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An
USAmerican in Paradise
Part
Four
Even
in Paradise
Martha K. Harrison
When I learned there was a piano in the house we are living in on St-Barth, I
could not have been happier. Mama and Daddy thought it important that we
three girls learned music, so we all took lessons. I started playing the
piano in the 3rd grade and went on to learn how to play clarinet, oboe,
saxophone, and harp. I am very thankful I was given the opportunity.
Mama filled our lives with song - she has a beautiful voice and has entertained
people with it for many years. She sang with my Aunt Blanche Whitley’s
orchestra in the forties and fifties. Aunt Blanche could tear up a
piano...from rag to jazz - people flocked to hear her 5 piece band named Blanche
Whitley and Her Orchestra, their theme song was ‘Gonna Take a Sentimental
Journey ’.
When
Mama and her best friend Rachel Banks returned from a trip on the Mississippi
Queen, one of her most fun moments had been singing with one of the groups on
the boat. When I asked her recently what her favorite memory of singing
was she said on the back of a flat bed truck holding Aunt Blanche playing the
piano and Mama singing in a park in Tifton, Georgia. Somehow it doesn’t
surprise me at all this memory is her favorite, because they have been
performing together since they were both young girls.
Their mother, Ola McMurrian Zorn, played the pump organ in her and Herschel’s
living room in Sycamore, Georgia, and she sang up a storm. Mostly
hymns.... Amazing Grace was played 1 million times in that old house if it was
played once! When Mama and her sisters and brothers were growing up, the
Zorns would host sings at their home...I can only imagine the music and laughter
that spilled out of that house filling the streets.
When I was little Mama and Daddy sang in the choir at the Methodist Church in
Sylvester. I on the other hand was often entered into talent contests when
I was a kid and I sang, Aunt Blanche or Mrs. Joe Houston accompanying me on the
piano. I even won some of them! At a recent Holiday celebration at
the Harrison home, my sisters eagerly told me that I had been real cute
performing but I couldn’t sing a lick! I had always wondered what had
happened to my beautiful singing voice....now I know - I never had one!
I was one of the lucky ones in school who had Eugene Wyles as a teacher.
Mr. Wyles honed my knowledge of music into a love for classical and jazz.
The only thing I have ever missed about school is the band and Mr. Wyles.
He taught us the fundamentals of music and he taught us about life, for me the
two have been intertwined ever since. If all teachers were as dedicated
and demanded as much from their students as he....perhaps we would have a better
educated country today.
I packed umpteen piano books with me to come here, devoted to learning new songs
as I drive friends insane by playing the same 10 songs over and over again.
The piano is not in perfect tune and keys stick as it is in constant humidity
from the Sea. I use this as an excuse each and every time I hit a wrong
note! But I am having fun learning
The local paper in St-Barth has a constant running advertisement for a local
hotel piano bar that is featuring an artist named Charles Darden, so off we went
to hear this USAmerican perform! Can he play! Charles is an affable
man with a huge smile and dancing eyes. When he sits at the piano his eyes
become intense and you know there is more there than just a simple piano man.
Charles
was very nice when we met him our first trip to see him.....but, that is his job
to smile and be nice to the customers. He sat down and talked and we
realized we have many things in common. We both were born in the South (he
in Texas - his family moving to Berkeley, California when he was a young man)
and we both live in the NYC area....actually, Charles lives in Manhattan - that
is when he isn’t in Sri Lanka, or spending a couple of years in the South of
France, Bombay, India, or in Norway. I should say.....he has a home in
Manhattan.
Charles was the first recipient of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Scholarship from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Twice he won the
Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood where he studied with Maestro Leonard Bernstein.
In Rome he was a student of Franco Ferrara and received a diploma from Dhigiana
Institute in Italy. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music...one
of the most respected music schools in the U.S. Two of his musical
instructor positions were at the U.S. Naval School of Music and the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra In-School Programs. He was the Principal
Conductor of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, NY, Musical Director of Orchestras in
Bombay, India, London, England, and Philadelphia. He was the Musical
Director and Founder of the Berkeley Free Orchestra. Guest Conductor
performances have included: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber
Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwegian Opera
Orchestra, Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra...just to name a few. Oh, and by the way, in addition to English
Charles also speaks French, Italian, Norwegian, and German.
When in Junior High School, Charles took up the French Horn - because it was the
only instrument left in the school band. One day, walking home from
school, he saw a sign in a yard offering music lessons. Charles, by no
means, came from a privileged family....well, money wise. He is one of ten
children, a twin, and had hard working parents who provided a safe and strict
home life. He knew his parents could not afford to send one child to take
private music lessons, so Charles knocked on the teacher’s door and offered to
cut her grass in exchange for piano lessons.....thankfully, she took him up on
his offer! He was thirteen when he made that fateful proposition..... he
studied with her until he was 20. I think it is dangerous not to open our doors
to people; while this is not the same world it was when Charles Darden was 13
years old, there are still many 13 year old girls and boys out there looking for
guidance.
Charles just returned from 15 days in Sri Lanka where he played for a huge
anniversary party of the Hilton in Colombo. Last night we went to see him
perform as we do several times during the week. Adam Clayton, the bass
player for U2, was sitting next to us enjoying Charles’ music. Across
the small dining room sat Simply Red. Seldom is the piano player just a piano
player and often the man or woman sitting next to you is not just a person who
has wondered in off the street. We all have our stories and we all have
something to share with others.
We are surrounded by beautiful sights in every direction you look here, there
are rich and famous people on every street corner during high season, perfect
weather, great people, a tropical paradise. Our trip is coming to an all
too quick end now, and looking back over these last few months my favorite
memory is this: Sunday afternoon: me cooking brunch for a group of new and
old friends, the friends on the terrace laughing and talking, Charles Darden
playing classical music on the piano....no one noticing the keys sticking or
that the piano was out of tune. The music and laughter spilled into the
streets and houses around us - just like it did from Ola and Herschel’s home
in Sycamore. I had never cooked to a live performance before, and I just
about couldn’t do it this time. Emotions overtook me, I am so happy to
be here, so lucky to have good friends, and so thankful for the music of
Charles Darden and to that piano teacher who opened her door to him.
It is the things we grow up with. It is our family. It is the people
who help rear us. It is the teacher that gives as much as he expects.
It is our friends who share themselves and their talents. This is who we
are. This is what is with us wherever we go. Even in paradise.
#5
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