Dorothy's Christmas Piano at Banner Hospital Lobby 2014 via Rick's Gig Salad Response

I always preferred repeating gigs for our work rather than one time gigs such as this Gig Salad obtained gig was in 2014 at age 79 for Dorothy, looking fab here in snow-ball shawl and pearl necklace. The gig ran a few hours but I edited that down to 5 minutes for this report. There's a cute singing group of youngsters in the second half where Dorothy pretty much improvises the situation expertly. Santa is there too, for sure. [MP3 audio hotlink on Archive.org][MP4  video download] [Other formats]

Green Screen Studio Rehearsal of the Piano-Keyboard Hour Concept in Dec. 2014 served us to 2019

Songs: I Could Have Danced All Night, All of Me, Baby Face, Johnny B. Good, New York New York, Birthday Song, Beatles Birthday, Tequila.

[Instant play MP3 hotlink][MP3 download][MP4 download][Other formats page]

With the end of Schroeder’s in 2002 and an effective end to Fletcher Music since the store nearest to us at Metro Center shut down, and with the end of our seven year run at Shangri-La and Golden Buddha in 2012, we kept looking for gigs in 2013 and 2014 via restaurants, Gig Salad and other online services, arriving at this following concept by the end of 2014: A piano-keyboard duet that we could take to RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES where we knew all the tunes they knew and where we could play for an hour at a time before a birthday party.

I came up with the CONCEPT of the keyboard backing up Dorothy’s 88 key piano playing from my early years seeing piano and Hammond organ in jazz bands. My concept worked for the most part. People love watching & hearing the piano being played but adding a multiple instrument backup with the modern portable keyboard is a concept-breakthrough in my opinion. The piano-keyboard-back-to-back configuration you see here was one of several, the others being the required side-by-side and that right-angle-piano-inside-or-outside-keyboard configuration for two-person-playing or single-person-one-man-band operation if needed.

SONGS & COMMENTS

I Could Have Danced All Night
    Good example of keyboard background with bass and percussion as well as ORCHESTRAL STRINGS by Rick while Dorothy carries the 88 keys to open.

All of Me
    Bass boogie on the keyboard hides the expert left hand comping by Dorothy because its a bit louder than it should be but the camera angle here shows her left hand in action doing their chromatic half tone changes constantly while the right hand handles the bluesy slide notes on the melody while she sings at age 79 in 2014 just as as our Retirement Residence Tour with the Rick & Dorothy Piano-Keyboard Hour got started. Note how my keyboard trumpet takes turns with Dorothy’s vocal

Baby Face
    Dorothy’s left is moving so fast in this video due to her expertise and of course, the lower resolution of the video, but still! She keeps it going while singing. I’m on the keyboard but mostly handling the left hand on the lower part of the keyboard controlling the bass and orchestration. My right hand comes up only to handle the clarinet instrumental solo.

Johnny B. Good
    I used the electric guitar in the solo on this while Dorothy pounds out an early left hand rock boogie bass. We only sang the chorus for this as a sing-along-shout-out for the audience. You can sing along too now!

New York, New York
    Dorothy coached me on how to syncopate my vocals like Sinatra on this one. Pretty good I think.

Happy Birthday, Beatles Birthday & Tequila.
    We would bring the show to a climax for birthday parties with these tunes, appropriately danceable and shout-outable. All these tunes were well known on the ‘duelling piano circuit’ around the world in the 1990’s, 2000’s and 2010’s before that stupid Covid-World-War struck and blew out all our gigs, parties and moods. Dorothy couldn’t take it much further than 2020 anyways at 85. Still, we had a great 2014 to 2019, about 5 years and 100 concerts.I Could Have Danced All Night, All of Me, Baby Face, Johnny B. Good, New York New York, Birthday Song, Beatles Birthday, Tequila.

