![]() ![]() If Matthew's ego seems healthily in check, credit his dad. He said, 'How you doing, Matt?' He gave me one of his harmonicas. He was being inducted into the Hall of Fame. When I was 10, I opened for him at the Apollo Theater. People try their best to imitate him, but they just can't. Though Matthew himself would never make the comparison. Most-read subscriber stories: If you're not a subscriber, you missed these stories in 2020Īnd Stevie, of course. Teen pianist: NJ girl puts feelings about pandemic into a song and lands spot on 'Today' show Lonnie Smith, but also to the organists Jimmy Smith and Joey DeFrancesco, and the pianists Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Barry Harris, Erroll Garner, and Thelonious Monk. He's paid attention, while developing his chops, not only to his mentor, the famed organist Dr. ![]() "Because of all the different sounds you can get out of it. "Where are we going to put a vibraphone?" his father asks.įor the time being, Matthew's instruments are piano, organ, drums, bass, melodica and a smattering of guitar. "Where are you going to put it?" asks his father, sounding stunned. ![]() "I need more, though," Matthew says, still happily improvising upstairs on the baby grand, acquired for him three Christmases ago. His basement studio looks like a showroom from a Sam Ash music store - nine keyboards, including acoustic piano, banks of synthesizers, and a full-size Hammond organ a Leslie cabinet speaker, guitars, basses, amps, and a full drum kit. Basically all I do is carry his equipment." I took trombone lessons in high school, like other kids taking music class. "Matthew is the only one who has the gift," Moses Whitaker says. They have to feed, guide, protect and discipline a child who has, in some ways, advanced far beyond them. Like all parents of prodigies - like Leopold Mozart, say, or even Mary and Joseph - May Whitaker and her husband, Moses, are in a strange position. Which is funny, because he's never actually seen Stevie." "People say that Matt's gestures remind them of Stevie. Lewis also hosted radio shows in the 1990s and 2000, including “The Ramsey Lewis Morning Show,” on WNUA-FM and the syndicated “Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis.” In 2007, he hosted “Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis,” a weekly program that aired on public television stations nationwide."I think it's normal for people to see the similarities between two people who are blind, and who started playing music very young, and who have a passion for music," says Whitaker's mother, May. He also completed a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln - “Proclamation of Hope: A Symphonic Poem by Ramsey Lewis.” His first was an eight-movement piece for Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet. ![]() The Chicago native began composing large-scale musical works later in his career. “He recognized the gift God had given him.” “I believe that my father - his love for the piano and his passion for the piano and how he coveted this love and how he protected it - that gave him longevity,” Bobby Lewis said. He toured around the world and performed at the 1995 state dinner that then-President Bill Clinton hosted for President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil. Lewis had more than 80 albums to his credit - three dozen of them with Chicago-based Chess Records. During his career, Lewis performed with musical stars such as Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Al Jarreau and Pat Metheney. ![]()
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