Finally, finally able to get back to blogging! (Things got so hectic these last sixteen days that I couldn't get back to the computer to post this...and I apologize for that.)
Sixteen days ago, Dave Wickerham (one of the best theater organists on Planet Earth) came to Omaha, where he knocked 'em dead at the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center, the facility better known as the Rose Theater.
It'd been three years since Dave previously concertized here in the Big O...and when he came back for the 2015 version of the River City Theatre Organ Society's annual fundraiser, he was in fine, fine form at the theater's three-manual, 27-rank 1927 Wurlitzer.
Initial fears were that not as many people this time around were interested in watching the Encino, CA native punish (okay, coax) the only concert-worthy theater pipe organ installation in Nebraska.
But a great crowd at the Rose destroyed those fears.
And the audience members watched him lead off with a medley of "Get Happy" and "I Want to Be Happy."
We in the audience got happy, all right...and after the applause died down, Dave got into some banter, then launched into some of the Great American Songbook.
Dave W. kicked that segment of the concert off by saluting Irving Berlin, throwing in tunes like "What'll I Do," "Always," and the one that put Irving on the map for good: "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
The next medley focused on...rain.
That's right, rain. Dave put together "Singin' in the Rain," "Laughter in the Rain," and "Stormy Weather." (Don't laugh at the inclusion of "Laughter," the youngest song in the concert at forty years of age. After all, Neil Sedaka had that Great American Songbook ethos, too...as did other Brill Building graduates such as Carole King and Barry Mann- to say nothing of the teams of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.)
Now the focus was back on a single composer, this time George Gershwin...and this time, the organ tried to punish Dave by going into cipher mode.
He wasn't having any of that.
All Dave did was continue to play through the cipher during a medley that included favorites like "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Strike Up the Band."
It's not really an RCTOS concert at the Rose without a silent movie, and Dave turned to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for this year's showing. This time, it was the 1926 film called "Putting Pants on Philip," where Stan played a kilt-wearing Scotsman and Ollie was the American who ended up taking him in.
The movie did its job, adding to the fun of the outing better known as "Let's Get Lost in the Music."
"Putting Pants" led to a fifteen-minute intermission; after that, Dave came back out...this time paying tribute to Duke Ellington and his longtime arranger, Billy Strayhorn. The tunes: "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" and "Take the 'A' Train."
By the way...it's also not an RCTOS concert at the Rose if a nationally-known theater organist isn't paired up with a local act.
And for 2015, the local act was a five-man group known as Omaha Street Percussion.
When Omaha Street Percussion walked onto the Rose Theater stage and began to take to all those unorthodox forms of percussion (trash cans, trash can lids, etc.), the energy at the theater kicked up a notch...actually, a bunch of notches.
After the first selection, the men of OSP launched an audience-participation exercise: "We'll give you a beat, and we want you to clap to it." The left half of the throng got a different beat to clap to than the right half.
The audience ate it all up, all right.
As one concertgoer put it: "High energy."
Two high-energy numbers later, Dave himself jumped in, joining OSP in the famous "Tico Tico."
With the crowd all pumped up after OSP's segment of "Let's Get Lost," Dave ran the event's anchor leg, delivering a medley that he played at this year's American Theatre Organ Society convention (held mostly in Philadelphia, PA, with Atlantic City, NJ taking on the convention's other events).
Yep...it was a patriotic medley. (And yep...it brought the house down at this year's ATOS get-together.)
"Yankee Doodle" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" got in there as part of Dave Wickerham's song cycle. "The Girl I Left Behind" and "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" were in there, too, along with "This Is My Country."
For the medley's last song, Dave motioned the audience into standing up.
And then, he took it all home with "God Bless America." (Many, if not most in the crowd, sang along.)
With Dave showing why RCTOS brought him back to the Big O to concertize, and with Omaha Street Percussion more than holding its own (okay...that's a real understatement!), this was one of the best fundraisers the local ATOS chapter ever staged.
All right...it was THE best!
