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Many of you are already familiar with Robin's first book, The Piano Girl .

For those of you who don't know, Robin (Robin Meloy Goldsby) is an active member of our forums, a wonderful
"cocktail" pianist, recording artist, composer, and a highly regarded author. If that isn't enough to make
you jealous, she now lives in a beautiful part of Germany with her wonderful family, and plays in a castle!

I'm very excited that everyone joining us on our
European Piano Tour
will get to hear and meet Robin in person!

Her books are a must read for anyone who can identify with any of the following:

Has a sense of humor
Loves to laugh
Enjoys the piano
Has ever played in front of others
Has never played in front of others
Owns a piano
Doesn't own a piano
Enjoys a well written book
Is still breathing


Her second Piano Girl book is already destined to become another classic, must have, gotta laugh book. The title?

Waltz of the Asparagus People




A new laugh out loud book by the Piano Girl!

If you read her first book, you already know you need this one.

If you haven't, you should read them both. Caution, known to cause uncontrollable laughter!

Robins Video for Waltz of the Asparagus People



Piano Girl is a fun read!

If you've ever played out, or wondered about the exciting life of a professional piano player,
you will enjoy this book.




And yes, we get a tiny, teeny bit of commission if
you are kind enough to click on our link and order the book(s) :-)


Oh, and Robin also wrote a third book called Rhythm.

Although it too involves musicians, it is a fictional work that will have you absolutely believing it's real, and unlike her humorous adventures, this one is a tear jerker (but so well written).

It's also worth mentioning that Robin is releasing a CD with the same title on May 8th to accompany the book. The track listing looks terrific:

A River Flows In You; Mother's Hands; The Tatooed Bride; Flying, Falling; Waltz of the Asparagus People; Feather; The Theme From Romeo and Juliet; The Princess; Ruby; Pour Monsieur; Comptine D'un Autre Été, L'après-Midi; Till I Lost You; Air; Little Big Soul

And here's a YouTube clip of the title piece:



p.s. Frank, the YouTube embedding feature doesn't seem to be working today...

Thanks so much, Frank and Monica, for the words of support! Starting tomorrow, May 8th, which is the official book launch date, I will post several excerpts from the book on this thread.

I'm really looking forward to meeting some of the PW members here in Germany next month!

Best,
Robin

It doesn't seem to be available on Amazon UK yet (there is one used copy available from a market seller, but Amazon.co.uk itself doesn't seem to have it in stock yet.

The German site says "delivery in 1-2months" (thank you google translator).

It does seem that I can get it from France, in 2-3 weeks........

Hi everyone! Today is Launch Day (this makes me sound like a rocket, which believe me, I am not). Anyway, to celebrate here is an excerpt from the book. Hope you enjoy it.

Mr. President
©2011 Robin Meloy Goldsby
from Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl
Excerpt courtesy of Bass Lion Publishing

Excuse me, I’m sorry. Excuse me. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

I maneuver across a crowded subway platform and step onto a slow-moving escalator. Perched in the middle, I avoid the sticky rubber handrails, and travel—head down, antennae up—until I emerge from the stuffy underground and step into the national-park spaciousness of Grand Central Station. I gaze at the terminal’s star-spattered ceiling, shuffle around a clump of camera-toting tourists, and scoot outside into the June morning.

I live in Germany with my husband and children, but I spent my early adult years in New York City, playing the piano at the Grand Hyatt on Forty-second Street. I wrote a book, a memoir about performing in the no-star bars of five-star hotels—New York City lounges cloaked in jewel-toned velveteen—where I hid behind a Steinway in a shadowy corner playing tinka, tinka, tinka, hoping no one would yell at me for being too loud, too quirky, too disruptive, too musical. I was just another blond in a black dress, one of Manhattan’s middle-tier musicians, good enough to make a decent living, but not quite good enough for anyone to notice.

America is indeed a great country—perhaps the only place in the world where a person can write a book about being ignored, and everyone pays attention. Today, as part of my accidental homecoming, I’m scheduled to appear on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

Excuse me. I’m sorry. I keep bumping into people who know where they’re going.

Pedestrians with bulging briefcases, backpacks, and assorted plastic shopping bags weave through a tapestry of street vendors selling African beads, battery-operated barking toys, and stale pretzels with spicy mustard.
NPR tapes the show in a studio on Second Avenue, not far from Grand Central. My flight from Frankfurt arrived late last night. Between the jet lag and my frazzled nerves, I’m in a dream-like state, something comparable to an early morning one-martini buzz. No olives.

