On the keys

Fil-Am poet Joseph Legaspi of New York left Manila last Thursday after a month’s visit back home, his first in 24 years. His family immigrated when he was 12. Excited, he did a whirlwind tour of Boracay, El Nido, Baguio, Sagada and Banawe, only finding himself in Metro Manila for a couple or so of transit nights.

I invited him to speak before my Fiction class in Ateneo, even if he was more of a poet. He read some of his poems, too, from his recent debut collection, Imago, which comes with a Foreword from no less than Philip Levine, his college mentor.

Then we proceeded to Mag:net Katips where he was the featured reader in the Happy Mondays poetry reading and performance series organized by poet Joel Toledo. Joseph was impressed by his fellow readers, especially poet-performer Angelo Suarez who sported a new Zatoichi hair-do, and who did an inspired, speech-challenged Zatoichi reading in Nisei gibberish, this while accompanied adroitly on the Gothic keyboards by indie filmmaker and meta-rock musician Khavn de la Cruz. Yes, this guy can play the piano, too.

That evening begun with the unveiling of the current poem installation in the Poet’s Alcove by the gallery’s entryway. Marj Evasco’s classic “Origami” was architected in-depth, with appropriate shadow-play features, by poet-architect Sid Gomez Hildawa. Impressive.

After the opening ritual, we all went back up to the bar, where singer-composer in ascension Nityalilah Saulo sang her awesome rendition of Marj’s “Origami.” It certainly foreshadowed the Japanese flavor for an evening highlighted by Jimmy Abad’s recitation of three haiku in their original Niponggo. Maybe next Monday Joel will emcee in Korean.

A couple of nights later, Joseph, Jimmy and I got together again, this time for a despedida dinner for Luis and Midori Francia, also both of NY and soon heading back, after only two weeks of a balikbayan tour of duty that also included Baguio and Palawan. Hosting the dinner and sing-along session was my kid sister, the sculptor Agnes Arellano, now better known as the mom of jazz diva Mishka Adams, who herself had flown back to London after a series of Christmas gigs here to promote her second CD from Candid Records, titled “Space.”

Well, there’s so much of meditative space in Agnes’ spread, which includes three separate gardens. After the curry buffet, we all repaired to the second garden, with John Silva, Jonathan Best, Howie Severino, videographers Egay and Rica Navarro, Fil-Aussie balikbayan artist Diokno Pasilan with wife Ruth and their kid, and of course mi amigo Billy as caring co-host, if now a teetotaler. There we sprawled on mats around a long, low table, looked up at the stars in a clear night sky, burped, smoked, sipped wine, gulped whisky, and reveled quietly in the live piano music. 

Yes, it’s balikbayan season, with friends coming and going. Everywhere we hear discussions on the best venues to take them for food and entertainment, whether spelling nostalgia or putting them up to speed on Manila now! Aristocrat’s, Gerry’s Grill, Singing Waiters, Kamayan, Max’s, Savory, San Jacinto, Tiendesitas, Eastwood, Serendra, Boni High St., Greenbelt, Cafe Havana, Embassy, Air Force One for a stud night...

Notes are traded, numbers recalled (of fave GROs and masseuses), tips on the best spas passed on, along with dire warnings on Manila Hotel’s outlets where it’s said the bibingka is now cooked on a novelty contraption that doesn’t quite cut it... So who did Boracay and who didn’t?

Our global keyboards are a-tinkle come December and January. The ivories are caressed from one continent to another, and of course the old archipelago fills up with the music of get-togethers among a planetary brethren.

Hmm. Such thoughts are what befall someone who stares too long at the night sky while embraced by congeniality of ilk, kith and kin. And live piano music, on this night sourced to Obet Dumas, whom we’d also appreciated at Kuya Chuckie Arellano’s art palaces.

And we realize, too, that his piano music will eventually accompany voices around the low table, for sets of lyric sheets are about. They happen to be Pete Lacaba’s much-in-demand, bound xerography of his Salinawit songs — Western standards, French ballads, Latin hymn translated, or rather adapted, into Tagalog. Which reminds us, of how it makes for a great gift for balikbayan friends, so that we’ve ordered a hundred from Ka Pete himself. 

  Agnes and Luis tell us he’s expected that evening, but since he’ll be late, they’d bogart the mic muna. So Ag starts with La Vie En Rose in Pete’s Pateros Filipino, switches to the French orig, then leaves us all breathless with the ending refrain: “Dahil sa pag-ibig mo,/ Ngayon ang buhay ko:/ Kulay-rosas.”

 Agnes says, “Galing niyang si Obet sumabay, kahit anong key, maski walang sense of rhythm ‘yung kumakanta, kaya niyang habulin.” Sheepish, or fair and factual comment?

As the night waltzes on, and we stay supine, warmed by the bosom company of ... uhh, okay, Macallan 18 thence Kuroobi Yu-Yu or Black Belt Sake from Narita Duty Free, courtesy of Midori — and yes, good friends, we drift back to memories of pianists fine and supple, down the years of sharps and flats.

