The following video is my conversation with my friends Christian Landaeta and Patrick Gleeson. It took place on 5/28/2021 from his home in California.
I started piano lessons at six. By the third grade, jazz hit me hard. I began playing out of Mary Lou Williams’ jazz piano books. After school, my best friend Jeff and I would listen to jazz records in his parent’s den - Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Hamp and the rest.
When I was practicing, I’d change the music to make it sound more like jazz. Mom caught on and she’d yell from the kitchen, “Doesn’t sound like your lesson, Pat!” We didn’t know this was called improvising.
A hip cousin, Mary Gleeson, was dating Norm Bobrow, a jazz musician and DJ for Seattle’s “race music” station. When I was thirteen, they set up this meeting between me and Ernestine Anderson’s accompanist, a local piano player whose playing I adored. Mary asked him if he ever accepted students. The guy looked at me and said, “Why don’t you fall by the pad and let’s see what happens.” Fall by the pad? My god!
I ran home to tell my mother, who wasn’t exactly pleased. For this Irish immigrant couple who’d planned I’d be a doctor, this seemed…umm, risky. Mom told me that if my regular piano teacher approved, I could take jazz piano lessons in addition to my regular lessons.
My piano teacher, whom I disliked anyway, decided this wouldn’t do. My parents agreed. I was devastated and quit music for 15 years.