Player Piano as Teacher
By Ed Berlin
A number of pianists have traced their musical beginnings to the player piano. Here's another one.
Last Saturday night I attended the first of this year's "Jazz Piano at the Y" (92nd Street Y, New York), directed by Dick Hyman. Naturally, anyone Hyman invites to join him on stage has to be outrageously good. One of the three young pianists (in their 30s, I'd guess) was Jon Weber. Part of his blurb reads ...
... When he was five, his grandmother gave him a player piano
with 2,000 song rolls and he learned to play them all. Weber
taught himself to play, primarily by listening to his father's
extensive record collection. .... In 1987 he moved to Chicago
where he is involved in studio and television and has given
demonstrations of stride and ragtime with the Chicago Symphony.
Much of what Weber played was in a modern jazz style, with harmonies so dense and complex that I could not figure out many of them. (Just an observation, not a criticism.) Then, at various points, he might swing into a Waller-type stride that would blow you away. He's someone to watch for.
Ed Berlin
eabqb%qb001.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu |
(Message sent Tue 25 Feb 1997, 16:31:00 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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