I’ve forgotten it’s impossible to walk in a straight line in this town. Once upon a time I had mastered the art of dodging, slithering, stepping-over, and occasionally tap-dancing through swarming city streets. But I’m out of practice; today’s journey feels like a spooky ride in an amusement park. Plumes of smoke; brightly painted pop-up people who might as well be screaming BOO; sprays of water; splashes of God-knows-what; grime, guts, goo; and a man who yells, for no reason I can see, bada, bada, bada—all of these things confront me as I head to the corner of Lexington and Forty-second.

After a dozen years in the tranquil German countryside, waking every morning to a mind-numbing silence broken only by songbirds and church bells, I welcome today’s audio jumble. I hear horns blaring, radios blasting Latino music, a jackhammer hammering into a thick slab of concrete, and a constant high-pitched squeal that sounds like microphone feedback.
Delivery trucks, taxicabs, gypsy cabs, fancy cars, jalopies, buses, and colorless vans with foggy windows clog the intersection. A silly-looking white limousine—the kind rumored to have a bathtub in the back seat—screeches to a halt inches from my feet. Anybody in there? Puff? Daddy?

“I’m tryin’ to cross here!” screams an agitated pregnant woman pushing a baby stroller the size of a parade float. She balances on the curb and pounds on the side of the limo. “Don’t block the box!”

The dark window slides down.

“F*** you!” yells the driver—a woman in a tight black suit with a jaunty hat. She looks like an organ-grinder’s monkey. “I’m runnin’ a business here. Don’t mess with me, lady. I got a gun. Keep your mitts off my car.”

The light changes. WALK WALK WALK it blinks.

I wonder if DON’T WALK means you should run.
I cross the street. Most of the people heading toward me shout into cell phones and carry enormous bottles of water. They look too young, too thin, too thirsty. An old tissue blows up from the street and sticks to my right ankle. While avoiding a column of foul-smelling steam spewing from a manhole, I admire the high-heeled wobble of a woman in a pebbly pink Chanel suit. Where’s she going?

Where is everybody going?

I check my watch, pick up my pace to avoid an old man throwing grain at a gathering of pigeons, and swat away the glittering confetti-like substance swirling around my head. It looks like stardust, but I’m sure it’s not.
I wonder how I ever lived here, or why I ever left.

**

The reason for the traffic jam becomes clear when I reach the corner of Second and Forty-second. Traffic has been diverted from the one-block area around the NPR building and funneled to the side streets. Must be someone important in the area. Or maybe there’s a film crew on the block. As I look up, hoping to see Spider-Man dangling from a window ledge, I bump into Nina Lesowitz, the publicist for my book. I love Nina. She’s optimistic, enthusiastic, and relentless. Everything a publicist should be. And ever so much more.

“Isn’t it, like, exciting?” she says.

“What? The show? I’m pretty nervous.”

“Forget the show! Someone important is here.”

“Here? At NPR? Who?”

“Don’t know who, security won’t tell me. Maybe it’s, like, Bush!”

“Oh, great.”

“Maybe it’s Mandela! Maybe it’s Springsteen.”

“I don’t think they stop traffic for a musician, Nina.”

“Maybe it’s Streisand! Oh my God, I would die! Hey, what’s on your jacket? You’re sparkling. You’re so funny!”

I’m reeling from fatigue, I’m getting a blister on my heel, and I need to forget about the mystery celebrity and focus on the task ahead. I’m concerned about being delightful on cue, especially in front of millions of listeners.

A beefy man with a clipboard checks off our names, looks at our identification, radios a message upstairs, and sends us into the lobby.
“Who’s the celebrity?” Nina shouts over her shoulder. “I hate this. I just hate not knowing!”

“Can’t say, ma’am. Sorry. Not allowed.”

We take the elevator up to the studio. Hulking security guys in dark suits surround us.

“Oh. Oh. Oh. Who’s it going to be?” Nina picks at the glitter on my jacket.
We’re introduced to the sound engineer and told that my interview will be done as a remote, with Jennifer Ludden in Washington. I’m trying to stay cool, but the idea of a remote interview throws me off balance.

“Maybe it’s, like, Cher!” says Nina.

I look over my list of talking points.

“Maybe it’s, like, the Pope!”

The engineer adjusts my headset, and we do a quick level check on my voice.

“Maybe it’s Paul and Heather!”

I notice a small coffee stain on my pants leg. At least this isn’t television.

“Or, like, Dick!”

“Dick?” I ask.

“Cheney!”

“Oh. Yeah. Dick.” My hands are sweating. And my throat is dry. “Nina, I could use a glass of water.”

“Maybe it’s, like, Madonna! Thank God I brought my camera. We gotta get photos!”

The engineer ushers Nina into the control room, and I do a meet-and-greet sound check with Jennifer in Washington. We’re set to go. My face burns. I’m suffering from a severe case of imposter syndrome.

