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Ed ClutE slips an Edison diamond disC on his Edison maChinE. a prECursor to thE modErn phonograph, it is onE of his prizE possEssions. thE first Edisons wEnt on salE in 1912.

he ten-inch wide records used on the machines are one-quarter-inch thick. The eighty-rpm discs,

a transitional technology from the earlier cylinder-recording method and the thirty-three-rpm vinyl lp, are heavy as serving platters and made of an ungodly chemical mixture of phenol, formaldehyde, wood-flour and solvent. As the needle slips into the record’s groove, a slightly scratchy ragtime stomp bleats out from the “horn,” or speaker, hidden behind a grille.

Except for record collectors and amateur archivists like Clute, the song, which regales the listener to the joys and wonders of Wisconsin, has been long forgot-ten. Clute himself can’t think of its title or the name of the band off the top of his head.

But that’s understandable. Clute, who, along with his Dixie Five Plus One, will headline the first Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest on March 1, is a professional mu-sician, a classically trained pianist, and a lover of ragtime and early jazz. His studio, in which the Edison machine sits, is a minor museum, stuffed with sound stuff. There are three pianos in the center of the room: two Mason-Hamlin grands, one of which is also a player piano, and a Foster upright foot-pump player.

It would take an assistant or two to catalog the records, tapes, CDs, and piano rolls stacked in the shelves that cover the studio’s walls. And since Clute is blind, they all had to be coded with a braille writer and elaborately organized.

But instead of worrying too much about whether he can identify a band or its nearly 100-year-old ditty, Clute sways in front of his prize machine with a childlike look of delight on his face, blissed out by a song to which Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald might have danced The Charleston. Obedience to minutia, the curse of too many collectors, doesn’t seem to be his problem.

Clute also keeps an archive in his head. Ask him to play a ragtime-era song or one of the standards from the Great American Songbook, and he doesn’t hesitate. Nor does he say much, except perhaps, “Oh, that’s a great song.” He just plays it. And flawlessly. But this talent took years of practice.

lute, who is sixty-four, was born and, for the first six years of his life, lived in the house next

to the studio. High on a hill in Watkins Glen, New York, it offers a stunning view of Seneca Lake. Clute said his mother encouraged his interest in music.

“My mother says I was playing the piano at the age of three” Clute said. “I went to the Batavia School for the Blind when I was seven and studied all the subjects—math, English, history—but with a big emphasis on music.”

After graduating from Batavia in 1964, he headed to the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he spent four “wonderful years.” During the summer, he attended the Amherst Summer Music Center in Maine, which is no longer in existence, but Clute described it as “a very good music school.”

After graduating from the conservatory, he met up with Jean Casadesus, a French classic pianist and the son of Robert and Gaby Casadesus. Jean Casa-

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AEd ClutE plays a tunE on his mason-hamlin grand piano at his watkins glEns homE. ClutE will hEadlinE thE mountain homE wintEr Jazz fEst on marCh 1 at thE pEnn wElls hotEl.

STANDINGbefore his Edison machine, a chest-high cabinet of burnished oak, Ed Clute wound its

hand crank and gingerly set the stylus down on a record spinning on the turntable.

the record, like the machine, is vintage, from the 1920s, when Edison’s diamond disc

Phonographs were all the rage, a must-have for flapper-era audiophiles, equivalent

perhaps to today’s top-of-line ipod or, better yet, a home-theater sound system.

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Tioga County’s own jazz diva, Juanita Jobst, will join the Ed Clute Dixie Five Plus One at the

Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest on March 1 at the Penn Wells Hotel. She comes to us from deep in the heart of the South—the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to be exact—and jazz is in her soul. Her first experience was singing “Shorten’ Bread” at the age of seven in full blackface.

“My most vivid memory of that early experience was the difficulty of removing the make up, consisting of ashes and cold cream,” Jobst says. “Music was to become an important part of my life after that.”

At the age of sixteen, she was performing with local bands for Gulf Coast night clubs, country clubs, and

private parties. She was a member of a quartet that performed at the USO club in Biloxi, Mississippi, and was frequently featured in radio music shows..

After marrying an Air Force man, she took a hiatus from performing to raise her family of seven. The love of music never left, and as soon as the children were older, she began performing in a dinner heater near her home in Wilmington, Delaware, in such favorites as The King and I, Paint your Wagon and Follies.

