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Main interview feature with Ramsey Lewis




You were born in Chicago, Illinois in May 1935 post the prohibition by a couple of years. So how was life growing up culturally and economically as a child in Chicago, the Windy City and what led to you learning the piano from a young age, focusing on classical music?

 

When I look back growing up in Chicago for me was wonderful. Obviously my parents suffered a lot prejudice because of their skin colour. But they shielded me from it and I never realised how bad it was until I got to high school. The high school I went to was predominantly white and the numbers of black kids were very few. It wasn’t until I got into life itself that I experienced what life in America was like for black people. My days were pretty structured from my parents point of view after I finished school (especially high school) I had jobs like working in a grocery store, putting canned food on the shelves for a couple of hours, and then I would come home practice the piano and do my homework. After that it was time to go to bed. That was during the week and on Saturdays I played baseball with the guys and Sunday was church all day. So that was kind of my youth growing up in Chicago, and as I look back on it now talking with you, I see that my folks kept me pretty busy and away from things where I could have had problems. I was aware of certain situations that happen when you’re in a country like the United States and a city like Chicago regarding hearing, reading about and seeing certain racial things. I experienced things more on the way home from school as opposed to them happening in school, where the white kids would say “There’s the nigger man.” and I would just poke my tongue out at them and keep on walking.
 

That’s one way of silencing the racists I guess. How old were you when you started playing the piano?
 

Playing the piano was not in my mind at all except that when I was four years old I was playing marbles or something and I heard my parents tell my Sister (who was a couple of years older than me) that they wanted her to start taking piano lessons. I got to learn that all the things my Sister did were kind of fun so I said I wanted to learn the piano too, but only because my Sister was doing it. At first my parents said they could only afford one lesson, which was something like fifty cents. I made such a fuss that they took my Sister and I together to the piano teacher, who was the organist from our neighbourhood church. We would go to her house have the lessons and then go home. After a few lessons our teacher Ernestine Bruce said that my Sister Lucille’s talent was definitely in another area but not piano. However ‘little Ramsey’ as they called me had talent and that I should continue. I found that unfair and very upsetting that Lucille got to quit and I didn’t. Although I got the attention, I didn’t like practicing. My Father would always be questioning if I practiced and my Father made sure that I did and that went on until I was twelve to thirteen years old. Miss Bruce told my parents that she had taught me all she could and that I should continue to take lessons. She suggested that I went down town to Chicago Musical College which concentrated on classical music. My teacher Dorothy Mendlesohn heard me play and took me because she thought I had talent. That did not make me happy either as I still wanted to be playing outside with my friends. However the lessons with Dorothy started educating my mind about playing both classical music and the piano. She used to say things like “Ramsey, now make the piano sing.”. She used to say things like “Ramsey, now make the piano sing.” I used to think that this lady was out of her mind talking about ‘make the piano sing’, give me a break. I’m playing Bach, Beethoven and Chopin etc. and she would ask me to get up so she could play the piano. Oh God it would sound so beautiful and at the same time she could make the piano roar like it would jump up and run out of the room. That really got me attracted to the piano and I began to love it. She put me into certain recitals but never in competitions, as she didn’t believe in that. Recitals and solo recitals with other people was what I participated in.