by NPR STAFF
December 09, 2011 3:59 PM
Photo:Brendan Bannon
Back in the 1930s, Boyd Lee Dunlop taught himself to play music on a broken piano left out on the streets of Buffalo, N.Y. Only half the keys worked.
He also taught his little brother Frank to play the drums while they were growing up. Frankie Dunlop went on to record with Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, among other jazz greats. Boyd Lee Dunlop went to work in the steel mills and rail yards of Buffalo, occasionally playing piano at local clubs.
Another chance encounter with a busted piano has now led Boyd Lee Dunlop to record and release his first album, at the age of 85. Brendon Bannon, a documentary photographer by trade, is the album's producer.
"We met when I went into the nursing home where Boyd's living, in Buffalo, to talk to the doctors there about doing a photo project. Boyd was sitting down in the waiting area also, and we struck up a conversation really quickly," Bannon says. "He told me about his piano playing and invited me down to the cafeteria to listen to him play. I looked at the piano, and there were keys broken off of it ... It didn't look well. But Boyd was wrestling some beautiful sounds out of it."
Here, Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon speaks with Bannon and Dunlop about Dunlop's debut album, Boyd's Blues.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/10/143388964/a-jazz-pianist-gets-his-big-break-at-age-85
film by Jon R. Hand -- 1st two songs from The Boyd Lee Dunlop Concert, 12.10.11, Buffalo NY // The Boyd Lee Dunlop Trio - Boyd Dunlop (piano), Sabu Adeyola (bass), and Virgil Day (drums).
Review by Dave Sumner
Bird Is The Worm
Stories like this next one serve as essential reminders of why we should never give up hope. It’s about pianist Boyd Lee Dunlop and his sophomore release The Lake Reflections.
Dreams and good fortune operate under their own capricious rules and, oftentimes, seem to run contradictory to what we each of us may view as pragmatism or common sense. Sometimes good things happen to us, seemingly, through no fault of our own, lacking any apparent causality, and yet confers the eminent vindication for refusing to quit.
Your album personnel: Boyd Lee Dunlop(piano).
Boyd Lee Dunlop, all of 85 years old, released his first album in 2011. Dunlop began playing piano at an early age. Living in a poor section of Buffalo, NY, he used a junked piano with missing keys that sat out in his family’s back yard. His brother, Frankie, played drums. Frankie Dunlop later went on to have a storied career as a musician, playing on classic jazz albums (and personal favorites) like Thelonious Monk’s Criss Cross andMonk’s Dream and Monk’s live Newport recording with Miles Davis, as well as on Charles Mingus’s Tijuana Moods and Sonny Rollins’ Alfie soundtrack. In the meantime, Boyd Lee stayed in Buffalo, playing the local circuit in between jobs at the steel mills. The brothers had divergent career arcs. Boyd’s path is not an uncommon one.
But then it does get a bit unusual. In his 80′s, Boyd was now living in a Buffalo nursing home and passing his time playing a junked piano with missing keys that sat in the cafeteria… a piano, ironically, that was not too far removed from the piano that he first drew notes from for the first time nearly 70 years earlier. Photographer Brendan Bannon visited the nursing home regarding an art project. However, after meeting Boyd and hearing him play, it wasn’t long before Bannon collaborated with others to get Boyd’s music back into the public sphere. The result was the 2011 release Boyd’s Blues.
With Buffalo musicians Sabu Adeyola on bass and Virgil Day on drums, the recording is a heartwarming set of straight-ahead classic jazz. Blues with soul, bop with heart, and music that could not be mistaken for anything but Jazz. The album, and Boyd’s story, got decent press, and was well received. Dan Barry wrote a nice article for the New York Times and NPR pubbed an article and on-air story on its Weekend Edition feature. Live performances were lined up. Everyone likes a story about a huge comeback, and this one was a classic.
Not long after, Boyd suffered a severe heart attack. And despite hovering close to death, Boyd has turned that setback into yet another chapter in his comeback story. After a recovery period, Boyd decided the time was ripe for his sophomore release.
From: Jazz Promo Services - www.jazzpromoservices.com
