Composer’s Piano Finds New Home in Bridgehampton

[caption id="attachment_75350" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Dave Elliott, the Bridgehampton School’s music teacher, with the district's new C. Bechstein upright piano. Stephen J. Kotz photo[/caption]

By Stephen J. Kotz

The cramped music practice room at the Bridgehampton School, where congas share space with the odd tuba or trumpet, became a little more crowded this week with the addition of a new piano.

But it’s not just any old piano. It’s a white C. Bechstein upright that once belonged to Joe Sherman, a songwriter, arranger and band leader, who lived in Southampton with his wife, Susan.

After her husband’s death earlier this year, Ms. Sherman decided to move back to New York City. “I just didn’t want to sell it,” she said of the instrument. “I wanted it to go somewhere it would be appreciated.”

Although not as well-known as a Steinway or Bossendorfer, German-made Bechstein pianos are considered among the best in the world, something that Dave Elliott, the school’s music teacher, took note of when offered the chance to give the piano a new home.

“For a small piano, it has a great sound, especially at the bottom end,” Mr. Elliott said on Monday. “It sounds like a grand piano to me.”

With a major building addition expected to get underway next year, Mr. Elliott said he was already thinking ahead to the day when he and the school’s chorus director, Lindsey Sanchez, will no longer be stuck in the outdated modular building that now serves as their teaching base. Currently, custodians have to move the school’s only other piano, a Yamaha upright, from that building to the school gymnasium for holiday concerts, plays and other special events.

“When this donation became available, I wasn’t thinking about this year, I was thinking about the new space,” he said. “Now we’ll have this amazing piano available for performances and choral rehearsals.”

Mr. Sherman, who was born in Brooklyn and attended the Juilliard School and enjoyed a long and varied career in the music business. Before rock ’n’ roll came to dominate the air waves he wrote a number of hit songs for pop singers.

If Nat King Cole or Perry Como sounded square to kids hooked on Elvis and the Beatles in the ’50s and ’60s, they are completely foreign to kids raised on hip-hop stars like Jay-Z and his pop diva wife, Beyoncé.

But, believe it or not, popular music from what is often described as the “Great American Songbook” once flourished, and Mr. Sherman, working with his brother, Noel, a lyricist, wrote hits including “Ramblin’ Rose” and “That Sunday, That Summer” by Nat King Cole, “Graduation Day” by the Four Freshmen, “Eso Beso” by Paul Anka, “Juke Box Baby” by Perry Como and “To the Ends of the Earth” by Johnny Mathis.

He also worked with Tony Bennett and Ethel Merman and served as a long-time arranger for Mr. Anka and as the head A & R man, where he was in charge of talent development, for Epic Records for several years in the 1960s. In between, he worked on film and television scores, and wrote jingles for commercials.

“He played the piano,” Mrs. Sherman said. “But that wasn’t really his thing. He worked with artists, did arrangements, conducted the orchestra in recording sessions.”

Mr. Sherman was also a fan of classical music and jazz, so along with the piano came more than 1,000 CDs, as well as an assortment of coffee table art books, from his personal collection.

“I’m going to go through these and archive them and make them available for a lending library,” Mr. Elliott said. The art books will go to the school’s library.

In the meantime, the longtime music teacher said he’s taking good care of the new piano in his rehearsal room. Asked if elementary school children have been banging out “Chopsticks” on the new piano, he answered, “No! That’s partially why I moved it in here. I wanted to keep it safe and protected.” But he added that there are several students taking piano lessons privately, “and I’m letting them come in and show me what they’re learning.”