After moving to Tioga County in l993, she began singing locally and with New York bands, performing standards and Dixieland jazz in area country clubs and at jazz festivals with Walt Hoffman’s band, and Ed Clute’s Dixie 5 Plus One. Tioga Countians were fortunate to discover her at the Penn Wells Hotel with Walt Hoffman at the piano; and with Ed Clute or Pat Davis and David Driscoll at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center. Jobst and Davis opened the Laurel Festival Music Series in 2007. Their The Lady Sings the Blues and World War II Songs were also performed for the Mansfield University alumnae and the Wednesday

Morning Musicals. Sadie Green Sales has frequently included Jobst in their performances as well. Juanita has also performed with the Hamilton-Gibson players in several presentations, including The Quilters.

“I prefer singing the blues, but like to break them up with old-time standards and some novelty tunes,” says Jobst, and “Blues in the Night,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “Summertime” are a few of her favorites. “I really enjoy singing those deep-down, break-your-heart blues.”

Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest

When: March 1 at 8 p.m.Where: Penn Wells Hotel, Wellsboro, PennsylvaniaWho: Ed Clute Dixie Five Plus One (Juanita

Jobst) and The Charles Kefover Trio Tickets: $10 advance and $12 at the door.

Available at at Indigo Wireless (570) 787-6000; From My Shelf Books (570) 724-5793; or Balsam Real Estate Settlement Company (570) 723-7200

A Southern SongbirdJuanita Jobst, left, will sing with Ed Clute’s band at the Mountain Home winter Jazz fest.

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with Jean Casadesus were priceless.“I loved every minute of it. He was my major,

major teacher. He was just a delightful man to know,” Clute said. “He helped me overcome some of the difficult problems I was having. I was a little bit afraid of big jumps and leaps. He helped me get over those.

“He thought I could play anything I put my mind to,” he added. “And he really liked the way I played. We had not just a really good pianistic relationship, but we had a good all-around relationship. And we had a lot of fun together. We did things and he was just a wonderful teacher to me.”

“He helped me gain confidence,” Clute said. “I think as a pianist, I learned more from him, as far

as learning how to play stride because I was learning how to jump around the keyboard. Make two-octave leaps. That has enabled me to play ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ as fast as I can.”

hen Clute uses the term “stride,” he’s speak-ing of a particular piano style developed in

Harlem around World War I that uses improvisation and swing rhythms. Wikipedia tells us, “practitioners of this style practiced a very full jazz piano style that made use of classical devices.” On his Web site, mod-ern-day stride pianist Mike Lipskin says you can hear Gershwin, Cole Porter and Chopin in stride.

“Duke Ellington was a fine stride pianist,” Lipskin writes, “and his 1920s recordings sometimes sounded like orchestrated James P. Johnson . . . Art Tatum was a stride pianist, as was Count Basie, and early on, Thelonious Monk and Erroll Garner.

It’s a Wednesday evening and Charles Kefover and his trio are playing at The Wren’s Nest in

Mansfield, Pennsylvania. It’s a convivial setting. The band—electric piano, six-string electric bass, and drums—are set up in a corner of a dining room off the foyer. Tables have been cleared and the wood floor glows warmly from the subdued lighting. Christmas decorations are still up and yellow stars sparkle in the window behind the impromptu bandstand.

The one couple in the room, enjoying what looks like a pretty tempting meal, sip red wine and there’s laughter from the small bar behind their table. Too much laughter, really, and too loud. Waiters parade across the floor and duck into the kitchen, and the hostess leads diners into other rooms. In fact, except for the lone

couple, no one seems to be listening to the music.Too bad because Kefover, bass player Tim Breon,

and drummer Tom Nelson are giving it their all—in the kind of understated way that jazz players give it their all. Kefover looks as if he’s quietly concentrating on a difficult New York Times crossword, Breon closes his eyes as his fingers spider along the bass strings, and Nelson keeps time effortlessly, which is always the hardest part: making it look easy.

After each song, Kefover leafs through a thick sheaf on his music stand and suggests a tune. The rhythm section nods and they they launch into “Someday My Prince Will Come,” turning that hokey song from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into a swinging waltz, just as Miles Davis did many years ago. Which is what jazz players do, and if Miles were listening, you could imagine him grunting in approval, and, as every jazz buff knows, he was a hard man to please.

Which is pleasing because Kefover, at forty-four, was born several years after Miles turned that piece of schmaltz into art. It’s especially pleasing because his drummer and bass player look much younger and because they seem to care so much. The KBN Trio, as they call themselves, has a stack of CDs set up on a dining-room chair. A small sign says they sell for $10 apiece. The name of the CD is Standards, and, indeed, the songs are timeless: “Body and Soul,” “All the Things You Are,” “Have You Met Miss Jones.”

Eventually, the bar noise dies down and the people become more appreciative, more attentive. Diners stop by on their way out and tell Kefover and his band how much they enjoyed the music.