While "Play Me, I'm Yours" turned Omaha and Bellevue into the second and third Nebraska cities to ever host at least one street piano (Kearney took the lead in 2010 when the owners of the city's Tru Cafe and Evo Salon stuck an old upright in front of their restaurant and invited passersby to play), something else happened.
When a 1900-1905 Epworth Upright Concert Grand (built by the Chicago piano maker Williams & Sons) got placed in Bayliss Park at the same time as Bellevue's and Omaha's "Play Me" pianos, Council Bluffs became just the second Iowa municipality to ever set a street piano in a public place.
Sorry...but the first one wasn't Des Moines.
Well, Council Bluffs (the city that gave us jazz greats Art and Addison Farmer) became the third stop on my own "Play Me" tour, and I got to Bayliss Park around 9:35 AM yesterday.
And at that time, a man named Victor was playing that Epworth upright.
Victor's own brand of jazz piano captivated the people who were passing through Bayliss Park...as well as those who came to sit a spell to listen.
I found out that Victor's a New Jerseyite-turned-Iowan, and he's been playing professionally since 1961 (the year he turned 18). Back in the Garden State, he'd spent 25 years playing in bands that mainly performed in New York City's Jersey suburbs...such as Bayonne.
He moved to the Hawkeye State in 2003 and now plays for his church.
I don't know what time Victor arrived in the park (didn't ask him), but I do know this: He was still going strong by 11:45 AM.
Some of his tunes included "The Man I Love," "One-Note Samba," "Tico Tico," and a jazzy version of "Minute Waltz." (That's right, that "Minute Waltz.")
During that first hour at Bayliss, I got in a couple of solo efforts [a 1953 Fats Domino hit called "Goin' to the River" and, before that, a ragtime version of "A Hard Day's Night" (that's right, that "A Hard Day's Night")].
In between the personal solos, I joined in on Victor's version of "Somewhere, My Love."
I got a schooling.
To be honest, I rushed this version of "A Hard Day's Night," an effort that worked out much better the previous month at the Ragtime to Riches Festival in Omaha. And I tried to anticipate Victor's next moves during fellow movie theme "Somewhere, My Love."
Victor's main message to me, as a result, was: "Jim...slow down!"
I went ahead and reworked "Goin' to the River" to incorporate Victor's advice- once with him still at the park and the other after he left to go home.
Some of the other contestants I've played alongside at Illinois' World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival have said that slowing the music down is a way to learn it more efficiently (and a way to get audiences on your side).
It works.
So, after starting to feel flustered about trying to keep the same pace as a man who's got 52 years of professional playing experience on his side, I started to remember that, for me, every musical experience is a learning one.
And it was a reminder that, in "PMIY," every skill level is welcome when it comes to tackling (or tickling) the ivories. Period.
So...after Victor left, I spent another 90 minutes at Bayliss Park. And I did most of the playing...but definitely NOT all of it.
I wanted to share the seat of one of the most innovative piano reincarnations in "Play Me" history with some other park visitors.
Marcia Joffe-Bouska partnered up with the Council Bluffs Public Art Commission to pretty up Bayliss Park's piano; the result made the instrument look more like a tree...a tree you can paint on on one side and/or draw on on the other side. And in the middle of the music rack, Marcia and Co. placed a mirror.
With so much going on in the redesign of that Epworth upright, no wonder it's one of the most popular pianos in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue leg of the 2013 "Play Me, I'm Yours" tour.
And as morning became afternoon, Jessica and her son Landon stopped by to hear what was being played...and Landon just couldn't wait to get not to the upright's keys, but...to its hammers. (Sometime when Victor was still at the park, I removed the music rack to expose the piano's hammers.)
Harrison brought his daughter Lily to Bayliss Park, and I found out he'd played tuba and trombone (among other instruments) in high school, where he was in the marching band.
Piano was another story...so, I showed Harrison the C-E-F-G trick. (It worked.)
Jim, his wife Kim, and their sons Garrett (he plays the viola) and Tyler (he doesn't) came by to experience "Play Me." Of the four family members, only Garrett wanted to give the C-E-F-G trick a try.
