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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/music/15156904.htm
When Michael Gerber -- who was born blind and partially deaf -- takes the stage at the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club Thursday night, it will be one of the increasingly rare opportunities to hear the talented pianist play.
''I enjoy playing at Arturo's,'' says Gerber, sitting at the piano in his North Miami home. ``I have two hearing aids -- they don't work well with echo. Compared to other clubs where the sound really bounces around, the acoustics there are not echoey and I can hear pretty well.''
Gerber was born with only one ear, and it began to go bad in 1995 when tissue began to grow over the joint of the stapes bone. Between the hearing loss in that ear and his other man-made ear, Gerber says he has only about 50 percent hearing.
One might assume that compromised hearing would be a career-ending disability for a musician, but it hasn't stopped Gerber from becoming one of South Florida's premier, if underappreciated, pianists. Over the course of his career, he has played with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Jaco Pastorius and Ron Carter.
''He's an unbelievable piano player -- his technique is on the level of an Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum,'' says trumpeter Sandoval. ``He has so many ideas, an endless imagination . . . the music he hears in his head is not the same thing the rest of us hear in our heads.''
***
Michael Dennis Gerber was born Jan. 19, 1950, in suburban St. Louis. He says he's not entirely sure why he was born blind and with only one ear.
''It probably had something to do with being born premature. I haven't investigated it,'' Gerber says.
He played his first tune on the piano at just 2 ½ years old.
''My mother had an old Wurlitzer spinning piano. And she used to sing Battle Hymn of the Republic -- that was the first song that everybody recognized that I was playing. I probably couldn't reach the octaves, but I played the right chords,'' Gerber says.
Sound is the primary way in which Gerber relates to the world; as a child he absorbed everything he could wrap his ears around.
``They got me a record player. My grandfather and grandmother made sure I listened to the Beethoven symphonies and Schubert symphonies and some opera like Aida and Madame Butterfly and musicals like Brigadoon and The King and I, South Pacific and Oklahoma . . . My grandmother used to buy me records, even when my parents objected -- when it was jazz records.''
Gerber attended the Missouri School for the Blind and studied classical piano privately with Dorothy Ziegler, a trombonist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra who was also a renowned opera conductor, vocal coach and pianist.
By the time he was 13, he had performed as a soloist with two small suburban orchestras: the Ray Jones Symphony Orchestra and the Kirkwood Symphony Orchestra. At 14 years old, he played a series of children's concerts with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
When it came time to pick a place to go to college, Ziegler steered him toward the University of Miami where piano teacher Vince Maggio -- now regarded as one of the top jazz educators in the country -- had just begun teaching.
''Gerber was my first student. There was no question he was exceptionally gifted. Since the literature of jazz is passed on primarily by ear anyway, we worked mostly on teaching him to listen in detail and discussing what was going on within the music,'' Maggio says.
While at UM, Gerber met Ira Sullivan, the talented multi-instrumentalist and bandleader who was teaching a summer jazz workshop.
''Gerber and some of the other kids would come around after class and we'd go into the practice room and I'd put a tune up on the board. We'd stay and play pretty late until everyone learned it,'' remembers Sullivan.
''We'd play Coltrane's Giant Steps in all keys,'' Gerber says. ``We'd be playing till 2:30 in the morning and I had an 8 a.m. theory class. Needless to say, I was pretty tired for theory sometimes.''
Gerber attended UM from 1969 to 1975 but didn't graduate til he went back in 1999.
''I was more into playing the piano and practicing than I was finishing school,'' says Gerber.
In 1979, he headed for New York, but was only there for seven months before returning to Miami and getting married in 1980. He won't talk about the marriage; he says only that it ended in 1988.
His second stint in New York lasted a bit longer -- from 1982 to 1987. Gerber made the rounds at many of the top jazz clubs, playing with the great Jaco Pastorius off-and-on for several years at clubs like Birdland West, the Lonestar Cafe and the Five and Dime.
''Playing with Jaco was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life,'' Gerber says. 'Sometimes we'd be playing something incredible and we'd look at each other like, `how'd we do that?' ''
In 1985, he did a week at the Village Vanguard and recorded a live album there with legendary bassist Ron Carter, violinist Michael Urbaniak, and drummer Lenny White.
''It was Michael Urbaniak's gig, but Carter and White were on it. Playing with those two was like going to school for me,'' says Gerber, who recorded a handful of albums as a sideman and a duo fusion album, Gift Division, with Mark Nobel during his time in New York.
***
A short-lived relationship brought him back to Miami, a city that Gerber says is much easier for him to get around.
''I learned cane travel at the school for the blind,'' says Gerber. ``But the traffic in New York is a nightmare. The sound bounces off the buildings and I can't hear where I'm going.''
But Miami has never been much of a jazz town. He occasionally sat in with greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and James Moody when they passed through town, but Gerber -- like so many top-notch musicians -- has had to cobble together a living with occasional gigs at hotels and restaurants and the rare dedicated jazz venue such as the Van Dyke Cafe.
In 1991, some producers asked him to record an album, but Gerber -- whom Sullivan and Maggio both describe as an ardent jazz purist -- wasn't happy with the outcome.
