The first time he threw the door in my face. The second, whispered a friendly "come in". The third began to caress the piano. A Marjorie Elliot He doesn't like to bother her in his working time, that seems to inflame moments before each performance in the living room of his house, an immense old building of the Edgecombe Avenue, in Harlem.
They are barely four in New York autumn, But it seems that it was much later. The facades that are seen from the room, where Marjorie now has just sit, They still look golden: A weak blue light stands out. The sweet song of a flute enters. Shortly after the arpero of a double bass is joined. And the function begins. "Good night", She repeats.
Since his son died in 1992, She decided that the best way to keep her memory was to honor her with music
Marjorie must have been born in the years 30, Although his exact age is a mystery. Her husband was born in the happy twenties, But she must have done it in full depression, Something that adherents to the language of destiny, could clearly relate. If Marjorie is now, In this environment, With these people and this tone, is due to sadness: Since his son Phil died on a Sunday of 1992, She decided that the best way to keep her memory was to honor her with music. More than twenty years later, With another deceased son -in 2006- and the name of the husband, also deceased, above your piano, has gathered close to 50 People.
The public agns sitting and clenched in the living room, In the hall and in the kitchen. Marjorie, wrapped in a long dress, is in a corner. Your musicians, as protecting it, they touch near it while the sky begins to shade and the shots of light that come from the ceiling, although with the same intensity as before, It highlights it even more.
Scratching the sky is the mission of this woman with gold hair and a skin that hides the unknown of her age
In this apartment of an immense building, where fifty Sundays a year is celebrated with mystical airs, Surprise everything. Since the first visitors who arrive here and those that Marjorie opens the door until he says goodbye between applause and thanking God for the presence of everyone, More than an hour has passed in which musicians have entered, They have come out, A silence has been sung and a silence has been heard just broken by the acute sounds that Marjorie triggers from her stool. The musicians, that they are exchanged, They know how to play their role: Although scratching the sky is the mission of this woman with gold hair and a skin that hides the unknown of her age, They help her raise her to achieve it.
In between the same religious hymns have been heard as in the churches and the same jazz melodies as in the subway: A mixture of jam session With spiritual bursts that make this experience a place with a special energy in a neighborhood, Harlem, With a tradition where Duke Elllington the Louis Armstrong They made history.
His seriousness scared me: A seriousness that was not sadness, but something deeper
It is difficult to believe that something takes so seriously, But when at any time of the melody the memory coincides in the same point, The roots and passion, It's as if Marjorie didn't need anything else. His seriousness scared me: A seriousness that was not sadness, but something deeper where it seemed that more than the memory of her children or her husband was played. Maybe your own life.
To the solemnity of these Sunday concerts that has never interrupted -yy Nevara, I already made that suffocating heat of New York in summer- It is reached without prior notice. No entrances or great popularity. Neither signs nor posters. On the wrought iron portal of Edgecombe Avenue, who arrives here for some secret -each time less- recommendation, The first thing it does is check if that building is the place of the liturgy. What will be the floor, How to open the door and how to climb the stairs: There is nothing indicated.
The solemnity of these Sunday concerts that has never interrupted
Hour and a half after opening that door, each with their own means (some call, others expect, others will turn around) The last bars sound in which Marjorie gets up from the stool and begins to thank her presence to the spectators. Actually he shakes by thanking the public who has crowded his Harlem house in a cold but sunny afternoon, Something that surprises me because the first time I touched the door of his apartment he threw the door to my noses, the second said a shy "eat in" and at the end, The rush he wore either were left a minute to speak: His work is too serious to interrupt him for anyone.
