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.