Just as the engineer prepares to start taping, Nina jumps up from her seat and waves her arms like a wild woman.

“Stand by, Robin,” says the engineer through my headset.

Nina mouths words at me. Then she points into the lobby. I try to ignore her.

“Five, four, three, two—”

BILL CLINTON. That’s what she’s saying. I look through the thick glass wall and see his brilliant white hair behind a filing cabinet. It’s either him or Santa.
“Rolling,” says the engineer. Jennifer greets me. I respond in the media voice I’ve perfected over the past few months. Nina cranes her neck to see what’s happening with Clinton. I feel like my brain has been split in half with an ax.
I cartwheel through the interview, managing to be mildly amusing in spite of the flop sweat dripping down my back. We pause for a minute while an assistant delivers an excerpt from the book for me to read. When the door opens I hear Clinton taping his interview in the studio next to me. He speaks eloquently about tsunami relief and the crisis in the Middle East.
We start rolling again, and I talk about playing the piano for a dental implant convention at the Marriott Marquis. Tinka, tinka, tinka.

I try, really I do, not to think about the former President of the United States sitting three feet away from me. During one of the breaks I’m tempted to knock on the wall, but I don’t.

**

After the show we’re escorted to a lounge area and told not to touch the food. Nina immediately grabs a bagel.

“I’m starving,” she says.

“Let’s get out of here!” I say. We’re expected at the Javits Center for a book signing and cocktail party.

“Are you crazy? We’ve got to wait. I absolutely must get my photo taken with Clinton.” She pulls out her lipstick.

“Nina, they won’t let us anywhere near him. And besides, I feel kind of funny about this. Maybe we should just go.”

“Are you crazy? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We’re, like, staying.”
We lurk outside the recording studio, having been given strict instructions to stay back once the President enters the room.

He enters.

Nina starts working her way to the front of the small crowd, tugging me along behind her.

The NPR staff gathers around the President, asking him witty and intelligent questions. Clinton responds while signing copies of his book. I’ve been around lots of celebrities in my life, but I’ve never seen anyone with so much charm. The fluorescent fixtures of the office cast a greenish glow over us, but he’s a golden boy, dipped in a bucket of dawn-colored light. I glance over my shoulder, half expecting to see a special-effects technician hovering nearby.
Just then, he catches my eye, smiles, and nods.

“Can we get a photo, Mr. President?” says an NPR employee.

“Why, sure.”

“Now’s our chance,” says Nina.

“Nina, we can’t. This is for the NPR employees. We can’t crash the photo op.”
Next thing I know, I’m being shoved front and center and Nina is introducing us.

“Mr. President! This is Robin Goldsby!” says Nina. “She wrote a book! Just like you.”

“How do you do, Mr. President?” I say. We shake hands. Now what? I panic, trying to think of something appropriate to say. Nice tie? Loved the bit about the tsunami? What?

Speaking too loudly and sounding very much like last year’s third runner-up in the Miss Altoona beauty pageant, I come up with this: “Thank you, Mr. President, for everything you are doing to HELP OUR WORLD.”

Silence.

“My pleasure,” he says. “Where are you all from?”

“I’m from Cologne, Germany. But I’m American. This land is my land.”

Silence. Where’s Woody Guthrie when you need him?

“Cologne? Beautiful town. They have that big old cathedral there, don’t they?”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s the Dom.”

“The Dom?”

“The Dom.”

Silence. I try to think of a fascinating tidbit of information to share with him. I lower my voice and lean in his direction. “You know, the Three Wise Men are buried there.”

Silence. I have no idea if the Three Wise Men are buried there. Here’s what I know about the Three Wise Men: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. That’s it. I know way more about the Three Tenors and the Three Stooges than I know about the Three Wise Men.

“How they got from Bethlehem to Cologne I can’t imagine. Make a left at the manger and head north, I guess.” I consider humming a chorus of “We Three Kings of Orient Are” but stop myself just in time.

“Wow, that’s interesting. I never knew that,” he says. “Hey Bernie, did you hear that? Those Three Wise Men are buried in that big old church in Cologne.” Bernie writes something in a small notebook. President Clinton turns back to me. “So, you wrote a book?”

“Oh. Yes. It’s called Piano Girl. About playing the piano in, you know, bars and lounges.”

“And it’s hysterical!” shouts Nina. “She’s hysterical!”

“So you’re a musician?” he says.

“Yes, Mr. President. Just like you,” I say.

“And you’re here pushing your book,” he says.

“Yes, Mr. President. Just like you.” I sound like a mynah bird. “By the way, I hear your book is really fabulous.” I haven’t heard this, but I figure it’s a good thing to say.

“Thank you! Good luck to you.”

“You, too, Mr. President.”

