Judy Iacuzzi
An instrument in the history of our family and still in our living room in Evanston today is the mahogany upright piano made by Acrosonic. It first occupied one wall of the living room of my childhood home in Ohio. Today badly in need of tuning, then it acceded to the playful chords of my brother, sister and me, and occasionally friends who dropped in. My lessons started in first grade and continued through high school. My teacher, Frieda Schumacher, came to our wedding, and the duets my best friend and I played in recitals in middle school orchestrated an abiding friendship to this day.
But there are two piano notables back then I write about now. My grandfather, “Gaga,” and a good friend of the family, “Aunt” Jo Foltz. Because it was these two and their love of us and the piano that spurred me to continue the agony of practicing day after day for years of my childhood.
Gaga’s applause I can still hear, some 60 years after his death. Practice time after school and he’d be there in the wooden chair beside the piano bench commenting in his special way. Five claps for a perfect rendition, four for one or two mistakes and three for something that needed practice. As much as I worked the piece ahead of time, I listened for his applause at the end. This was our routine -- one that began in first grade and ended only when he no longer could drive to our home.
His friend and our family friend was Jo from Memphis. A few times a year she would visit the North because her son’s family lived in Cleveland. And if we were lucky, she would come to our home for supper. She had perfect pitch, a throaty voice, a luminous face and golden hair swept into a French twist. She made the Acrosonic sing and drew the tone deaf to its keyboard. At five and six years old, I would join the group in our living room, hugging close to the talented lady on the bench, watching her hands, her ruby fingernails, her shoulders pumping with the pauses and starts of the music she played by ear.
I loved these evenings and hated it when my folks called it a day. But Aunt Jo would indulge me. What song did I want to hear as I was dragged upstairs to bed? My choice was always the same, and I thrilled as the percussive notes of “The Birth of the Blues” swirled up the stairs and into my room. I could hear the partygoers downstairs singing along with Jo and me,
And then they nursed it, rehearsed it
And sent out the news
That the Southland gave birth to the blues!
I still hear them. Gaga with his deliberate clapping, Jo performing like nobody else.
Perhaps I’ll get it tuned and nurse it again...for some musical child in need of encouragement or a keyboard lullaby.