COORDINATION CONCERT BOOKS

    Note that we both have a spiral bound book on our music rack in front of us. Each one-hour concert demanded we have total coordination so there were no "requests" taken for these types of gigs. The set ups for the keyboard had to be planned in advance and programmed so that I could call it up instantly.

I tried to create different types of shows for various types of holidays through the year and for different cultural groups like Jews, for example, which we were able to learn (!?) and for Chinese, which we did too! (!!?)  The Italian show never got a gig because our Italian club doesn't really have Italians in it and their hiring practice seemed to be out of our orbit.  We DID go to see other bands there, however, and saw amazing keyboard + solo instrument acts and participated in Karaoke there.

I had Dorothy and me doing about a dozen different types of shows including Irish for St. Patrick's Day and Christmas for that famous day. I even produced a Halloween Show for us where Dorothy got to play her favorite tunes like Phantom of the Opera and I got her to back me up on Ghostbusters. What a hoot. We were a fantastic team with a phenomenal concept. The Yamaha E433 keyboard and Casio 88 key PX555 Privia piano served us well with true piano sound with weighted keys and true pipe organ sounds for Halloween. The ALTO 400 watt amp we bought from our new-friend-in-an-instant at Guitar Center, Juan, along with a "vocoder" or "pitch correction" unit from BOSS served us well.

Each type of show demanded its own songs, photocopied into a 3-ring binder and duplicated for each of us. We would load up my 1995 Ford Taurus station-wagon or, from 2016, my 1997 (newer!), Ford Escort mini-station-wagon, for each show and roll through the freeways in the Greater Phoenix Area to our location, unload, set up, do our thing, get paid, and tear down and load up and go home. The logistics alone were mind boggling and actually quite potentially hazardous but we made it anyway. It seems miraculous now looking back on it.

I'm quite thrilled that my concept worked, and that I helped to extend Dorothy's performance career to age 85. I once saw Eubie Blake play, live, in Buffalo, in 1975 at age 95, a famous jazz musician. Dorothy didn't make it that far, but she was close! I hvae doubt that she'll be extending her music career in the higher realms of the quantum mind dimension and that I'll meet up with her to set up our next gig! Dorothy developed her own "Play Like a Band" copyrighted program in Phoenix in the 1980's so our careers really dovetailed well since we truly "played like a band".

Dorothy Motto in her element doing "Hello Dolly" on an 88, an ensemble TRUMPET & vocal in front of an audience

As an agent, roadie, bookkeeper, driver and overall general organizer, as well as fellow musician, a big part of what I did was simply get Dorothy in front of a crowd with a piano, a keyboard on the side, enough amperage, a mic and a camera... then let her rip. Here she is doing "Hello Dolly", a signature tune of hers, using all the tools of her trade at age 81 in 2016. She does a shout out to Louis Armstrong, "Satchmo", as she does a trumpet inspired improv on the melody using the trumpet sound on the Yamaha keyboard. Both of us were enamoured, as piano players, originally, with the electronic reproductions of any instrument at all on the keyboard and incorporated that into our playing.

Instant MP3 audio-only file play hotlink from Archive.org

To watch Dorothy in action on this equipment, you'll have to download the MP4 from here.
Other video formats can be accessed from the general format Archive.org page here

A 25 minute example of Dorothy's Dining Ambience Piano Stylings

Dorothy’s Piano Stylings for Dining Ambiance

This piano style Dorothy used for all our gigs at restaurants, or in retirement residence dining rooms during meals, was, in my opinion, quite unique. I would never play the way she did with non-stop medleys for 30 minutes or more but she had decades of experience at it so who was I to argue, especially since she got applause after these extended medley sets?  She worked these more as musical stream-of-consciousness sessions because no two were exactly alike. She would make lists of songs only to jog her memory for songs but she had the songs themselves memorized. If she lost track, she’d jump to another song. It was quite amazing to witness.