I give him a copy of my book. Nina takes a photo of him with me. I take a photo of Nina with him. I sense she’s about to invite him to go shoe shopping with us at Bloomingdale’s, but his entourage whisks him into the elevator.
Right before the doors close, he waves at me. And then I hear him announce to his staff: “You know, those Three Wise Men are buried in that big old Cologne Cathedral.”

There’s silence in the NPR office.

“Really?” Nina asks me. “That’s a riot!”

**

We exit the building fifteen minutes later. President Clinton remains outside, shaking hands, posing for pictures, exchanging presidential pleasantries with surprised pedestrians. He flashes a smile at the adoring crowd and ducks into his limousine, one without a bathtub. Just before the door slams shut, I notice he’s still carrying my book. His car zooms away with a police escort, and the traffic barricades come down. The bubble of quiet hanging over the block pops as cars begin rolling onto the empty avenue. As people return to their strollers, their cell phones, their water bottles, their pavement-pounding-purpose-pushing lives, the city’s spirit rushes in like a raging river. Bada, bada, bada. It’s almost a relief to hear the jackhammer.

Almost.

Hand-in-hand, Nina and I dash across the street and hail a cab.

“Where you goin’?” asks the driver.

“To the top!” shouts Nina. “But first we’ll need to get to the Javits Center. Book Expo America.”

“Don’t know why, but traffic’s a mess today,” says the cabbie. “You gals would be better off taking the subway.”

Thank you for that! Sounds like it's going to be a really fun read and I'm going to buy it! I've really enjoyed your posts here and hope to see many more, and I hope you're already hard at work on another book?

'she plays at a castle'.. 'they look too thirsty'.

I can't wait till my book comes. Piano Girl was such a fun read for me..

it has already come in the mail! that was fast.

That was great Robin! Can't wait til my copy arrives!

oh my gosh.. I was laughing so hard I had to leave the bedroom so my husband could sleep.. that sauna business.. ha ha ha

hee hee. Yeah, that was pretty hysterical. I don't think I'm cut out for living in Europe.

That is one of the funniest scenes in a very funny book :-)

I think they should turn Robin's books into a movie.

I know Robin has done some acting so she could play herself, or maybe .. Sandra Bullock could play the part?

The Three Wise Men indeed--- shameless, Robin. Yet ingenious, especially in the circumstances: quick thinking on your feet, and in heels, too. Another category for the Sudden Death round of Wedding Jeopardy: "Bible Celebrity Name-Dropping."

Maybe two categories: "Did You Know, Mr. President, That..."

Vienna sausages were actually invented in Bethlehem?
Mary Magdalene was my great-grandmother's matron-of-honor?
Myrrh was used in surgical suites in the Holy Land as a disinfectant?
The Star of Bethlehem has been recovered and observed by the Hubble Telescope?
An oil drilling rig in the Arabian Peninsula recently discovered tablets which describe The Sin They Left Out of the Bible? The Pope has recalled every Bible in the world so they can be reprinted with the new sin? But the Presbyterians are making trouble about it, and Billy Graham issued a press release saying there are enough sins in the Bible already?

"Myrrh is mine, it's bitter perfume"

Well, I can see the ice is getting thin. Anyway, I have to walk the dogs.

Great book, Robin. And just to get "We Three Kings" out of my mind, something a little more modern. From "The Redeemer", by Martin Shaw, if I remember:

"Your way is short, your days foretold
By myrrh and frankincense,
And gold"

Pull-quote from the book review: "It Goes To 11!"

oh my gosh.. i am so enjoying this book.

Thank you Apple! And to everyone who is reading the book, I hope you're having fun. Here's another excerpt, also featuring the fabulous Nina.



Marian McPartland: The Lady Plays

Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl
Reprinted with the permission of Bass Lion Publishing
©2011 Robin Meloy Goldsby, All Rights Reserved

Here’s your coffee!” says Nina. “Rise and shine!”

It’s nine in the morning and Nina Lesowitz, my publisher’s indefatigable publicist, has run to a Madison Avenue coffee shop to pick up breakfast for the two of us. I’ve come to town to tape a Piano Girl segment for Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz on NPR. The invitation to appear on Ms. McPartland’s program came directly from the queen of jazz piano herself, and I’m honored, humbled, and very nervous. I flew from Germany to New York two days ago. Nina arrived yesterday from San Francisco. She has jet lag coming from one direction; I have it from the other. I figure between the two of us we have one complete brain.