Garrett's right arm was in a sling (not just any sling- a sling featuring green and gold, the Green Bay Packers' colors), so he ended up doing the demonstration with his left arm. And it worked out, too...even if I found myself fighting to keep from making it the C-D-E-F-G trick.
A man named Kelly's been making the "Play Me" rounds during this two-week period. His biggest goal, besides seeing all ten local pianos, is...to...place his mountain bike on each piano's keys.
Cool!
Speaking of local...Cedar Rapids isn't credited with being the first city in America's 29th state to boast a street-piano scene.
Ended up getting interviewed twice...by Jaci Pettie (with her cell phone) and by the Omaha World-Herald's Rick Ruggles (who brought his notepad, which featured notes he'd taken in shorthand).
Both were colorful and fun! I don't know where Jaci's interview will end up, but Rick's interview made the Sunday edition of the Omaha paper. (It's on Page 1 of the Midlands section...and is all about the heat we've been facing around here.)
Speaking of around here...the first city in Iowa to place a street piano in a public spot wasn't Davenport. And it wasn't Sioux City, either.
Well, Rick took several photos of me playing "Hello Ma Baby," the 1899 Ida Emerson-Joe Howard tune that Michigan J. Frog (one of Warner Bros.' secondary cartoon characters) took to in the middle 1950s.
After Rick's interview, a young woman named Jordan (I hope I'm getting her first name right...after all, it could be Jordyn) came over to tickle the Epworth's ivories. And because she came armed with sheet music, that was my signal to wrestle the music rack back onto the piano.
With her mom turning the pages, Jordan (or Jordyn) played a tune whose name escapes me...but I caught the song on video, and I hope to have that (along with Victor's rendition of "The Man I Love") up on www.youtube.com soon.
Then it was Craig Griffis' turn to play the tree...oops, I mean Bayliss piano.
Just as Jaci made it into the Omaha World-Herald article, Craig did, too. He'd been listening all this time to me and Jordan/Jordyn; meanwhile, Craig's own little daughter (why didn't I get her name, too, or that of Jordan's mother?) went swimming and/or playing under the Bayliss Park fountain.
Craig recognized me from when I was able to go to the National Old-Time Country, Bluegrass, and Folk Music Festival and Contest when it was held in Avoca, IA...its home from 1982 to 2002. (The event now takes place in Le Mars, IA, its home since 2008; before that, Missouri Valley, IA was the festival site.)
And I recognized what Craig was playing: "Crazy," the Willie Nelson number made famous in 1961 by Patsy Cline.
Craig told me that he only knows chords...but to me, he had "Crazy" down.
In between a couple of Craig's takes, his daughter came away from the water to sit down at ol' Epworth to noodle around on its keys.
Then, to the tune of one more rendition of "Crazy," I headed off to Omaha.
Man, through all the heat and all the efforts to fight sweat off my brow, I still had a great time in the Bluffs...a wonderful time.
And I was looking forward to Sunday, when I'd set out to tackle Omaha's downtown "Play Me, I'm Yours" contributions.
Speaking of contributions...Iowa City introduced street pianos to the Hawkeye State when, in 2010, some business leaders there placed a couple of spinets downtown.
I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"
When Liz met me at Omaha's Memorial Park on Saturday evening last week, she marveled at how the people who'd been coming to the park as part of the "Play Me, I'm Yours" street-piano celebration had- up to that point- been respecting the 100-or-so-year-old H.P. Nelson upright at Memorial Park and not subjecting it to vandalism.
I wonder if Liz had a chance to come to Stinson Park at Aksarben Village and had taken a look at its Kranich & Bach "Mirrapiano."
Well, this past Tuesday, when I got back to Memorial Park that morning, I had the south stairs (site of the H.P. Nelson Upright Concert Grand) to myself and tried out "The Dark End of the Street." (Maybe you heard this 1967 hit for R&B singer James Carr done in the 1991 theatrical movie "The Commitments," about the band of that name.)
