05/29/2023
After a few busy months, I had an interaction with one of my student's grandmothers that was meaningful enough to encourage me to log on and post this video.
My student's grandfather recently passed away, and I was asked to play for the gathering after his funeral. In order to demonstrate what I could offer I played A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (a relatively obscure WWII-era Jazz tune) after our lesson.
As I was playing on the century-old Steinway grand piano that had been in their family for generations, my student's grandmother was drawn out to listen. She didn't know how she remembered, but the melody and title came back after untold decades to reignite her own memories of the music's connection to her life.
It was a beautiful experience, and continued through the day of her dear husband's funeral, when she came up to the piano as I was playing songs from the Bette Midler movie For the Boys, and we shared a tearful and timeless human moment.
A rare moment of pure presence that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
A lovely Jazz standard written in 1939 by Manning Sherwin that cuts through the fog of time to bring a gust of spring into tired hearts.