During the long flight from Frankfurt to JFK, an elderly Indian woman wearing a bright pink sari sat next to me. Hardly more than fifty pounds, she had a face like a walnut and miniscule eyes with fluttering lashes. She sat in lotus position for eight hours without saying a word. Every so often she would hand me a little plastic container of coffee cream to open for her. She didn’t smile or speak or acknowledge me in any other way—she would pass the cream to me and wait with one shriveled hand gently extended until I peeled off the aluminum top and passed it back. We went through this ritual at least six times. She poured her cream into numerous cups of tea, which she didn’t drink. I suspected she was meditating, so I didn’t interrupt her, because maybe, just maybe, she was keeping the plane in the sky. After we landed she stayed in her seat, legs crossed, palms resting on knees. I nodded farewell, stepped over her, and proceeded to the baggage claim, where I saw her once again, this time in a wheelchair pushed by an airline attendant. She was still in lotus position.

Today’s taping will begin at noon. I have three hours to calm down and align my chakras, if I have them. I should have taken notes from my Indian friend.
My publisher is graciously funding this trip, but we’re on a shoestring budget, so Nina and I are sharing a room. We’re staying in the three-star Hotel Wolcott on Thirty-first Street. The hotel advertises itself as one of New York’s “best kept hotel bargain secrets.” The Wolcott’s lobby—decorated in a pseudo-Baroque style with furniture donated by someone’s Great Aunt Edna—teems with Eastern European tourists and American backpackers stuffing their bags with the free birthday-cake-sized muffins offered at the breakfast trough each morning. Nina and I have vowed to avoid the muffins and urban backpackers whenever possible.

Hotel Wolcott is a fine establishment, but the two of us, self-proclaimed travel princesses, are used to places with heated towels, L’Occitane de Provence toiletries, and working elevators. Low-budget or not, we’re determined to have fun, so we cheerfully climb the four flights of steps several times each day, swearing we can feel ourselves slimming down. We hang the towels on the radiator and buy our own overpriced toiletries. The hotel must be trying to attract visiting NBA teams with the height of its bathroom mirrors. I put a little stool in the bathroom so we can boost ourselves up over the sink to put on makeup. Every night we examine the mattresses for signs of bedbugs, a growing problem in New York City hotels. We’ve decided Hotel Wolcott is unusually clean for one of these budget places. Still, I’ve been spraying tea-tree oil on the bed linens, just in case.

“Hey, look at this,” says Nina. She’s sipping coffee and browsing through the hotel brochure. “We can book our next press event downstairs at the Buddy Holly Conference Center. He stayed here in 1958. Go figure. Let’s see, the room features, uh, a table and eight chairs. And lights. They have lights.”
I’m still in bed, wondering if I should drink the coffee or not drink the coffee. I need it to wake up, but my nerves are shot and the caffeine certainly won’t help.

Awake and nervous is better than calm and comatose. I drink the coffee.

“God, I hate this,” I say.

“What?”

“I’m nervous. I hate feeling this way. You should have let me sleep until twenty minutes before the taping. Then I wouldn’t have to spend the next three hours feeling sick.”

“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have time to do your hair.”

“Nina, it’s radio. Hair doesn’t matter.”

“Hair always matters. We might want to take photos. I have to get a shot of you with Marian! Last time we were together we met, like, Bill Clinton. Hello? Who knows what will happen today? I’ve heard Beyoncé is in town. We want to look nice. And it will take a while to get ready in this place. The shower needs twenty minutes to warm up—I timed it yesterday. I turned the shower on, went out for coffee, and when I came back twenty minutes later it was finally warm. And I think the hairdryer is from 1959.”

“Maybe it was Buddy Holly’s hair dryer.”

“Eat a bagel, you’ll feel better.”

It’s true. New York City bagels always make me feel better.

“I don’t think they had hair dryers in 1959.”

“How do you think Buddy Holly got his hair to do that? It doesn’t matter—you’re going to be fine!” Nina says. “Once you’re dressed we’ll go shopping for accessories.”

“Accessories?”

“Junk jewelry. We’re in the junk-jewelry district—the world capital for junk jewelry. God, I love New York.”

“Nina, I’ve got to concentrate on the show, I’m freaked out, and you want me to go shopping for jewelry an hour before the session?”

“It’s a perfect solution,” she says. “You can’t shop and be nervous at the same time. Besides, you’ve been practicing for, what, thirty-five years? If you’re not ready now, you’ll never be ready.”

“Right,” I say. She has a point. I’m happy Nina is here. She distracts me; she makes me laugh. She’s keeping the plane in the sky.

**

I follow Nina into the nearest junk-jewelry store.

“They say you need a wholesale license to shop here, but just grab a basket and act like you know what you’re doing,” Nina says.

“I’m good at that,” I say.

“Look! Emeralds! These earrings would be perfect with that black sweater you wore last night. They’re so adorable.”

