So Nice, I Had to Do It Twice

Well, there it was...Saturday, 9-7-2013. 

The day started out with me playing at the Ambassador Omaha, a nursing home at 72nd and Seward (not far from Crossroads Mall).

After getting done playing there at just after 11:00 AM and going home after that to grab a bite to eat, I headed back out to Village Pointe to play some more at the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's busiest shopping center...and hopefully, to meet up with the artist who painted the center's "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano, Lisa Schlotfeld.

I met Lisa when the local arm of Luke Jerram's claim to fame kicked off on 8-23-2013...and I'd been itching ever since to make it up to her for not being able to try out that colorfully-painted Marshall & Wendell upright (from the 1910s) at the 8-25-2013 reception the Omaha Creative Institute and the crew from "PMIY" threw at The Pointe.

Got to the shopping center at 1:28 PM...28 minutes later than I'd hoped. (It was all because I'd started out late in the first place, ran into a traffic jam on West Maple Road, and then, when I finally arrived at Village Pointe, I had trouble finding a parking space. But I found one nevertheless.)

Once I made it to Village Pointe's Center Court, two little boys- Raymond and Rowe (could be Roe or Ro instead)- were showing what they could do on this century-old piano.

Not long after that, I got a chance to follow Rowe and Raymond...and the first thing I did when I got to the piano was take its music rack off.

And I launched into a song William Gray wrote in 1898, "She's More to Be Pitied Than Censured," one of the many treacly, sentimental ballads the 1890s were known for.

That is...I launched into the tune when a family walked over to the piano and heard the music and saw who was coaxing said music out of the 88s.

And so, I cut "Pitied/Censured" short and invited siblings Rebecca,

Kristian,

Josh,

and Andrew

to play.

Had a ball watching the foursome tickle the keys. 

I liked how Andrew was cutting up; in addition, I loved Rebecca's version of "Fur Elise," which she followed up with something old-timey. Rebecca also showed Josh how to play "The Knuckle Song" and, earlier than that, showed Raymond how to do "Heart and Soul." 

Eventually, I ended up trading places and going back to ol' Marshall & Wendell to play "Pitied/Censured" in its entirety. Some other songs ensued- including some rags I'd written during the 1999-2005 period (like "Split Brains," "Ragtime Meadowlark," and "I Wanna Shout")- when a man who actually did make it to the VP reception (and tore it inside out, with the proof on YouTube!) came back to play those keys.

That's right...none other than Jim "The Music Man" Snyder.  

And we ended up spending the next hour or so trading musical sets. (And the crowd ate it up...especially the elder Jim's music!)

Jim Snyder's music included "Move It on Over," "Loving You," and even two Bob Seger numbers: "Katmandu" and that all-time favorite, "Old Time Rock and Roll."

I got the message.

When I got back to ol' Marshall & Wendell, I dusted off a 1956 R&B hit by the El Dorados, "At My Front Door." Then, I followed it up with Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally." I also answered "Loving You" with two of its fellow Elvis Presley tunes: "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" and the one that put him on the map to begin with, "Heartbreak Hotel." 

The whole thing attracted the attention of quite a few passersby...including a woman named Beth, who's a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (The Village Pointe exhibition got Beth to the point where she came away interested in making Lincoln the 37th State's next street-piano city!)

By then, The Jim and Jim Show came to an end...and it spun off into the Jim Plus Somebody Else Show.

With me the only Jim left, I still was hoping Lisa Schlotfeld could still make it to the shopping center so that she could once again hear her contribution in action. 

And just in case Lisa couldn't make the trip back to The Pointe, I knew I had to record myself and get it on YouTube (so that Lisa and others could see it).

And I knew I had to do better than the day before.

That's why I turned to a tune Lisa and others heard me do at Memorial Park at the very beginning of "PMIY," Omaha style: Good ol' "Do Re Mi," from "The Sound of Music." 