Here’s an example, for 25 minutes. You can play this during your own happy hour or dinner time. The photo below is taken from the video but obviously the video pick up had stopped working by this point on my old Canon ZR40. Still, you can see Dorothy's gold jacket. She's doing her own percussion background on the Casio Privia PX555R with weighted keys and thus heavy enough for me to transport and set up but worth it. The Korg I bought in 2013 stopped working correctly, shocking me, since I thought Korg was the best but it turned out Casio was. Both that Casio and Dorothy were true "work horses".  All I had to do was set up the contact with the activity director, set up the piano and set up Dorothy and she could do her "magic"... truly a piano "magician" who could hypnotize a room with her musical work.

MP3 hotlink

Other audio files for download from this page, as well as the MP3

Background piano playing set for a crowd... that is not overwhelming... and lets people talk easily. Some percussion but not all. Continuous stream of familiar tunes from the mid 20th C.
plays as a continuous medley for 20 minutes with a non-stop percussion pattern in the background.

Memory (from Cats, the Broadway play)
Sound of Music, My Favorite Things,
Main theme, Sound of Music, the hills are alive
Embraceable you.
Gershwin songs...
I’ve Got Rhythm
Our Love is Here to Stay
...
I’ve Got Rhythm.
I could have danced all night.
On the street where you live
Besame Mucho
...
More
I've Got You Under my Skin (she's thinking Sinatra famous songs and shouts out Sinatra!)
Part of me... Night and Day
Strangers in the Night

Pop songs in 1850's Saloon Style for Scottsdale Audition by Dorothy Motto @79 in 2014

MP3 Instant Play of Dorothy Motto's Audition tape for a Honky Tonk gig in Scottsdale in 2014

Archive.org various video formats downoad page

MP4 video download

The Last "Rick & Dorothy Show" in Jan. 2019

MP4 video/audio download 130MB, 30 minutes

Other formats like N.264 and Quicktime

No MP3 file available this time.

SONGS
You Made Me Love You
Side by Side
Sentimental Journey
There is a Tavern in the Town
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Oh Suzanna
Ballin' the Jack (Railroad term for connecting the caboose)
She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain
God Bless America

Rick & Dorothy's Old-Time Sing-Along Hour... a 10 min. sample. Lyrics included below, you can sing along too!

MP3 HOTLINK... audio only


MP4 VIDEO download



FIVE FOOT TWO

Five foot two, eyes of blue
But oh what those five foot could do
Has anybody seen my gal?
Turned up nose and turned down hose
Never had another beau
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now if you run into five foot two covered with fur
Diamond rings and all those things
Bet your life that it isn't hers
Could she love could she woo
Could she could she could she coo
Has anybody seen my gal?


SHINE ON HARVEST MOON

Chorus: Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky.
I ain't had no lovin' since April, January, June or July.
Snowtime ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon.
So shine on, shine on harvest moon, for me and my gal.


HEART OF MY HEART

Heart of my heart, I love that melody
Heart of my heart, brings back a memory

When we were kids on the corner of the street
We were rough 'n ready guys
But oh, how we could harmonize

Heart of my heart, meant friends were dearer then
Too bad we had to part
I know a tear would glisten, if once more I could listen
To that gang that sang, "Heart of my heart"


GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY

Chorus: Give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Herald Square,
Tell all the gang at Forty-second street, that I will soon be there;
Whisper of how I'm yearning, to mingle with the old time throng;
Give my regards to old Broadway and say that I'll be there e'er long.

A Dorothy Motto Piano MP3&4 Jukebox Posthumous Variety Showwith Rick's Commentary

MP3 INSTANT PLAY Files are in color type at the top of each photo and the MP4 download is at the bottom of each photo, after the commentary. The MP4 video is interesting from a player's perspective to see Dorothy's hands in action.