This is a regular gig for Kefover and he gives much of the credit to restaurateur James Fry for giving jazz a

chance in the area. Kefover said that jazz venues have dwindled considerably since the early ‘90s when the music scene was much stronger. Like Ed Clute, with whom he shares the bill at The Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest, he is a classically trained musician. Kefover, a Wellsboro native, began his studies in high school with Wayne Rusk, who taught at Mansfield University.

“He was really, really good. Not only did he teach me how to interpret music, he taught me discipline. There’s a right way and wrong way. His approach was very detailed. Everything mattered. He was adamant about every aspect of playing the piano. That stayed with me.”

He attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music and, after graduating, worked as a professional musician in the city, including a long-time job at The Premier Restaurant and Deli, kind of a strange job for a jazz musician, playing for yuppies at noon, but it paid the bills.

“It was every day. A weekday job. The thing about this place is that it was close to Prudential and Hancock so their lunchtime crowd was enormous. I had the lunch gig,” he said, laughing.

He worked as a temp during the day but realized, after a few years, he’d have to find a permanent day job to make it in the city. Kefover had struggled with his earlier career choice because he had always loved math, and he decided to get a math degree. He returned to Pennsylvania and started attending Mansfield. He had thought about going back to Boston, but found work teaching math at Liberty High School. Kefover, who lives in Blossburg, didn’t quit music, though.

“What happened is that I started hanging out with some of the musicians in upstate New York and ended up playing with them all the time,” he said.

When Bob Williams called him out of the blue to work the jazz fest, Kefover immediately agreed.

“I said, ‘Hey, that’s great. The more you can do for the music, the better,’” Kefover said.

Have Piano, Will Travel

morE of Ed ClutE’s playEr-piano rolls. during thE 1920s, thE hEight of thEir popularity, thEy wErE madE by hundrEds of CompaniEs. though still madE today, thEy arE bEing slowly rEplaCEd by softwarE programs.

‘he thought i could play anything i put my mind to. . . .

he was just a wonderful teacher to me.’

Ed Clute on Jean Casadesus

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a fostEr foot-pump playEr piano with somE of Ed ClutE’s piano rolls on top. thE watkins glEn pianist lEarns songs by listEning to onE of his two playEr pianos.

desus was teaching at Harpur College at Binghamton University and Clute’s apprenticeship with him turned out to be one of the most important parts of his musi-cal career. He studied with Casadesus for three years, including one at the Fountainebleau Schools in Paris.

ll three of the French musicians were interna-tionally renowned. Father, mother, and son per-

formed Mozart’s concertos for two and three pianos and recorded these works with the Columbia Sym-phony, the Cleveland Orchestras conducted by George Szell, and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy.

In 1922, Robert Casadesus helped French composer Maurice Ravel on a project to create piano rolls for some of his works. The elder Casadesus and Ravel also performed together in Europe. And since Ravel—best known for his Bolero—was a friend of George Gersh-win and an admirer of American jazz—he included some jazz elements in a few of his later composi-tions—it’s possible this influence filtered down from father to son to pupil. In any event, Clute said his years

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pianist Charles kefover and drummer tom nelson play at the Wren’s Nest in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. They will be part of the Mountain Home winter Jazz fest.

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was a stride pianist, as was Count Basie, and early on, Thelonious Monk and Er-roll Garner.”

Lipskin says the best stride art-ists, such as Fats Waller and Johnson, “respected European musical tradition and had some formal training” and were concerned with dynamics, tone, and tension and release, more so than boogie-woogie, New Orleans, and swing stylists. Indeed, Clute calls Waller one of his favorite pianists.

“I’ve never really studied jazz,” he said. “I’ve taught myself how to do that. All that I studied was classical. But I’m a real advocate of that. I think anybody who studies piano should study classical if they’re going to do any kind of jazz because that way you really develop a good technique for all the things you’ll have to play.”

As for those who take shortcuts, Clute said: “You can play jazz to a certain ex-tent but you can’t go up and down the keyboard lickety-split without a good foundation.”

ut in 1972, Casadesus died in an auto accident. Clute was devastated.

“It was a very difficult time,” he said. “But my wife was very supportive. She knew how much I loved that guy.”

Actually Clute was not married at the time though he and his future wife, Nana, were together. He met her at a concert in Glenora where she heard him playing in a band. She came up and intro-duced herself and on their first date they went to her mother’s cottage on the lake.

“And she was also teaching horseback riding in Connecticut,” Clute said. “So we got together and horsed around.”

