. Just patient and playing his songs – creating a lovely background fabric for the restaurant. A lost art, indeed, this style of cocktail piano. It made me think about Humility and particularly humility as a musician, as the kind of musician who can serve a public and create a music that is not a “performance” but rather something environmental – lovely background for people to eat and speak. In this day and age of self-proclaimed masters on Facebook, extolling their own virtues or emailing about their EPK’s of their “amazing” shows to promote themselves. Or musicians who simply regurgitate what they think is hip or the self-righteous ones who claim lineage to some kind of tradition – they all need to shut up and sit in a corner and play for 5 hours with minimal breaks (this guy didn’t take one in the entire time we sat there, not one). Musicians today need to learn about service and also about taste and playing tunes correctly – really knowing those melodies and the right chords, not the ones taken from some jazz-class. It’s hard to play this way. It can be crushing but it’s real work, something that a lot of young musicians have never known or have forgotten about. Real musical work, which is to say, not playing your original tunes for a one hour set in front of a appreciative audience but rather as a way to create background. A throwback to the days before iPods when the only way to have music in a restaurant was to hire a pianist. It made me think about the great masters that I’ve known in my lifetime – musicians like Harry Whitaker or Mark Thompson or Walter Davis Jr – they were musicians who knew about work, could play in pizzerias, could play for hours without complaint, who were joyful and not slanderous but through their love of music only saw the good qualities in others. Musicians, who like boulders in a river that have been rubbed smooth by the current were natural, uncomplaining and spoke with their hearts. Humility, Taste and Grace – the highest qualities a musician can aspire to and what is most sorely needed today.
My best wishes to everyone and their loved ones – I hope to see you at the clubs!
Spike