INSTANT MP3 (Pop title- Tonight We Love)...Classical Title- Tchsaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1 in Bb Minor

Dorothy's treatment of Classical music always had pop stylings and here she is in 2012 at Golden Buddha before the crowd gets there because that time slot was easiest to record. Dorothy's just warming up here for the evening and does excellent interpretation using the keyboard on the right side for ORCHESTRAL STRINGS ORCHESTRA combined with solo piano. In the 1980's she had entire set of books and copyrights to teach students how to set up their instruments for orchestral accuracy. Here she demonstrates that realism in a famous piano concerto. [MP4 video download]

INSTANT MP3-Stompin' at the Savoy

Set ups here were awkward due to the Grand Piano in the middle of the room that was always pretty much out of tune. I set up the keyboard and digital piano as bets I could. Dorothy enjoyed doing the PLAY LIKE A BAND section on the portable YAMAHA E433 keyboard doing background bass, accompaniment and drums... while I was on the piano here. Note her solo on the trumpet parts however, expertly played like real trumpets. She taught that in lesson a lot. [MP4 video download]

MP3 HOTLINKE-

 Someone To Watch Over Me

A way of playing songs becomes ubiquitous across the board for all songs and Dorothy had that Dorothy Motto style injected into everything, so here’s Someone To Watch Over Me on our portable CASIO PX555 that we took on the road many times. [MP4 video download]

MP3 Hotlink -September Stylings,
a Medley

September Stylings was my name for a group of songs I intended to make a CD from. I made several CD’s of Dorothy’s playing when CD’s were in vogue and they still are to an extent. Dorothy’s penchant for medleys drove me nuts at first because she would join tunes together seamlessly and go on and on for ten minutes but that didn’t jive with my penchant for slicing and dicing a particular song. I finally got used to her methods of piano madness and understood that she was basically hypnotizing herself into an alpha brainwave state that could go on and on sort of like New Age music but in her genre.  Here she performs on her Technics PR903 that she absolutely had to buy when a student had it for sale.  This was top of the line it its day retailling for $8,000. [Mp4 Video download]

Hotlink Mp3 On The Street Where You Live

A lot of the mid 20th Century tunes that Dorothy played expertly were vaguely familiar to me but I learned them a lot better once she played them and we played out. On the Street Where You Live is one of these tunes from an old movie, I can’t name it. Likely a musical. This particular version is another Errol Garner style perforance by Dorothy. Of course, by heart. What else? I made performance books for both of us but she never used hers, to my dismay. Oh well. She WOULD use lists, however, to jog her memory on what was IN her memory. [MP4 video download]

Hotlink Mp3 Memories

(from the Broadway Show "Cats")

Dorothy was a fan of all the Broadway Shows of the 20th century, including CATS. Here we see her play that tune with NO MUSIC on the rack, which astonished me on a continuing basis since I USE music all the time. The flourishes she enhanced her tunes with were way beyond what I, myself, use but then her flourishes including arpeggios, glissandos and shimmers were audience attention getters... and if there was anything she was aiming for, it was audience attention and applause. I was aware of Liberace, but Dorothy made me hyper aware of Liberace’s particular “styling techniques” that he used to gain attention and audience awe. Dorothy said Liberace’s her ‘hero’ several times. We have a multiple LP set of his that we’ve played through more than few times. [MP4 Video download]

Instant Mp3 play: The Lady is a Tramp

Dorothy is playing an Errol Garner style version of The Lady Is A Tramp, in 2012 here. Listen to her left hand “comp”. It’s a unique way of playing that involved moving down and up a half tone, creating a pitch bend kind of effect... in the LEFT HAND! She had a way of working every chord in this way. When I accompanied her on an automatic keyboard with the BASS, I was able to play the bottom root note of each of the chords she was comping but it wasn’t neccessary to get the effect SHE wanted which was a full left hand sound, like Errol Garner. He created a very full sound, almost like a small orchestra playing on the piano. Dorothy achieved the same thing, using her left hand as her NON STOP orchestration. [MP4 video download]

