COTTONWOOD FALLS — He’s not topping the charts at Columbia or RCA. But in his own small way, 12-year-old Jeremy Bell is a recording star.
Bell plays piano at any excuse and for any reason: a public event, a planned recital, or just because he happens to walk past a set of 88 keys. Because of that habit, he’s had the chance to record three CDs, a new disc every Christmas for local distribution.
Appropriately enough, it all started at the Emma Chase Cafe, a Cottonwood Falls focal point that tends to draw musicians of every stripe.
“After I saw someone play piano down there, I went up to to the Emma Chase and asked Sue (Smith) if I could play,” Bell said. She gave permission and one day someone in the cafe asked if he wanted to do a CD.
A holiday habit was born.
Bell’s been playing for about four years now. His tastes mostly incline to rhythm and blues or rock n’ roll, but he’ll play anything that’s got some life to it -- Ray Charles, say, or Jerry Lee Lewis. He’s even taken to wearing a glove on his right hand because he likes to ripple the keys so quickly. That’s all right on a plastic keyboard, but real piano keys can hurt.
“I don’t really think when I play,” he said. “It’s just kind of muscle memory. If I haven’t played a song in a long time, I have to go over it and my muscles just kind of remember it.”
He can play and even enjoy slower pieces — he learned “The Ludlows” from “Legends of the Fall” for his mom’s birthday — but it’s not his usual cup of tea. Making his point, Bell began playing a note-perfect “Fur Elise” by Beethoven ... about four times slower than usual, jaw hanging slack in mock boredom.
“He’s always been a very talented child,” his mom Shawna Bell said. “We wanted to start him on an instrument and we felt piano was something he could use his whole life.
“He wasn’t immediately playing, like the ones you always hear about. He kind of tinkered for a couple of years. And then he really took off.”
Each year, when Cottonwood Falls lights the Chase County Courthouse, Bell can usually be found at the keyboard playing for passersby. That’s when the CDs usually come out, too, with the money from them helping pay for charity Christmas presents. But he’s also played at Lindsborg and Medicine Lodge and elsewhere. He’ll be warming up the keyboard at the Flint Hills Gallery this weekend for the Flint Hills Rodeo and next week he’s set to play at Madison Days at 1 p.m. June 9.
Curiously, Bell doesn’t want to play professionally. He’s got other dreams in mind.
“I’m planning to be an inventor,” he said. “I had an idea about magnets that I know I want to try.”
daveedailey (anonymous) says...
Scott, everyone should visit the Gallery in Cottonwood. It is a wonderful place to find antiques and a few different things. It is a really great place to buy unique presents, candles, and wonderful laundry products. The managers are really terrific people. Matt and Sandy Dorsey. You can find some of the most unique items ever. I hope to visit sometime while Jeremy is there.
June 1, 2007 at 3:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )