By: Joe Vecc
Submitted: 2010-11-03 18:01:56 | Word Count: 571
While I was a little kid I used to listen in to my mom play the piano in our basement as I sat on the stairs watching her. She used to have a Cat Stevens Piano Book among many others. It was an upright piano and the basement was gloomy and damp. Nevertheless she clearly loved playing the piano enough to deal with those surroundings plus I was interested in enough to listen and observe.
She used to listen to pianist, composer as well as singer Billy Joel. She also had these classical albums that I referred to as ooohm bah bah music because a lot of the songs used to be in three. She was self educated I imagine but was driven enough to persistently practice the piano and could observably read piano music. I will have to ask her if she ever procured formal piano lessons as she grew up.
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Consequently it goes without saying that yes I sooner or later made my way on to the piano and would experiment. I was young and adventurous and actually really dark and dissonant on them keys from what I can remember and from what I know now. I used to do things like play a low note on the piano and then play a high note on the piano. The darker and dissonant it was the better it sounded to me. If it was creepy than it was noble. I of course had the palm on numerous keys technique down pretty good to boot. I used to bust out some uncanny ryhthms and would even kick the base of the piano for an extra polyrhythm effect. I speculate that was the primary signs of being a real drummer.
As a result I presume it makes sense that later on in life as I was an undergrad applied percussion major I at Umass Amherst was naturally prone to develop an interest towards Debussy Music. I really should have been a jazz studies major because at that time that was all I was listening to and had been taken under the wings of most all of the graduate jazz studies students. I felt like a badass. I was freelance gigging with all of the top jazz players that school had to offer at the moment and was earning money doing it. I did learn how to play the piano some more at college.
Who was I listening to? Coltrane, Miles, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Jackie MacLean... you name it if it was good quality and from the 60's I was on it. And I didn't get the gigs for the reason that of no other reason other than I was able to swing. I had previously gone through a fusion Dave Weckle/Chick Corea period and was into Be-Bop and Hard Bop solely. Oh, I forgot to mention Charlie Parker. And with being at that school, it goes without saying that I got into Archie Shepps Music then actually studied with his drummer, a living legend...Stephen McCraven. Tom McClung is their pianist and he is totally worth checkin' out... he's got mad skills!
