Down in London’s Tube, pianos are scattered around for serendipitous encounters between kindred artists.
That’s exactly what happened in a video posted by musician and YouTube content creator Brendan Kavanagh, more commonly known on the internet as Dr. K. Kavanagh is a contemporary pianist who’s well known for his impromptu performance with and for the unsuspecting people of the London Underground.
In this video, he meets Zara, a pianist trained in the classical style.
She is playing a piece by renowned French musician Claude Debussy when Kavanagh arrives at the piano corner. He engaged her in quick small talk as she played but was also observing how the girl played.
After the short performance ended, Kavanagh asked Zara if she knew anything about playing Blues. The young pianist politely admitted that she doesn’t which warranted her an invitation to learn one right then and there.
At first, Kavanagh plays one piece after the other, asking Zara if she knows whatever he was playing.
She shook her head at some of them until Kavanagh played something that she was familiar with.
They sat side by side and started the impromptu Tube performance that turned the Debussy girl into a Boogie Woogie pianist.
Boogie Woogie, or the Western Rolling Blues, is an up-tempo or a heavily percussive style derived from the Blues. The charm of the genre is credited to the tension between the movements of the right and left hand of the pianist. The right plays a repetitive rolling bass and the left taps robust notes that sound way different than the right-hand notes.
That contrast and distinction make Boogie Woogie sound so exciting.
It gained prominence during the 1920s and was widely associated with the southwestern states, thus the name “Western Rolling Blues”. After World War I, Boogie Woogie arrived in Chicago through the extensive African-American migration to the north. At its peak, a concert for the genre was performed in 1938 at the Carnegie Hall called “From Spirituals to Swing.” Since then, Boogie Woogie enjoyed a vogue in the late 30’s up until the Second World War.
Prominent players of the genre include Jimmy Yancey, Pinetop Smith, Pete Johnson, and Meade “Lux” Lewis.
While its popularity declined rapidly post World War II, contemporary pianists all over the world still identify with the genre. And because it can be easily improvised, impromptu shows like those that Kavanagh perform are always a serendipitous experience.
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As a pianist, Kavanagh is keeping its influences alive in various pianos dotted around the London area.
Besides the Debussy girl that learned how to put the “boogie” in the “woogie”, Kavanagh has collaborated, albeit spontaneously, with other pianists.
In a video posted just a year ago, Kavanagh played with an old gentleman where they enjoyed various musical styles. The video has racked up more than 28 million views.
He also collaborated with Thomas Kruger, more widely known as Mr. Piano. Their performance even ended in a crowd-drawing duet of piano and melodica.
This also was not his last encounter with Zara. They performed in different subway pianos, with the classically trained pianist now learning how to play swing.
Watch how this Debussy girl switches styles through this amazing piano duet.
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