We wonder about Carlitos Calaguian, who’s backed up belters like Jaime Fabregas and sax soloes by Pete Canson. He could play anything, from “Cu Cu Ru Cu Cu Paloma” to Chopin. Make that anything by Frédéric. He’s played in cruise ships and a dozen capitals all over the world. Now he’s in Pagan, Cambodia, playing to temple tourists by sundown, and planning to build a house there. 

At writer-editor-painter Erlinda Panlilio’s convivial parties, there was always the wonderful pianist Mary Ann Baclao, who could accompany even guys like Charlson and Marne (not a law firm). And she came with a bonus, too, whenever her husband Sam was around. A commercial pilot for a Thai airline, he’s also an amateur tenor whose great voice sometimes terrorized the likes of Charlson and Marne to silent submission. But not Pete, oh no! Oh yes!

Then there’s Ferdie Borja, the compleat pro, who regularly sessions with divas like Girl Valencia at Richmonde Hotel’s Exchange Bar, and slides up the scale to provide inspirational tempo to semi-pros Reli German and Conrad Banal. Come to think of it, to Ferdie belongs the rank honor tomorrow night when Pete’s Salinawit concert series takes a turn towards galactic heights, what with superstars Bayang Barrios, Bituin Escalante, Cooky Chua and Arthur Manuntag all singing our favorite standards — Porter to Gershwin, and then some — in Pinoyese. Ferdie Borja is the featured accompanist, starting at 9 p.m. at Conspiracy Café at 59 Visayas Avenue, QC.

This piece wasn’t written to promote tomorrow’s stellar gig. But you can consider it gravy that the inevitable open mic session will likely feature Pete, Reli, Conrad de Quiros, Princess Nemenzo, and why, maybe even Charlson and Marne among the bonus crooners. Come early, to avoid the pandemonium at the gate.

What is it about piano players, er, pianists, keyboardists, ivory men, that installs them in the music pantheon as the essential staple, provender, fodder? Sure, guitarists are a dime-a-dozen, too, maybe even more, as ubiquitous as the Chinese. After all, they can carry their instruments, and truly be peripatetic.

But the piano, grand or upright, “Yamaha” electronic or cheap fold-away as is now being offered on phone sale on TV, or even plastic as our kids used to start on, represents everyone’s aspirations to somehow take part in the most sublime of the arts.

And so, as kids we take lessons, or as grown-ups force our kids to take piano lessons. And sometime soon after, most of us heave a sigh of lament when they say they’ve had it past Grade 2 or 3, they’d rely on oido na lang to become the life of the party when they’re old enough to vote.    

Often the piano player becomes an archetype. Think The Pianist and 2000 as relatively recent films that celebrate finger and character dexterity. Think Nick Joaquin’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, where Tony Javier is a stage-show trouper and universal cad representing a generation of free spirits in pre-war Manila.

I think back to Dr. Albert Faurot of Silliman University, who lived in a house shaped like a piano, and who was a class act before his grand. I think back to Dr. William Henry Scott of Sagada, who regaled Sylvia Mayuga and me one rainy afternoon with a private concert on his harpsichord, which he had assembled himself. This was before he had another assembly kit shipped to Dr. Faurot, his counterpart in the South.

On dear Albert’s piano, the poet-writers Ophie Dimalanta and Ernie Yee had entertained panelists and workshop fellows summer after summer.

I think back to Cock ‘n Bull of the early ’60s, the father of all piano bars ever to come up in Ermita, Malate, and all the way to Baclaran. The small bar was on Taft Avenue, a little ways past Vito Cruz, when traffic was yet a good word. Nick J. and other journalists and artists frequented the place, as it was run by writer-painter Lily Amansec. She had a piano player, Ernie Donida, a good one. And he reminded me, and must have reminded Nick, of Tony Javier.

It turned out that Ernie and I were distantly related. His parents came from Pangasinan, so my father knew them. Then his older brother married my mom’s younger sis. I idolized Ernie for a time, envied him his bohemian nights, his way with women. He disappeared, and we’d only hear of how he was on a cruise ship, playing the piano, or in this or that part of the world. I often wondered what became of him.

Last September, in Baguio for a workshop, and feted on the first night at Des and Auring Bautista’s Iggy’s Inn, the boyhood blood surged a bit upon sight of a small man in a mustard beret bent over the piano, tinkling, tinkling, traipsing his way through old songs.

Link Drilon, host for the night, said the pianist had just gotten back from America, where he had worked countless bars. His fingers weren’t as deft anymore, as he had grown old, but Link knew him to have been a sometime fixture in Baguio in his youth. I asked if he happened to be Ernie Donida. Yes, he was.

I approached the bent figure behind the piano and started taking pictures. When he looked up, I introduced myself, and said I was happy to see him again. A faint smile crossed Tito Ernie’s face, but he just nodded, either to keep tempo or to acknowledge that he had heard me. And he tinkled on, tinkled on, without a word.