A few songs later, I saw Angie (that's right, the same Angie who, three days earlier, ended up teaching her daughter Lexi how to play "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater" on that same upright piano).
At first, I didn't recognize her...but that changed in a second. It was that, this time, Angie was in her jogging clothes. In fact, Angie told me that she loves to go jogging through Memorial Park, and it's something she does every day.
Some more songs after that...and I looked back, and found an audience had formed at the top of the steps.
The audience consisted of two students from nearby Brownell-Talbot High School: Mia and her buddy Jessica, both of them doing their homework to the music in the park.
I got up from the piano and walked up the stairs to meet Jessica and Mia; then I found out that both of them had had encounters with the 88s in the past. (Mia had taken lessons...but had forgotten what she'd learned.)
So...I thought of what George told me three days earlier: "Get someone to actually touch a piano key!"
I invited Mia to actually touch four piano keys- middle C and the E, F, and G next to it.
Next thing Mia, Jessica, and I knew, Mia recognized that she herself had done the intro to "When the Saints Go Marching In."
And then Jessica came up to bat...and turned in a bit of an Adele smash, "Someone Like You."
Loved it! (Matter of fact, Jessica's piece will be heading for YouTube. I hope.)
The next person I met up with on that Tuesday, 8-27-2013, was...none other than Jim "The Music Man" Snyder, who's already got some jams on YouTube (including that knockout performance he gave in that very same park five days earlier, during the "PMIY" kickoff).
Man, Jim and I shot the breeze, traded tunes with each other, and in the meantime came two young mothers with two children. (You'll see all five of them together on the same video...soon as I get it up!)
One of the moms has a son named Jeff, who's interested in taking up the ivories...and man, little Jeff just couldn't wait to get his hands on the H.P. Nelson keys.
I needed to get the first names of the remaining members of that foursome listening to Jim Snyder crank up Hank Williams' 1947 winner "Move It on Over."
Anyway, after I shot footage of Jim S. and of the moms, the little boy, and the little girl in there, the 71-year-old saloon pianist shot footage of me. (I want to turn that into www.youtube.com as well.)
By the way...the first thing I did when I got to Memorial Park that day was take the music rack off the old piano.
Well...it worked for Jo Ann Castle all those years (1959-1969) she did The Lawrence Welk Show! Worked for Eubie Blake, too.
I turned in "Chantilly Lace," the signature hit (1958) for J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. And I did it as- you probably guessed it- a rag.
Jeff's mom and Jim S. had a real good conversation going. (Jeff's mom also plays those keys...and would've sat down to tickle away if she hadn't been pressed for time.) And one of the things the elder Jim said really struck me: "You want to be the performer everybody loves...not the one everybody feels sorry for."
Jim Snyder regarded me as a professional.
I thought it was the other way around, with him being the pro. The REAL pro.
Jim was born in Pennsylvania, then he and his parents moved to New Jersey, where Jim's dad worked in a defense plant.
The dad loved music, too, and played a heck of a piano. He instilled his own love of black dots in little Jim...to the point where the father, during 1942-43, would hold his infant son by the legs while manipulating those keys.
Not once did he let little Jim fall to the floor.
Jim grew up to have a son himself...one who'd been singing before, dropped out of music, and is now back into it.
Jim the Music Man also pointed out that music is something you've got in you...period. And it's something we can't really get along without.
Ask Jeff.
By the way, Jeff and Mom took their turn- standing up- on ol' H.P. as Jeff led the way with "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." (YouTube-bound for sure!)
Well, as was the case the previous three times I'd been to Memorial Park (the first three times I'd ever been inside that Omaha landmark in my life), this fourth time truly was a charm. And I'm fired up about heading to Council Bluffs, IA this Saturday to try out the Bayliss Park piano.
And yes...when I got done, I put the music rack back on the Memorial Park piano.
During this past Friday's kickoff event for the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's exhibition of the "Play Me, I'm Yours" painted-piano project, local artist Kim Reid Kuhn approached me about playing the keys during an exhibition she and fellow artist Steven Walsh were going to put on that evening at their place of business, Sweatshop Gallery (2727 N. 62nd St., 68104).