Which brings us to Clute and his puns; he is an inveterate punster. He is a Gatling gun of puns. The object of the punster, of course, is to make his audience groan not laugh. That is, until the puns pile up so fast the audience is forced to laugh at their combined absurdity. And when it’s noted that Shakespeare was a great punster, Clute, without skipping a beat, said, “Yes, he was always writing plays on words.”

fter marrying Nana, he settled down in Watkins Glen, estab-

lished a repertoire, and worked clubs in the Twin Tiers. He continued his studies at Ithaca College and did some classical concerts; however, the amount of preparation, such as reading Braille music, was too time-consuming.

“I didn’t really think I could make it completely as a classical pianist but I wanted to study as much as possible and

I wanted my technique to be as good as I could possibly get it,” Clute said. “The only way to do that would be to study the classics and play Chopin and Schumann and get my technique down as best as I could so I could play fast jazz. So that’s why I went into the popu-lar field. I wanted to do both solo piano and play with a band. And I do both.”

His first jobs were at Pierce’s Restau-rant and the Pour House in Elmira and at a Watkins Glen club with an all-Ital-ian band. “They wanted me to change my name to Eduardo Clutini.” He laughed. “I told them, I didn’t care. We had a lot of fun.”

lute likes being versatile. Besides playing music, he tunes pianos

for a rebuilder. He’s sat in with Dixie-land trombonist Turk Murphy, played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with three symphony orchestras. He’s tuned pianos for Dave Brubeck and Maynard Fergu-son. A particular highlight was playing with jazz legend Benny Goodman at the opening of the Corning Museum of Glass’s Birkerts Building in 1980.

“I had a ball,” said Clute, which, while relating to this particular event, seems to mean he’s had a blast all his life play-ing music, sitting in with new friends and new bands. To say that Clute is up-beat is an understatement. Everything is wonderful: Wellsboro is wonderful; his many friends are wonderful; Bob and Linda Williams who enlisted him for the March 1 jazz fest “are wonderful people”; Mountain Home columnist and piano teacher Pat Davis, with whom he has struck up a fast friendship, is wonderful. Mansfield University and its music school are wonderful.

“Peggy Dettwiler. She’s wonderful. A great asset to that community down there. A great asset to the university. She’s done a lot to promote the school. There’s a lot of wonderful people. Mike Galloway. He’s a wonderful individual. Pennsylvania.” He paused. “That area is so blessed with culture. I went to a band concert last summer in Wellsboro. It’s so nice to maintain that kind of thing—having band concerts in the park—peo-ple just aren’t doing it anymore.”

hree years ago, Nana died. Clute said stoically that he got through

this rough period with a strong consti-tution and the support of friends. He was reluctant to talk about it, but when he mentions the name of his wife of thirty-two years, his voice lowers slight-ly, becomes shaded with melancholy.

For years, the pair had been regulars

at old-time radio conventions. Clute, who said he never let his blindness get in the way, played live music during recreations of radio shows. Perhaps it’s better for someone who shared the couple’s passion for radio, and who knew them over the years, to explain.

On his Web site, Derek Tague called Nana “Ed’s eyes” and said: “It always amazed me what a dynamo Nana was. She was a short-statured woman who dedicated herself to her husband, whom she usually referred to as ‘Edward,’ and his art. She tirelessly drove the minivan and unloaded Ed’s keyboards, speakers, & other musical accoutrements.”

Tague recalled hanging out with Clute and other conventioneers after the shows.

“It was at these ad hoc gatherings where Ed and I would trade awful puns (the less said about them, the better). One time, Nana got a good one in:

‘Q: Did ya hear about the guy who went to sleep and dreamed he was thetailpipe of a 1952 Studebaker?

A: He woke up exhausted.’”

lute walked along the short path from his studio to his house. A

security alarm sounded when he opened the door and he said to ignore it, as if this might be disconcerting or even frightening to a guest. He wanted to show off what he called the pièce de résis-tance, the big seven-foot Mason-Hamlin grand he had recently purchased.

His house was as neat as a Marine barracks but without the Spartan cold-ness. And the piano, made of African mahogany and gleaming as if it had been worked over by a team of shoe-shine boys, sat in the middle of the room. Clute sat down to play: Gersh-

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win, Hoagy Carmichael. He noodled on a Chopin ballade, made the silence between the notes profound. He tapped the keys with left hand and said with awe: “Listen to that bass!” He took a request, “Moonlight in Vermont.”

“That’s a great song.” He played a few bars and stopped. “Did you know the verses don’t rhyme?” He played again and sang: “Pennies in a stream/Falling leaves, a sycamore/Moonlight in Vermont.”

He looked up, smiled. “I’m a horrible singer.” He resumed playing, singing quietly anyway, in love with the music.

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