[Dixielandjazz] pjladd -- Playing the oldies

[l.swain at comcast.net]

pjladd wrote: 
===================================================================== 
I am almost eighty and ,obviously wrongly, I looked on these people as my `contemporaries 

I thought the `generation gap` was between me and teenagers. No it aint.! 
============================================================== 

I play piano, and only play the "oldies", because they're the only ones I know. 

Whenever (not often) I go to our town's senior center for lunch (usually to hear a speaker) I'll sit down at the piano after eating, and play some of the oldies (40s and earlier), and I always get lots of people singing along, and hear requests for specific tunes that I fill when I can. They love it! 

My son often hosts parties for a few hundred of his closest friends, and he will often ask me to play during the cocktail hour. Oldies. 

I am always moved when "kids", from teenagers to people in their 20s, come up to me and thank me for playing those tunes. 

The reason seems to be that they've never heard them before (a comment on our current media), and liked what they heard. 

Get out there in front of the younger crowd! 

You may be surprised at the results. 


Larry Swain 
Backup piano player of last resort, Boston area