Steven and Kim painted up their own old upright (or maybe it was one donated to them).
One thing's for sure: Sweatshop Gallery wasn't on the list of "Play Me" piano sites.
And that's why Omaha Creative Institute executive director Susan Thomas laughingly labeled it a "rogue" piano...one of several on display here in the area while "PMIY" continues (through 9-8-2013).
So...at 7:11 PM (Central time), I came out to the gallery (in Omaha's Benson neighborhood) to play...and I found a really cool 1916 Bush & Gerts upright.
And I stayed and played it for two hours...and on top of that, I had just as much fun that night as I had that morning and early afternoon at Memorial Park.
The people who passed by liked the music (well, most of them did)...and I even received some tip money.
Well, anyway, the music ran the gamut from an early rag called "Tickled to Death" to a blues called "That's All Right" to Prince's "Purple Rain."
Kim, Steven, and Co. liked it so much that they invited me to come back and play on 9-6-2013.
So...look out, Bush & Gerts!
Well, it's here!
In fact...it arrived two days ahead of schedule. (If you're a regular of YouTube and you've been following the world's street-piano scene, you've probably seen videos of it already.)
I'm talking about the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area serving as the world's 34th metro area to host that international phenomenon, Luke Jerram's "Play Me, I'm Yours."
Yesterday, the ten street pianos set up for the Omaha Metro were installed in as many public places.
And those passersby watching crews from Omaha's Transfer 88 just as quickly got their fingers on those keys once the pianos were anchored into place.
This morning, the Omaha Creative Institute and the "Play Me, I'm Yours" organization got together to host a community event that served as the official kickoff for the local exhibition of "PMIY." This kickoff event took place at Memorial Park, the landmark on the other side of the main campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Lots and lots and lots and lots of work goes into every "Play Me" project...and OCI executive director Susan Thomas thanked a planeload of people, especially her fellow OCI staff members, the "Play Me" crew (represented by Sally Reay, AKA "Sally Street Piano"), the local government officials who okayed the project, those whose financial contributions helped bring the project to America's 58th-ranked metropolitan area, and the artists who decorated the seven older uprights (including the one pictured; it's right there at Memorial Park), two spinets, and the lone studio piano.
And then...the music began. (Oops...I mean it resumed.)
The first pianists to get a crack at the park's century-old H.P. Nelson upright- during today's community event, that is- were students and instructors from the Omaha Conservatory of Music. (One memorable duet- by Anne Madison and Yulia Kalishnikova, and I hope I've got their names right- made in onto www.youtube.com.)
Omaha City Councilmember Pete Festersen got into the act; he sat down and played a little bit of that Mannheim Steamroller favorite, "Fresh Aire."
Next, five members of the Omaha-based Ballet Nebraska danced around the old upright while one of the accompanists for the troupe played. (Check that out on www.youtube.com, too!)
The good-sized crowd also heard from a local legend, a saloon pianist named Jim Snyder. And his infectious brand of boogie-woogie playing made it onto- you guessed it- www.youtube.com.
I got a chance to go up following Jim. [Nope...my ragtime version of "Do Re Mi" (from "The Sound of Music," not the one from Lee Dorsey) didn't make it to YouTube at this writing. But I still had lots of fun.]
Basically, after that, Jim, a young pianist named J.D. Mossberg, two teenage girls and their younger brother, and I traded turns at the piano.
Also, I met back up with another local ivory tickler, the California-born Steven Raphael. (I hadn't seen Steven since the early 2000s, about the time he had a show on public-access TV right here in America's 43rd largest city...not counting the suburbs.)
Man, Steven and I had a good, good conversation as we talked about old times and caught up with each other.
Steven sent me an email last year about pursuing help from the "PMIY" folks rather than setting up a local street-piano exhibition Denver style.
He knew the right route to making Omaha and Bellevue just the second and third sizable Nebraska cities (after Kearney) to put at least one piano out there in a street for passersby to play.
