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]