Just A Closer Walk With Thee

If you listen to this 2015 track carefully, you’ll hear Dorothy FOLLOW Lu, not the other way around. Lu was a famous singer in past years and was once invited to sing for President Nixon during a festivity one year, she told me as I recall. She was very proud of that moment. You can hear that her voice was professionally trained. Dorothy waits for her and anticipates her with a gospel style piano on the KORG piano I bought for our gigs in 2013 because it was LIGHTER than the Casio. I did all the setup and teardown, like roady so weight mattered. You can hear both ladies have impeccable sense of timing and know how to work with fellow musicians. The piano is set up opposite to my Yamaha E433 keyboard on the right but I sat this one out. [MP4 video download]

I'm Walkin

Casting about for new gigs took Dorothy and me far and wide in “the valley of the sun” as the Greater Phoenix area is called, including many other cities connected by huge expressways that we travelled in my 1996 Ford Taurus, my living-room-on-wheels that served us well until 2016. This particular stage you see here, however, was only 20 minutes away by surface street at a SAM ASH store that held nightly open mic and performance nights that we took advantage of to invite our students to play and watch us play. Here’s a session where I join Dorothy in her piano performance of I’m Walkin’, in 2014, on our Yamaha keyboard.  [MP4 video download]

Hound Dog

Some songs are so simple and easy to do that we used them as go-to songs for UNREHEARSED bits of performance that served as flashpoints for grand finales or other types of interludes. No music required because the format of the tune is well known 12 or 16 bar boogie or blues. That’s what happened here as we wound up a one hour concert. I really don’t like 4-hand piano for a lot of reasons but I figured I’d stay very high while Dorothy roused the audience for her finale here. What the heck. Once won't hurt. [MP4 Video download]

Fly Me to the Moon

Most of the work we did went unrecorded of course and the volumes I DO have recorded represent a small sample of them over 30 years. I’m not a professional in terms of recording and never aspired to be but I DID try, as an amateur, to capture, edit and post what I could.  In this clip of Dorothy doing “Fly Me to the Moon” in a retail store, I was surprised at how well her VOCALS came out on the double-mic on the front of my old Canon ZR40 camera. As they kept breaking down on me, I’d order another one because it was compatible with my old MacG4 on Firefox & iMovie. Dorothy’s voice was strong here and she knew how to breathe & time her emphasis on certain syllables. She would lecture ME on how to sing like Sinatra, using the delays and syncopation with voice. Here we see her doing the left hand keyboard, the right hand on piano AND vocals. [MP4 video download]

MP3 Fly Me to the Moon

Certain standards, as they’re called in the industry, are a must-do for 20th century musicians like us. Of course, hundreds of artists have “covered” or performed their version of “Fly Me to the Moon”, including me! When Dorothy and me were casting about for a “next act” in late 2012, SHE though “two pianos” would be the thing but as you can see in the photo above, the piano on the LEFT is immovable. We toyed with KEYBOARD and piano at Golden Buddha in 2007 to 2012 but even the 1990 TECHNICS KN1000 Keyboard was too heavy to move around a lot as great as it was. It turned out that the CASIO PRIVIA PX555 she’s on here was the best “portable” compromise we used for many years. All piano players depend on good “weighted keys” and you can hear and see (on MP4 video) how Dorothy leans into this version of Fly Me to the Moon. [Download MP4 video]

Warsaw Concerto

Dorothy and I watched all the Lawrence Welk shows, the old ones and the new ones that features the old shows and later appearances of the all-grown-up youngsters that made their first appearance. We watched all the PBS specials we could, especially featuring the later performances of groups from the mid-20th century and one thing Dorothy always pointed out to me were the COSTUMES that the performers wore. Here she is her gold-sequin jacket and of course, I wore my gold shirt that night. She’s wrapping up our show with WARSAW CONCERTO, a memorized version she could play anywhere and anytime for any audience. It’s hard for me to recognize at this early stage that she has shifted dimensions but the effect she had on me remains and I’ll definitely use it and continue to expand on it. Good night, Dorothy! See you later, up there somewhere. [Mp4 video download]

Dorothy Motto playing lobby piano on Valentine's day 2015 at 80

Here is an INSTANT PLAY BUTTON for the MP3 of Dorothy's 30 minutes playing a Valentine's Day Lunch hour at a Retirement Residence in 2015 at 80. She was able to play out until 2019 at 84 and transitioned to her life in the next realm at 90 only 10 years after this vigorous performance in January 2025. The audio is hosted on Archive.org.