By the way...in Denver, you can find a dozen spinets and older uprights lining the Mile High City's 16th Street Mall. And they're out there much of the year- a real departure from the way Luke, Sally, and Co. do things.
Still, for us here in Karrin Allyson's and Buddy Miles' birth city, the way Luke, Sally, and Co. do things is better than nothing at all. Way better.
Having a ball during the early going of the Omaha Metro's "Play Me, I'm Yours," and I'm looking forward to coming back to Memorial Park tomorrow morning to not only get some playing in...but also to listen to other pianists of one skill level or another. [And I'll also be back tomorrow night to listen to- and share- stories about each other's musical journeys (and stories about Memorial Park).]
Here's the rest of my schedule:
8-27-2013: Aksarben Village's Stinson Park, 9:00-11:00 AM
8-31-2013: Bayliss Park, Council Bluffs, IA, 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon
9-1-2013: ConAgra Plaza, 1:00-3:00 PM; Lewis and Clark Landing, 4:00-6:00 PM
9-2-2013: Tree of Life Sculpture, 9:00-11:00 AM; Fontenelle Forest, Bellevue, NE, 1:00-3:00 PM
9-3-2013: Rockbrook Village Shopping Center, 9:00-11:00 AM
9-7-2013: Village Pointe Shopping Center, 1:00-4:00 PM (alternate date: 9-8-2013, 4:00-6:00 PM)
9-8-2013: Florence Park, 1:00-3:00 PM
If you live here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area (or are visiting), check out our "Play Me" street pianos. And if you'd like to learn more about Luke Jerram's claim to fame, just visit www.streetpianos.com. And if you'd like to see what we're doing in the River City and environs, log on to http://omahapianos.com.
I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for reading this blog!
That's right...Luke Jerram's world famous "Play Me, I'm Yours" art exhibit is coming to America's 43rd largest city...the very same burg from which this blog originates.
The Omaha Creative Institute (1516 Cuming St., 68102) has teamed up with the "PMIY" folks to put colorfully-decorated street pianos in public places all over the area...something Luke launched in 2008 in Birmingham, England (and all of that with the express hope of just getting people to interact with each other).
And it doesn't matter what your skill level is when it comes to playing the piano. Whether you're a concert pianist, all thumbs at the 88s, or anyplace in between...it's all about interacting with other people.
Since that first exhibit, Jerram and Co. have taken "Play Me" almost all around the world. It's been to cities such as Sao Paulo, Brazil; Barcelona, Spain; Pecs, Hungary; Toronto, ON, Canada; London, Bath, and Cambridge, England; and Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth, Australia...to say nothing of American cities like New York City, NY; Cincinnati, OH; San Jose, CA; Grand Rapids, MI; Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Salt Lake City, UT; and what previously was the smallest of America's "Play Me, I'm Yours" cities- Salem, OR. (Oregon's capital city had 156,244 people in it during 2011, the year before it- along with LA and SLC- boasted its own set of painted pianos.)
This year's very first "PMIY" city, Monterey, CA (one of five cities signed up thus far in 2013; all but one of the cities are here in the US), has fewer people than Salem. This city of 28,246 just got through showing off its painted pianos...and that's something also about to happen next month in Munich, Germany (and about to be done in two other American cities besides Omaha, NE: Cleveland, OH and a city that really could use that lift right now...Boston, MA).
The Big O gets its turn during the late August-early September period.
But it can't happen without the pianos themselves.
So...if you'd like to donate (or know of somebody who'd like to donate) an old upright, an old spinet, and/or even an old grand (and/or if you know of a warehouse in which the pianos can be worked on and- yes- prettied up), call or email Natalie Shaw, OCI's development coordinator. She can be reached at 402 669-9807 and at natalie@omahacreativeinstitute.org.
And to get the real lowdown on past, present, and future "Play Me, I'm Yours" exhibitions, just log on to www.streetpianos.com.
I'm fired up about "Play Me" coming to Nebraska's largest city. How about you?
