She played at Jean-Pierre French Bakery for three and a half hours on Saturday morning. On Saturday afternoon she taught piano lessons. At 5:00 PM she hightailed it out of the house and down to Main Street to catch the last few minutes of the retail business day and the first few minutes of dinner out on the town. It is a good thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night; take your laptop or handheld device and do a bit of proof-reading or writing in a quiet corner at a table for one while live musicians play and others around you unwind from the office week. At The Office restaurant and bar at the Strater Hotel, the musician was singing solo accompanied by his ukulele. He sang the standards spanning the last 60 years and once in awhile threw in an original. She recognized his name and his style though she doesn’t know him well. She stepped back to the restroom, poked her head in the doorway of the Diamond Belle to see the ragtime pianist (one of five). Very good, but not one she knows well. When her food order finally came and she had written a chapter, she gave a cursory glance at Instagram before heading out. She clicked to follow up on a Jean-Pierre story thinking she might catch a photo of herself at the piano. Monkberries! Oh. That’s tonight! Monkberries are playing in the garden at the Rochester Hotel. Now the Monkberries are a partnership of two. The songwriter, arranger and guitarist happens to be one of the managers at Jean-Pierre restaurant. He also happens to be one of the guitar private lesson instructors at Stillwater Music. She hastened her departure from The Office, hurried to the garden at The Rochester, enjoyed a song or two before being hailed by an incoming group of six all decked out in evening black. It was half the serving crew from Jean-Pierre. At two minutes until eight, after a Beatles tune, she slipped quietly out the garden gate to make her way in the direction of home. Across the street live music was still in full swing at Lola’s, the food truck lot. Sounds of trumpet, mellow like a cornet. Ah, yes, Jared, the leader of the Durango Wind Ensemble along with a couple colleagues. She paused for a moment and wondered if she should cross the street and identify the two colleagues. She thought of walking to either end of Main Avenue to see if she knew the musicians at Gazpachos or 11th Street Station or Esoterra or the street pianos in-between. But no, Sunday morning comes early and she herself will be back tickling the ivories at Jean-Pierre after a refreshing Saturday Night of Live Music.
Tag Archives: In a music town
In a Music Town: Making a name for yourself
It had been a full week, musically speaking, four week days of work 1:00 to 7:00 at a music school. A band practice. An open mic night. An extra concert at which I worked the door on my usual Friday night off. So, naturally, when I finished playing the piano at the French restaurant that morning, I was in need of a little refilling of the creative vessel. A little relaxation. After a quick lunch, I pulled myself up to the piano and knocked out a few vintage pop torch songs, singing as I played. I grabbed the guitar and accompanied my voice, I taught a couple piano lessons. I was exhausted and hungry, so I walked myself over to the historic Diamond Belle saloon for dinner knowing it is now ragtime season and I might glean a bit of entertainment and inspiration from a good old upright piano player. It is a six-block walk to the Diamond Belle. In blocks one and two I was buffeted by the remains of a rain/hail shower and I turned my collar to the cold and damp. In block three as I passed the DAC I was greeted by name by a bicyclist whom I know through Stillwater Music. In block four someone called my name from the sidewalk in front of the popular Steamworks restaurant. It was a mother and students from Stillwater. At block six I stopped at the billboard to see if Adam Swanson was playing tonight. Hands down, Adam is my favorite old-tymey piano player. Actually Daryl Kuntz was playing and so I slipped on in, seated myself single and ordered up my usual Straiter burger. Daryl plays one other morning of the week at Jean-Pierre, so I felt I was among friends. He delivered a great (inspirational and informative) ragtime performance for the next 50 minutes. I took notes. I let my ear enjoy and take in all the nuances. I finished a portion of my burger, boxed the remainder for tomorrow’s lunch and declined dessert, whereupon the server said, “You’re all finished then, someone already paid for your meal.” What? But I don’t know anyone here. “No. It was just somebody who wanted to do it!” I don’t even know their name. They probably don’t know mine. But I do know that I love living in a music town – a town full of piano players and history and music students and people who support the arts – whether they know your name or not.
In a Music Town: the singing baker
It was an evening trip to the grocery store. The crowd had thinned. As I neared the deli and bakery area I heard singing. Vocalizing. Not a tune or words I recognized, but clearly with secure vocal quality and pitch. I rounded the end cap, negotiated another aisle and then, my curiosity got the better of me. I felt I had stepped onto the movie set where the Greatest Showman follows the voice into the laundry and discovers Keala Settle. I positioned myself to peer back into the bakery area from whence emanated much clanging and sounds of cleaning and reorganizing of pans – accompanied by singing. Solid. Secure. Unself-conscious. An average, ordinary middle-aged woman, dressed in traditional bakery white, hair confined to a hairnet – and she was singing.
My usual habit is to walk to the supermarket when I run out of something – or maybe a day or two after. Instead, we made this grocery run in my roommate’s truck in order to stock up on flour for the pizza crust and sourdough, tomato sauce and other canned goods, and heavy items. On the way home I commented, “Did you hear the woman vocalizing in the bakery?”
“Yes!” exclaimed my anthropologist roommate, “wasn’t it a delightful throwback to when women sang about their work?”
When women sang about their work! When did we lose that? Fortunately for our soul-health, we retain a good deal of musical ambience in this music town!
In a Music Town: Two Musicians take a hike
Here’s one for you.
Two musicians take a hike up a nature trail in a winter wonderland.
When they get to the top on the hill they come upon seven hanging free chimes.
Musician Number One says: It took me a year to figure out a melody on those things! There isn’t a pattern to the pitches – helped a lot when I found out they were free chimes.
She steps to the chimes, picks up a couple mallets and proceeds to play the melody she composed last summer using each of the seven pitches at hand.
Musician Number Two nods and picks up the mallets taking an experimental hit or two and then looks up at Musician Number One and says: Well this one is out of tune!
The moral of this story – if there is one? Keep on making music, friends! Even when there is no rhyme or reason; even when the chimes are out of tune. And keep on hiking in a music town – you’ll be so glad you did!
In A Music Town; part II, adult musicians
Eight musicians, count them. All well over the age of 21. Four in their sixties. Four GenXers. All lifetime musicians. All proficient and experienced and talented enough to have made a career of music, yet their daytime jobs are thus: The drummer is an emergency room doctor; the horn section consists of a nurse, a counselor, and a dentist. The guitarist is an engineer. At the keys, a non-profit administrator with experience as a music teacher. Singing vocals and playing every auxiliary instrument one can think of is a classically trained musician turned marketing and design agent. The instructor possesses a music doctorate and spends his days wallowing in music education and arranging music for students of all ages.
They participated recently in an adult band showcase – four adult bands sampled from the twelve possible adult bands of differing skill levels at a music school boasting 800 students. Comments overheard at the showcase included such nuggets as, “hard to tell there for a minute if that wasn’t Kansas on Carry On My Wayward Son.” “These bands are ready to be gigging fulltime.” “I had no idea….”
Seriously! Who would have thought? Adults. With careers. Working professional jobs every weekday and rehearsing weeknights. Grownups who never gave up on their music. Students in a music school of 800 students. In an – anything but sleepy – little town of about 20,000.
And she – one of the multitude of graying baby-boomers – she is so fortunate to live in a music town; a town musical and savvy and bohemian enough to support a music school; a school that reveres rock and jazz and classical excellence. A school that has rehearsal studio space and instructors and arrangers and gear and instruments and show contacts and a gig trailer and a roster of better musicians to play with.