Dorothy covers the following tunes--

I’ll Take Manhattan - Rogers and Hart
Let’s Fall in Love - Cole Porter
Takin a Chance on Love
Always
On the Street Where You Live
I Could have Danced All Night
Twilight Time
Ebb Tide
I Wish You Love
a bit of Scott Joplin
Tonight We Love
a Chopin Waltz
a bit of Fur Elise
Cheek to Cheek

For a variety of video formats, go here.

For an MP4, download here.

The Rick and Dorothy Piano-Keyboard St. Patrick's Day Show!

Dorothy is at the grand piano with the green cover I draped over it for St. Patrick's Day. To Dorothy's right I  set up the Yamaha E433 keyboard, and I'm on a digital piano. I set up a 400 Watt ALTO speaker amp and micd both of us. The set-up was awkward but I liked to use the piano that the residence owned because it showed that we liked their gear too. ]

This show was one of about two dozen we had in our repertoire... the St. Patty's Day Show... Dorothy knew the tunes by heart and I learned them through her although I had had a vague familiarity with many of them. She was totally on top of things.

Here we see her only 10 years before her passing with a lot of energy and vigor in 2015 at 80. ... VERY difficult for me to grasp what 10 years can do from 80, here to 90. I used to look for 100+ or even 200. We're obviously not there yet. I saw Eubie Blake play in Buffalo at 93 in 1975 and I thought that by positive action and thought, we keep going, like Eubie. I got Dorothy playing out until Jan 2019 and teaching until March 2020 at 85. Pretty good all things considered. It's fun to reminisce here . Now I have to wonderhow long I will last!?

INSTANT MP3 AUDIOS

Wearing of the Green MP3 audio only

HARRIGAN' MP3

McNamara's Band MP3

Galway Piper MP3

Oh Shilala MP3

It's a Great Day For the Irish MP3


MP4's and other video formats

All the videos with various formats-- YOU choose your format

Wearing of the Green MP4 video

HARRIGAN MP4

McNamara's Band M4

Galway Piper MP4

Oh Shilala MP4

Its a Great Day for the Irish MP4

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

Dorothy Motto promoted "Play Like a Band"® via published tapes & books in 1980's

After the heyday of the home organ with automatic rhythms and wood cabinets in the 1950's and 1960's, the portable keyboard and synths came out inthe 1970's and then the KEYBOARD ENSEMBLES in the 1980's. Dorothy was with Schroeder's Organ and Piano in Pheonix AZ, by this time, and worked at the flagship store on Indian School Road where the owner Haig Lordigyan encouraged her to teach and sell using the mini-concert hall there. And that she did by creating her own piano/organ/keyboard course called "Play Like a Band"®. By the standards for the 1980's it was spot on with books and cassette tapes.

She never lost her enthusiasm for the keyboard ensembles and here she is playing a Latin medley including Tico Tico, Cumana, and Brazil on our Yamaha E422 in 2016 at age 81. Here is an instant play MP3 file hosted on Archive.org and here is the MP4 video and other formats so you can see her in action in a live situation.

I had never worked with anyone who understood the value of an easy set-up like a keyboard on the left hand with a piano on the right but she had been doing it for awhile when I had met her. It's the next best thing to two players . Above, you can see a CASIO PX 555 digital piano, with the full 88 keys that she frequently used as her main instrument behind her. She swung herself around, moving onto the end of the bench (yikes, I didn't know she was going to do that!), to use the keyboard exclusively (I didn't know she was going to do that either, not rehearsed. My self-assigned job was to watch out for safety as well and she kept me busy for sure on that front.)