I need fake emerald earrings like I need a dogsled, but I throw them in my basket and wander around the store. Garlands of fake diamonds and other dangling bits of glitz hang from the velvet-covered walls. The fluorescent lights bounce off the plastic gems and mirrors and send reflections back and forth across the shop. I feel as if I’m trapped inside a disco ball. I double-check my backpack to make sure I’ve remembered the music charts I’ve written out for Marian—we’re scheduled to play three duets in addition to my four solo pieces. The show, which is recorded months in advance, will be edited to fit the one-hour NPR time slot.

“Look, Robin!” says Nina. “A tiara with feathers!”

I grab a rhinestone bracelet and a couple of rings for my daughter.

“What time is it, Nina? Time to go?”

“Nope. We still have thirty minutes. Look over there at those darling African beads. Very cool.”

My cell phone rings. It’s John calling from Germany to wish me luck. It’s five-thirty in the morning there.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. “Remember to breathe. Where are you now?”

“I’m in a junk-jewelry store called Nick’s Picks. Nina is trying to keep me distracted.”

“Good. Listen to her. She knows what she’s doing. Better that you’re in a junk-jewelry store than, say, Bergdorf Goodman.”

I’ve been a fan of Marian’s show for years. Piano Jazz is the longest-running cultural program on National Public Radio. The NPR affiliate in Berlin airs it every week, so for the past decade I’ve been listening on Saturday evenings when I’m driving home from my piano job. Marian plays with guts but never relinquishes her femininity. She connects the gap between sensitivity and strength, playing with conviction and vulnerability, wit and intelligence, innocence and maturity. Her relaxed interview style is not unlike her playing. She has been in the USA for most of her adult life, yet she maintains an air of English graciousness—treating each guest like a long-lost best friend, using her warm and smoky voice to invite the listener into her living room for a little music and a cocktail or two.

“She has played with, like, everyone,” says Nina as she scoops up a handful of fake ruby hair ornaments. “Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Bill Evans, and well, the list goes on and on. She even had Clint Eastwood on the show. You know, he plays the piano.”

Nina has done her publicist homework.

“Oh, Nina, stop. This is making me more nervous.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

Silence.

“Alicia Keys and Tony Bennett and, what’s his name? The blind guy—you know who I mean.”

“Stevie?”

“No, the other one.”

“Ray?”

“Oh yeah, Ray Charles. I love him! He was on the show, too.”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

Silence.

“Dizzy Gillespie and Willie Nelson were on. Hank Jones and Norah Jones . . .”

“What, no Tom Jones?”

“I don’t think so, at least not yet. All the big stars have been on Marian’s show. Even, like, Eartha Kitt and Keith Jarrett.”

“Not at the same time, I hope.”

“No, I don’t think so. That opera singer, Renée Fleming. God, she’s gorgeous! She was on the show. And what’s his name . . . God, this jet lag is destroying my memory—the ‘Take Five’ guy?

“Dave Brubeck.”

“Yeah, that’s it. He was on. And now, you. So, you want to go in this next store?
Wouldn’t it be great to meet Tom Jones? Look! They have lots of pins shaped like butterflies. I love butterflies.”

**

When Marian called me in Germany last month I was so excited I almost dropped the telephone. She had read Piano Girl and, having logged eight years playing with her trio at New York City’s Hickory House, related to my tales of unruly customers, obnoxious managers, stalkers, perverts, and piano gig mishaps. We talked for almost an hour about music and family and raising kids in Europe. She was hip and funny and genuinely interested in my double life as a musician and mom.

A week after our conversation I received a formal letter from her asking me to be a guest on Piano Jazz. I ran my hands over her elegant stationery—how odd it is to receive a real letter these days—and gave it a place of honor in my Piano Girl scrapbook. Then, feeling a little sad, I called Marian’s home number.

“Thank you so much for the invitation,” I said. “But I can’t be on your show. I’m not a jazz musician. Not even close.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “It’s all just music. Time for something different. We’ll play a few tunes and talk about your book. It will be fun! I can’t wait!”

**

Nina and I arrive at Manhattan Beach studio five minutes before noon. My parents, who have come in from Pittsburgh for the taping, are in the control room. I haven’t seen them for almost a year, and it feels odd to have our reunion in front of the technicians. Nina takes charge and introduces me to Shari Hutchinson, the Piano Jazz producer. Good producers are efficient and keep things moving along. Great producers have vision. Shari’s handshake is firm, her manner respectful and friendly, her voice warm and confident. I can tell she knows her craft.

“Marian will be here in a moment,” says Shari. “She’s freshening up a bit.”
For some reason everyone is eating soup. Mom hugs me and continues chatting with the young man at the mixing board. I think they might be exchanging recipes.

Dad says, “How are you doing? You okay?” He knows I get nervous before important piano events. “Do you need something to eat?”

