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I have always felt so fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends with such musical talent. I grew up going to bed listening to my mother play piano through the walls. My sister Julie grew into quite a pianist continuing to study performance into her adult years. And Susan's voice can calm a soul as turbulant as mine.
My roommate at Rice gave me informal guitar and mandolin lessons, as did a close friend from MIT, Kohichi Tamura. One of the favorite memories of my life was living in a house as a student in Boston with a collection of roommates from Berklee school of music, Boston Univ classical music program, and New England Conservatory. I wish I had recordings of those ad-hoc jazz sessions resonating throughout that 200-year old wood house.
Our friend from Rice, Judy Wu, who has been a help to me from her job as physician assistant at MD Anderson, just released her first CD. We just missed the relase party last weekend here in Houston. Yesterday, she stopped by with the CD to my outpatient room while I was receiving chemo. You can listen to some of it (and order it) here.
And my friend Nils Jonsson, whom you have heard about in past posts, has a few unpublished recordings of music he has written and performed at his church. Two of my favorites are a jazz tune, Can't Believe You Love Me, Too and a sacred praise chorus, I Believe. One evening while I was in the hospital recovering from surgery, Nils came to visit and wheeled me down into the atrium, where he played these and other tunes on the grand piano as I and several other random people whose lives were entangled with cancer listened. It was one of those good memories sprinked among the darker ones.
It may be a tired saying that music can reach deeper than mere words, but I don't know how else to put it. The Bible speaks of young David playing for his king, Saul: "Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."
These friends have made me feel better. And these days, I need this more than usual.
Posted by Greg at December 15, 2004 12:06 AM | Comments (6)