You'll note that her left hand isn't moving much. That's because it's moving between chords every 4 beats. It controls the base, rhythm instruments and percussion, all at once. The right hand still moves a lot because it's the dancing fingers running the melody. Often when we played as a team--"team piano"? instead of "duelling piano"-- one of handled the ensemble while the other handled the 88 key straight piano. We "Played Like a Band" or one of us, as she does here, "Played Like a Band"! Below is a cover from her course, published in silver covers. After we started working together in 1995, she created a new updated course that I typeset and which sold very well in the late 1990's in store-lessons At Schroeders. Later still, after Schroeders closed for good, I helped her expand her course to 20 books. She was teaching via that course until 2020 at age 85. Most the students she had accumulated at Schroeders started coming to our house for in-home lessons. It was quite an operation. We were quite a team.

Here is another example of Dorothy's PLAY LIKE A BAND method using a keyboard on the left hand and a piano on the right as she performs "Hello Dolly" the hit song from the broadway play about a woman in 1900 New York City. [INSTANT MP3 AUDIO][Archive.org page with MP4 and other video & possible instant play sample]

Dorothy was always in 7th Heaven while playing piano in front of an audience.

Instant play MP3 file hosted by Archive.org for BLUE TANGO played by Dorothy.

Dorothy was always in 7th Heaven while playing piano in front of an audience. All I had to do was check for her Mona Lisa smile and realize she was IN THE ZONE while playing, especially if there were potential tips, a big tip jar, an audience and me to have had set up the gig. Her memorized tunes seemed limitless to me because someone would make a request and she'd know it, play it, and surprising me completely because I HAD NEVER HEARD HER PLAY IT BEFORE... for 10 or more years. She must have been drawing on the aether. Or excellent memory. Or both? I learned of a lot of new tunes through her and she was NEVER afraid of asking for requests where I would tend to avoid that invitation. "Any requests?" terrified me when she would ask that.

I play off lots of books and I made her as many playbooks as I had but she preferred to use a LIST of tunes to jog her memory WITHOUT THE MUSIC in front of her. Blue Tango was one of these tunes I think I must have been vaguely familiar but Dorothy brought 1951 back to life
with her piano "styling", a word she insisted on using... piano STYLING. Many interpretations by many artists over the years but here was her DOROTHY MOTTO PIANO STYLING. She designed our business card with that phrase on it with champagne glasses, hearkening back to the Golde Era of Piano Lounges with elegant dining, many rooms like that in which she played, including "Top of the Mark" in SanFrancisco.

After Golden Buddha shut down, she insisted we go out to many restaurants in the Phoenix area looking for piano jobs but by this time, 2013, that era had disappeared, drowned out with smartphones. I had fun looking with her however. That's actually when I came up with the idea of playing for Retirement Residences!... the piano-lounges of the 2010's! My idea actually worked!

To watch Dorothy play Blue Tango on an MP4 or Quicktime, you'll have to go to Archive.org here and download your favorite file format. There are several there. The camera angle is good enough to give you a good idea as to how she moved her hands while playing. She never curved her fingers like I do. Very strange to me but effective for her. And she always used more notes than me and kept that left hand going no matter what, as a constant pattern.

One of our best jobs was at Golden Buddha and here she is with what I thought was a very interesting parallel laughing smile with the Buddha statue there.

Dorothy Motto 1935-2025 "CREMATED HUMAN REMAINS" Box Day...

.....or, in fact, THE IMMORTAL DOROTHY MOTTO SOUL-DAY, because the universe doesn't let talent like that merely dissipate into nothingness... she's still an entity having had a mortal experience as soul-training and I'm happy to have accompanied her on her University-of-Earth soul-education! Each one of has a memory independent of matter. Consciousness is quantum, not classical physics. Here is a HOTLINK to a short 30 second MP3 audio that will play instantly-- Hit it, Dorothy!

