5/29/2023 0 Comments Npr piano prodigy“If you look at people who are creative geniuses, and look back, a lot of them are prodigies,” said Boston College psychology professor Ellen Winner, who has researched gifted children and the arts. She has been dazzling listeners since she was 9. Grace Kelly, here with Phil Woods, brings an infectious joy to performing. The very word “prodigy” evokes otherworldliness, from “prodigium,” which means “sign” or “portent” in Latin. It’s a blessing from the gods, this kind of talent, and when we see it in someone young, we marvel at the contrast: a child with the outsize abilities of an adult. She was in fourth grade.” She was so entranced by the instrument, Bob Kelly recalls, “we had to tell her to go to sleep.” “With the saxophone, once she picked that up, after the first couple of months, she could play songs. “I don’t know where that comes from,” he said. Her talent still mystifies her father and manager, Bob Kelly. “I’ve heard the future of jazz and it is Grace Kelly,” musician and NPR contributor David Was once said, echoing critic Jon Landau’s famous line about Bruce Springsteen and rock. In interviews, she’s poised and thoughtful beyond her years. She’s won several DownBeat Student Music Awards and a pair of ASCAP Young Composer Foundation Awards. She’s jammed with jazz legends, notably fellow sax player Phil Woods, who bestowed one of his trademark hats on her as a sign of appreciation. And the sight of her with a saxophone – an instrument that appears so appropriate when clutched by a Junior Walker or John Coltrane but awkward in the hands of an attractive young woman – summons the unfortunate scene of a flight attendant in “Airplane!” honking Dixieland jazz in the cockpit.īut when she plays, all that becomes meaningless. Her on-stage patter can have a girlish quality, and at times she appears gangly and uncertain, like a filly finding its legs. “Hello, Newport!” she calls, launching into “The Way You Look Tonight,” all silky runs and warm phrasing.Īs her band members take solos, she smiles, humming along with their playing, a tic reminiscent of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. It’s a balmy summer night at the Newport Jazz Festival, and saxophonist Grace Kelly is welcoming an audience of about 500 at the Harbor Stage.
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