Worked out much, much better than my attempt the previous day to serve up "Aida's" most famous piece...that time as if Del Wood, and not Giuseppe Verdi, wrote it.

Speaking of workout...really glad that two young pianists came along to prevent the last segment of a fine, fine afternoon from turning into the Just Jim Show.

Charles came over and turned in something jazzy.

Not long after that, it was Emily's turn...and she came up with something classical.

Well, the clock was getting to the point where it would approach 5:00 PM...and it was time to wrap it up and stick the music rack back on this century-old upright. Time to go home. 

Or was it?

By this time, a Douglas County Post-Gazette reporter named Emily Heinzen strolled by and offered me the chance to get in that particular newspaper.

I got in...and knocked off my version of one of the first R&B hits to find favor with both Black and White audiences, Lloyd Price's 1952 landmark, "Lawdy Miss Claudy."

All in all, despite my not getting the chance to hook back up with Lisa, it was still a great, great outing.

Turned out to be one of the many, many reasons I'll never, ever forget Luke Jerram's most famous contribution coming to the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area. 

Get to the Pointe!

Village Pointe, that is.

Ever since Lisa Schlotfeld, the artist who painted the Village Pointe Shopping Center's Marshall & Wendell 1910s upright, invited me during the 8-23-2013 Memorial Park get-together that kicked off the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue "Play Me, I'm Yours" art exhibit to come out to the Omaha Metro's busiest shopping center to play for a reception two days later (only to find out I couldn't come to the reception due to a prior engagement), I'd been pointing to the first opportunity to come out to the Pointe. 

The engagement that kept me away from that earlier opportunity to play the Village Pointe piano: That month's meeting of the Great Plains Ragtime Society, the folks who put on the annual Ragtime to Riches Festival.

What's more, the GPRS meeting on 8-25-2013 happened at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse, a restaurant in nearby Crescent, IA. (This landmark restaurant features, among other things, three player pianos.)

So, after twelve long days, I arrived at VP's Center Court (173rd and Davenport Sts.) at 10:28 AM on Friday, 9-6-2013...and I met up with Steven Raphael. 

This time, though, Steven and I didn't have the shopping center to ourselves.

We had a pretty good crowd during the three-hour period I managed to spend at Omaha's most popular shopping center. Lots of young moms and little children passed through Center Court and listened to Steven and me...but Steven went back home around 11:45 AM.  

All the while preparing for the opportunity to give ol' Marshall & Wendell a go, I kept thinking about one of the most often-quoted phrases to come out of the last twenty years: "It takes a village..."

So I picked out some songs with American cities' names in the title ("The Sidewalks of New York," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Houston," "Detroit City Blues," etc.)...when I wasn't doing railroad songs ("Wabash Cannonball," "John Henry," "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad," and so on). 

By the way...the first thing I did when I got a chance to start playing was take the music rack off the piano. This not only exposes the upright's inner parts...it also brings the sound out.

And I just didn't want to hog the spotlight...so every chance I got, I'd ask passersby if any of them tickled the ivories.

It turned out that a little boy named Jack answered the call.

Result: One of Jack's exercises is now on www.youtube.com. 

Speaking of exercises...when people find out you can play an instrument, some want you to teach them how to play said instrument.

I get that a lot...but I'm not really much of a teacher. Still, a man named Roland (he's on Village Pointe's maintenance staff) asked about whether or not I'd be able to teach him.

It's going to be tough for Roland and I to hook up, what with both he and I holding down hectic schedules. (Oh, well...) 

Still, that C-E-F-G trick I learned early on in the local going of Luke Jerram's claim to fame is a step toward teaching someone to play the 88s. At the very least, it helps generate interest in somebody who's never played (but wanted to)...and helps those who played in the past (but gave it up) get that I've-got-chops feeling again. 

Well, as big as that first Friday here in September 2013 was, the next day was even bigger.

And I'm going to talk about it in my next post.

I'm Jim Boston...and thanks for reading this blog!