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A virtuoso visits
By JACKIE RIPLEY, Times Staff Writer TOWN 'N COUNTRY -- Toe tapping to Amazing Grace? Unlikely but not unheard of, especially if it's part of an impromptu penny whistle performance by musical virtuoso David Amram. "You need three minutes of relaxation," Amram told Webb Middle School band members as they lay down their instruments. Then he demonstrated how a jazz riff or a Latin beat could transport the popular English hymn out of the 18th century and into the 21st.
And so it went as Amram, 71, wove wit and wisdom through a tapestry of musical performance and interpretation -- and held a roomful of teens in his thrall for nearly five hours. "It was exciting to see a real composer," said seventh-grader Mary Odessa Cheatom. "It helped me a lot because there was a song we couldn't get and he explained it." Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber works, written two operas and scores for theater and films, including Splendor in the Grass and The Manchurian Candidate, and plays French horn, piano, guitar, numerous flutes and whistles. He was in the Tampa Bay area last week promoting his latest book, Offbeat: Collaborating With Kerouac. But he agreed to spend his day off Wednesday at Webb jamming with teens, showing them folk instruments from around the world, and coaching them on technique. Then he devoted the afternoon to a public seminar at Webb for adults. "I was shocked he was so down to earth," said Helen Michaelson, Davidsen Middle School band director. "He inspired me so much I went back and had the best rehearsal I've had all week." So why would someone of Amram's stature, who has collaborated with such notables as Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Dustin Hoffman, Thelonius Monk, Willie Nelson and Jack Kerouac, spend his day off teaching and performing for a roomful of kids? "You've always got to put something back in the pot," said Amram, recalling advice given to him by Gillespie on the jazz great's 70th birthday. Besides, "when you're around kids and feel them and share with them what you were given, it's energizing. I never get composer's block."
"It's not stealing," Amram explained. "It's honoring, especially when it's something cultural or spiritual" you're borrowing. "It's a way of saying thank you." Amram, meanwhile, wears the many thanks he has been given over the years around his neck in layers. The mementos, worn like a leis, include American Indian turquoise, a Jewish star, an ivory scrimshaw, and the most recent, a key to the Jack Kerouac Writers' Residence in Orlando, where he was staying. "They didn't want to me lose it," Amran said. "He's incredible," said Phil Hankins, Webb band director. "This is my 30th year of teaching and I promised myself at the beginning of my career that I would give my kids something no one else had, and then this opportunity came about." Before closing the class, Amram took questions. When asked by a student if it was his childhood dream to be a composer and writer, Amram answered: "It still is." "I'm not being sarcastic," he said. "It's still amazing I can do that, and that anyone would want to listen to it or read it." -- Jackie Ripley can be reached at (813) 269-5308 or ripley@sptimes.com.
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