Piano Marathon a huge success!

From Si Perkoff’s opening Monk tune to Macy Blackman’s killer closing set that encapsulated the whole history of New Orleans piano styles, from Jelly Roll Morton to Dr. John and Henry Butler — with stops along the way for brilliant turns at the piano by Don Alberts, Jon Jang, Randy Craig, Steve Shapiro, Betty Wong, Shirley Wong, Dorothy Lefkovits, Nora Maki, Allison Lovejoy, Rebecca Whittington and Bonnie Knight…

Alena Howard was there for the entire nine hour stretch, and she’ll tell you it was a magnificent day.

And the Bird & Beckett audience was magnificent as well… $2,218 was donated in the course of the day, and several hundred was donated in the immediate run-up to the event.  With the $800 donated by Cate Cox way back in 2008 when we were really beginning to toy with the idea of buying a true professional quality instrument, I’d say we’ve got all that will be required to negotiate the purchase with the wonderful folks at Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, who more than a year ago lent us this piano at  no cost and with no strings attached (well it’s actually full of strings, but no matter).

Thanks to one and all!