“No thanks, Dad.”

“How about some tea?”

“Okay.” He pours the tea for me and hands me a little plastic container of cream. I hand it back to him. He opens it for me. I think this may be a sign. Of what, I don’t know. Maybe my chakras are aligning.

I check out the two Baldwin grand pianos sitting side by side behind the glass partition.

“Why don’t you check out the piano?” says Shari. “You’ll be playing the one on the right. We’ll get our levels while you’re doing that.”

“Sure,” I say.

“By the way,” Shari says. “Marion is sensitive about pictures, so no photos, please.”

“Of course,” I say. “I understand. But, uh, you might want to mention this to Nina. She has the camera, and she tends to be shutter happy.”

“Will do,” says Shari.

I head into the studio. It’s so peaceful in here. This might be the first real stillness I’ve experienced since leaving home—even at their most quiet there’s a constant drone on the city’s streets. I can see the others behind the glass—they look like silent-movie actors, laughing and pointing at who knows what. I pull the charts out of my backpack and a rope of pink pearls spills onto the floor and makes a big racket. The engineer lifts his head. I can’t hear him, but he can obviously hear me. I arrange the charts on the piano and stuff the jewelry back inside the backpack.

I’m a recording rookie compared to my husband and my father, both of whom make a living in the recording studio. For me it’s still an adventure. John says a recording is exactly that—a record of what a musician sounds like during a particular phase of her life. This soothes me. I don’t have to sound better than I am. I would, however, like to avoid sounding worse.

I look into the control room. Busy, busy, busy. I wonder if anyone would notice if I left and returned to Nick’s Picks. I put my hands on the keys. The first moments at an unfamiliar piano are always awkward.

The piano is in tune. The action is good. Fine.

The studio door clicks behind me, and there she is.

“Robin!” she says. “It’s great to have you here! What were you playing just now? Very nice!” She is wearing a spiffy dark-blue pantsuit and a silky blouse with a bow at the neck. She hugs me.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” I say. Any woman who has managed to make a living as a musician, especially a jazz musician, blows me away. Marian grew up during a time when female jazz musicians were a rarity. In a way they still are.
Shari stands with her hand on Marian’s elbow. She leads her to the piano, helps her get situated, then politely excuses herself. I’m surprised by Marian’s physical frailness. Her radio voice has always been so strong, her laughter so robust, that I’ve been tricked into thinking she’s decades younger than her ninety years.

“It takes me a few minutes to get comfortable,” she says. “I need to have a hip replacement, but who has time for that? I want to go on tour in the fall. My agent has a nice string of gigs lined up.”

“Wow,” I say. “It’s wonderful you’re still touring so much.”

“Yes!” she says. “Things are good.”

We sit on our individual piano benches, our bodies turned to face each other while we’re taping the interview sections of the program.

I hand Marian the charts I’ve brought with me.

“Oh!” she says, tossing the music onto the table between us. “These mean nothing to me. Never did care much for reading notes! I play by ear. Let’s figure out what songs we should do as a duet and what key, and off we’ll go.”
I’m a little thrown by this, since I’ve spent weeks preparing these arrangements. But it’s her show, so I put the charts away and grab a pencil. Together we decide who takes which chorus for each of the songs. I’m scribbling notes, but she doesn’t write down a thing.

“Trust me,” she says. “This will work out. I hate planning too much.”

“Maybe that’s the secret to a happy life,” I say.

“Might be,” she says. “It works for me.”

I vow that my next fifty years will more spontaneous.

“Let’s try a chorus of ‘Night and Day,’” she says. “I’ll play the melody on the head.” She turns and faces the piano. And then, before my eyes, this sweet English rose of a grandmother turns into a jazz cat. Get down, Marian. “One, two, one, two three, four . . .”

We play a couple of choruses. I’m having fun.

“Good!” she says. “But let’s not rehearse too much.”

“You know, Marian,” I say. “This is tricky for me. I’m used to playing solo. It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done.”

“Well then, these duets will be a premiere!”

“Yeah. heck of a way to try something for the first time.” We both laugh.

“Excuse me, ladies,” says Shari from the control room. “Please save the chitchat for the actual taping. Right now we’re just testing levels, and I don’t want to lose spontaneity.”

Rehearsal seems to be a bad word in this place.

Marian waves her hand dismissively toward the control room and says, “Okay, okay,” but keeps talking to me, asking about John, my kids, my music. By the time we start taping I’m having so much fun I’ve completely forgotten why I’m here.

