Word: pianos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo. (Dancing Cat) His rightful name was Henry Roeland Byrd, but down in New Orleans everyone called him Fess and they knew without being told that he was more than a local legend. He was one of the all-time great rhythm-and-blues piano thumpers. His left hand rolled over the keys, keeping a wild rhythm that seemed to play out like an entire band. His right hand was like an antenna, pulling in melodies from the Delta blues, from Caribbean calypso, from rock and pop and jazz and anywhere else his ear chanced...
...idiot savant has a long tradition in the U.S., much of it as victim. A typical 19th century savant, Tom Bethune was sightless and barely able to grunt monosyllables. But he had the ability to play complicated classical piano pieces by ear, and promoters exhibited him in vaudeville as an amusing freak. Since that time, savants -- retarded and autistic people who have inexplicable gifts, usually in art, mathematics and music -- have been the objects of diversion and exploitation. But at a unique institution called Hope University in Anaheim, Calif., they are being trained to reveal their surprising gifts and develop...
...romantic, as house proud and as appearance conscious as any of them. They envied his tightly curled hair, his industrial-size dimple, above all, his floor-length furs, sequined suits, neon-color satins and clusters of rings. They delighted, too, in his see-through glass-topped piano, his electric candelabrum that he brightened or dimmed by means of unseen controls, his houses (one decorated with a knockoff of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling), and other evidences of exuberant materialism that he celebrated in a Liberace Museum in, of course, Las Vegas...
...title in 1987 will top this one for mystification and intrigue. Fair enough: its subjects are the oddest achievers in the history of show business. Here is Blind Tom, born to slave parents in 1849. Sightless and retarded, this exemplary idiot savant could play most pieces on the piano, classical or popular, after a single hearing. Here is Harry Kahne, who could write five words on a blackboard simultaneously, holding chalk in his feet, hands and mouth. Here is Matthew Buchinger, who was a marksman, conjurer, artist and musician. Not exactly headline making -- except that Matthew was 29 in. high...
...Scott Wise, a salesman. Two other salesmen, Roger Park and Steve Chamberlain, address their chops to trumpets, in the company of Mark Branson, a high school music teacher, Mark Fessenden, a florist, and Glen Harcus, a racing-car manufacturer. On bass is Dick Burchell, a salesman, and on piano is Dan Stefanko, a music teacher. The vocalist is Dante Lupi, from Astoria, in Queens, N.Y. -- "I went to school with Tony Bennett's cousin" -- the manager < of a condominium project. In all, A String of Pearls...