"Jazz is a series of miraculous recoveries," Mike
Melvoin once said.
Tragically, there was no miraculous recovery for Mike.
He died last month of cancer at age 74.
But there sure was jazz!
Beautiful, endlessly creative, magnificent jazz. And
classical, and pop, or rock or whatever the occasion required.
Mike Melvoin was famous for not being famous. If talent were
the ante, his would be a household name. But fame is a fickle mistress. Somehow
it eluded Mike despite a catalog of brilliance that has imprinted his genius on
the musical DNA of the 20th and 21st centuries.
"That's Life" by Sinatra? That's Mike Melvoin on
the Hammond B3.
The Beach Boy's landmark "Pet Sounds" album? Those
are Melvoin's hands on the keyboard making all those "Good
Vibrations."
From Tiny Tim to John Lennon, Michael Jackson to Barbra
Streisand, Mike Melvoin played with nearly every jazz, pop or rock giant of his
time.
And Mike was all about time - how to swing it, how to come
in ahead of the beat, or just behind it - he was Einsteinian at the piano, able
to bend time and space with mathematical precision; 10 fingers + 88 keys =
truth and beauty. That was his formula. Keep it real.
Melvoin's command of time extended to every corner of his
life: his friends, his loves, his colleagues, his remarkably gifted children,
Susannah and Wendy, who carved a slice of fame with Prince - and Jonathan, his
son, who had it all with Smashing Pumpkins and lost it all to addiction.
Not all of Mike's time was happy. Whose ever is?
Born in Wisconsin, educated at Dartmouth, seasoned in New
York, Mike Melvoin made his life in Los Angeles. Exactly 50 years ago. And he
made life in Los Angeles better for all of us, even if this column is the first
time your eyes are falling upon his name.
On Friday, hundreds spilled out of the chapel and onto the
walkway at Mount Sinai cemetery to pay homage, weep, smile and breathe in one
more time the magic of Mike Melvoin.
For half a century he wrote, sang, arranged, produced and
played brilliant music - God's highest language - and while fame may have
eluded him, his peers held him in wonder, as much for the way he lived beyond
that final high C on the far right side of the piano as they did for his
talent. His life was a big boulder plunged into a pond. The ripples radiate
still, far and wide.
The music of Mike Melvoin lives on.
Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. You
can reach him at Doug@KABC.com.
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