Marian conducts the entire show—several hours of taping—without consulting a single note of music or any kind of written prompt about my book. We play three standard tunes together: “Charade,” “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” and “Night and Day.” I’ve practiced my two-piano arrangements for months, but Marian, with her ears leading the way, jumps right in and nails each piece on the first take. I play an original solo piece that I’ve dedicated to her—one that I’ve been working on for at least six weeks—and she returns the favor by playing a piece for me that she composes on the spot. She plays, I play, we talk and talk, we play together, then repeat the whole cycle with different topics and different tunes. Her joy rubs off on me. Look at her go—here’s a ninety-year-old woman playing piano the way she wants to. She has grown into her music and stayed young because of it. She listens, she responds, she encourages the rest of us to keep going. Marian doesn’t need magic, luck, or soothing words to keep her plane in the sky, because she’s the pilot. If there’s a better role model for a musician, I don’t know who it is.

We play the last chord of the last song, and Marian says, “Well, that was fun!”
Everyone in the control room applauds, and Marian hugs me.

“I think we should take some pictures,” she says.

“Oh, that would be great!” I try to get Nina’s attention in the control room, but she is flitting about and exchanging business cards with everyone. Marian pulls out a compact and touches up her lipstick. Then she grabs a can of Final Net hair spray and a small brush and cranks her hair. I realize I’ve forgotten to bring my makeup—it’s back at Hotel Wolcott, on the shelf underneath the NBA makeup mirror. I’ve got a rope of plastic pearls, three rhinestone bangle bracelets, fake emerald earrings and a belt covered in sequins, but no lipstick.
Nina flies through the studio door with her camera and chokes on the hair-spray fumes. Marian keeps spraying.

“Well,” says Marian, taking one last look in her compact. “I’m ready for the photos.”

“But Marion,” says Shari from the control room. “Don’t you want to fix your hair?”

“I just did,” says Marian, rolling her eyes.

“And it looks fabulous,” says Nina, sneezing in the cloud of Final Net.

“Oh, yes, I see now, your hair does look fabulous,” says Shari.

“See?” Nina whispers to me. “Hair always counts. You want to borrow my hairbrush?”

Shari escorts my parents into the studio and introduces them to Marian. I feel like I’m at a wedding reception. Marian embraces them and has her photo taken with the three of us.

“Well, Bob,” she says to my dad. “You should be proud of your daughter. She played her ass off.”

“Yes, Marian, she did.”

“You played your ass off, too,” I say to Marian. Her hand is on my waist, and she gives me a conspiratorial squeeze.

Marian’s driver whisks her away, and I stay at the studio to record several solo holiday pieces for an NPR Piano Jazz Christmas CD. My piano has slipped out of tune, so I slide over to Marian’s. I imagine, just for a moment, what it’s like to be her.

Several weeks later I perform a reading and concert in the rotunda at Steinway Hall. Marian, who has her own concert on the same night, sends flowers. FROM ONE PIANO GIRL TO ANOTHER, the card reads. WISH I COULD BE THERE.

******

To listen to Marian's show with Robin Goldsby, please go to:
NPR.org Marian and Robin

I went on an iTunes spree recently and bought 3 new albums, including Robin's "Waltz of the Asparagus People" companion album to the book. I've listened to it several times, and it is beautiful. It includes original compositions based on some of the chapters, along with covers of some of the prettiest piano solos out there. After listening to the album several times, it's obvious that Robin is a gifted composer in addition to being a gifted pianist. The original pieces are lovely and fit well the themes of the book. I was most curious to hear "The tattooed bride," and sure enough, the piece conveys well the bouncy and unbridled enthusiasm that comes to mind when reading that chapter.

The standout piece on the album, in my opinion, is Robin's variations on "Comptine d'un autre ete," the Tiersen piece from "Amelie." The first time I heard it my immediate reaction was "Whoa! She's really doing something different with it!" After listening to it roughly 28 times in a row, I now think she's done something I wouldn't have thought was possible, which is to improve on what was already one of the most beautiful solo piano pieces ever written. It's truly stunning.

Wow, Monica, thank you so much for listening so carefully. Glad you like the Tiersen piece from Amelie. It's one of those pieces I started playing when guests at the castle would ask for "that Amelie thing" . . . no one could ever remember the title. I worked out the arrangement over the course of the last year, playing it on my gigs. I had some real train wrecks while I was working on it---it's not an easy piece, although it sounds deceptively simple.

Proper title is Comptine d'un Autre Été, L'Apres Midi. (left out the accent on apres because I can't find it on my computer keyboard!) I chose to put it on the CD because I thought it suited the story called The Apricot Tree, about the French luthier who made my husband's bass.

Hi Robin,

I'm really enjoying your book, especially that chapter about Marian McPartland! She is so awesome.. Can't believe how she plays totally by ear like that!

Thanks, Elssa! Yeah, Marian is one amazing woman.