7 nights a week for 4 hours a night at the Golden Buddha!

Customers would continually come up to talk to us and make requests, which Dorothy would accommodate, to my astonishment, and I would hear her play something I had never heard her play before.

 

We would take turns all evening but she would up playing most of the night because she would not give it up, and that was fine with me since I would schmooze with  the customers, or talk to the staff and owners or sit at the bar.  If she was not at the piano, she didn't know what to do with herself. She was always encouraging me however and was my number one fan. For 30 years! And I, her's. Two peas in a pod, or two piano players in a world to themselves.

Dorothy playing [Makin Whoopee] [Malaguana] [Rhapsody in Blue] and Rick playing [McArthur Park] ...in 2007 to 2012 at The Golden Buddha 5-9 pm (MP3 files play immediately)

Not having a fish eye lens, means my head always gets cut off if the camera is too close. What amazed me here was that there was a crowd that recognized the tune from 1976. I would get applause when I least suspected it. I didn't play for applause I played for ambience. Applause for me was bonus.

I'll linke MP4 and other format video for these tunes at the bottom of this post but here you can see how flat Dorothy's hand is. She would play with outstretched fingers where I was taught to curve them. Compare my pic above with elevated wrists and curved fingers. Her playing was effective but I was astonished by some of the techniques she used.

Take a look at the rack above her hands here. It's a few inches up on the picture and you can see tin foil edge on the rack. I had to make that rack special for this piano since the original music rack was too high. She had most of her material memorized so she didn't mind but I did since I used notation for everything. Sure I have memorized material but even then  I still like to have my music in front of me. Should would play all night from memory.

FINALLY, here is a LINK TO THE ARCHIVE PAGE FOR MP4 and other video formats... if you would like to see Dorothy's HANDS IN ACTION. Or... be selective by clicking on one of the following...

Making Whoopee MP4

Malaguana MP4 video

Rhapsody in Blue Mp4 video

McArthur Park MP4 video