Review chpt 9 "New Perspectives" in Design for Destiny, p152 Ed W Russell "If we can convince ourselves that our present lives are merely brief interludes in an eternal existence, we need not take such a dim view of their sorrows, problems and frustrations. Most things are easier take if we know they're only temporary. ... they do not "get us down" because we know they're only temporary... this lifetime is merely one episode in an active existence... we can accept and eventually realize the "cosmic dream" of infinite scope in an eternal future." See my forum posts about immortality here, including more related to Dorothy

bio - dor - piano review - CUMANA on Technics Dorothy Motto's CUMANA on Technics sx PR-903 her fave piano... mp4 capture by Rick on the day he had to pick up her ashes... shelving the cardboard box labelled cremated human remains on her cabinet with our concert routines an d lessons and her history of photos.  COPY/PASTE this URL to your browser bar, and download a file that works for you, there are 12 to choose from so one of this HAS to work.
 https://archive.org/details/mov-00122

UPDATE-- 

When I placed the surprisingly heavy ash-box on Dorothy's mantle cabinet of photos, binders of concerts we did and other collectables and awards, I couldn't find room so I took down a photo holder with few photos to priortize and behind it was that black and white photo copy of her with a very uncommon expression on her face I don't recall. It's the one where she's holding up her left hand with fingers spread, waving. It's a "knowing" expression, not demure like the young photo with lipstick and not the happy expression as in the piano-keyboard playing position with the frilly dress. I was surprised that I didn't recall this photo. It's in black and white, like ashes in the box. Hard to believe a person is in a box of ashes, Dorothy. The mind, my mind, can't grasp it. CREMATED HUMAN REMAINS, says the cardboard box. Hard to believe. There's gotta be more to it that this. That's the ENTITY of the SOUL-PERSON Dorothy MUST because Nature cannot simply dismiss this Dorothea-creation of talent like this... inorganic ash. I'm just one man and already, I'm doing godlike things like preserving her music/photos.. so imagine what NATURE (God) can do! The Dorothea Soul Lives... as we all live on... translating into a NEW DIMENSION of time and space.

See the rubber band around the cremated remains box holding an envelope on top? That envelope contains my last gift to her, for Christmas 2024, a gold jewel bracelet. She loved stuff like that even though she has tons of old jewelry and other decor. On Christmas morning, I noticed she was significantly not herself, I was slow to understand she likely had another stroke as I unwrapped gifts she aske for but didn't respond to. THIS bracelet, however, lit her up and she slipped it on her left wrist and stared at it... the last really happy and lucid moment I think she had with me... then when the undertaker asked if she had any jewelry on her that needed to be removed before cremation, I mentioned that bracelet. They said they didn't find it. Then when I picked up the ashes, they said that had found this bracelent slipped very high up on her arm, so they missed it until the last moment and removed it and included it with ashes. Somehow Dorothy had hid it from them... so when the ashes came back to me, I was reminded of her favorite Christmas gift, her last Christmas, that bracelet. Incredible and soul wrenching for me... but treasured... and clever of her in her passing on as a talk-back moment to me. Wow.

Dorothy Motto 1935 - 2025
Dorothea, occasional stage name
Bay Area, Vegas, New Orleans Piano Player
Piano Organ Sales Phoenix AZ
Piano and Music Instructor
Partner in the Rick and Dorothy Piano-Keyboard Hour show series
My best friend, business partner from 1995 & wife since 2016
Immortal Talent trained by God & Nature to Higher Existence Forever.

The strongest willed and self-determined personality I've ever known.
And who enjoyed my sense of humor.

Rick

Here's a hotlink to a 30 second MP3 that will play immediately for you, of Dorothy & me leading a sing along of "Hello Dolly", one of Dorothy's main signature tunes at the end of a lot of shows. She watched the movie whenever it came on too. "Dolly will never go away again" was her way of saying "Dorothy" will always be back again and I'm now confident she will be too. [Hello Dolly]