''The producers wanted a certain sound for their label. Even though I kept trying for it to be more like me, they did not want that at all. It sounds more like elevator music, it's got no fire in it. And the song that does have fire, it's slick. It's got too many notes, '' he says. Ironically, the album is titled This Is Michael Gerber.
In 1995, Gerber, who grew up in a religious family, felt the Lord wanted him to go back to school, get his master's degree and teach. Not too long after, he re-married. He and his wife, Atlanta, have a music ministry, performing in several North Miami churches.
Now, Gerber is teaching private lessons and music at Miami Dade College, working on his master's degree at Florida International University and playing out when the situation is right. He has a steady Saturday night gig at the Village Cafe in Miami Shores, where he says he's been treated better than anywhere he's ever played, though it's not a jazz gig.
Thursday night's show at Arturo's, however, will be all jazz. Gerber will take the stage with bassist Rick Doll and drummer Andrew Atkinson for a performance by the man Maggio describes as ``one of the most spontaneously creative pianists in the country.''
When Michael Gerber -- who was born blind and partially deaf -- takes the stage at the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club Thursday night, it will be one of the increasingly rare opportunities to hear the talented pianist play.
''I enjoy playing at Arturo's,'' says Gerber, sitting at the piano in his North Miami home. ``I have two hearing aids -- they don't work well with echo. Compared to other clubs where the sound really bounces around, the acoustics there are not echoey and I can hear pretty well.''
Gerber was born with only one ear, and it began to go bad in 1995 when tissue began to grow over the joint of the stapes bone. Between the hearing loss in that ear and his other man-made ear, Gerber says he has only about 50 percent hearing.
One might assume that compromised hearing would be a career-ending disability for a musician, but it hasn't stopped Gerber from becoming one of South Florida's premier, if underappreciated, pianists. Over the course of his career, he has played with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Jaco Pastorius and Ron Carter.
''He's an unbelievable piano player -- his technique is on the level of an Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum,'' says trumpeter Sandoval. ``He has so many ideas, an endless imagination . . . the music he hears in his head is not the same thing the rest of us hear in our heads.''
***
Michael Dennis Gerber was born Jan. 19, 1950, in suburban St. Louis. He says he's not entirely sure why he was born blind and with only one ear.
''It probably had something to do with being born premature. I haven't investigated it,'' Gerber says.
He played his first tune on the piano at just 2 ½ years old.
''My mother had an old Wurlitzer spinning piano. And she used to sing Battle Hymn of the Republic -- that was the first song that everybody recognized that I was playing. I probably couldn't reach the octaves, but I played the right chords,'' Gerber says.
Sound is the primary way in which Gerber relates to the world; as a child he absorbed everything he could wrap his ears around.
``They got me a record player. My grandfather and grandmother made sure I listened to the Beethoven symphonies and Schubert symphonies and some opera like Aida and Madame Butterfly and musicals like Brigadoon and The King and I, South Pacific and Oklahoma . . . My grandmother used to buy me records, even when my parents objected -- when it was jazz records.''
Gerber attended the Missouri School for the Blind and studied classical piano privately with Dorothy Ziegler, a trombonist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra who was also a renowned opera conductor, vocal coach and pianist.
By the time he was 13, he had performed as a soloist with two small suburban orchestras: the Ray Jones Symphony Orchestra and the Kirkwood Symphony Orchestra. At 14 years old, he played a series of children's concerts with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
When it came time to pick a place to go to college, Ziegler steered him toward the University of Miami where piano teacher Vince Maggio -- now regarded as one of the top jazz educators in the country -- had just begun teaching.
''Gerber was my first student. There was no question he was exceptionally gifted. Since the literature of jazz is passed on primarily by ear anyway, we worked mostly on teaching him to listen in detail and discussing what was going on within the music,'' Maggio says.
While at UM, Gerber met Ira Sullivan, the talented multi-instrumentalist and bandleader who was teaching a summer jazz workshop.
''Gerber and some of the other kids would come around after class and we'd go into the practice room and I'd put a tune up on the board. We'd stay and play pretty late until everyone learned it,'' remembers Sullivan.
''We'd play Coltrane's Giant Steps in all keys,'' Gerber says. ``We'd be playing till 2:30 in the morning and I had an 8 a.m. theory class. Needless to say, I was pretty tired for theory sometimes.''
Gerber attended UM from 1969 to 1975 but didn't graduate til he went back in 1999.
''I was more into playing the piano and practicing than I was finishing school,'' says Gerber.
In 1979, he headed for New York, but was only there for seven months before returning to Miami and getting married in 1980. He won't talk about the marriage; he says only that it ended in 1988.
His second stint in New York lasted a bit longer -- from 1982 to 1987. Gerber made the rounds at many of the top jazz clubs, playing with the great Jaco Pastorius off-and-on for several years at clubs like Birdland West, the Lonestar Cafe and the Five and Dime.
''Playing with Jaco was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life,'' Gerber says. 'Sometimes we'd be playing something incredible and we'd look at each other like, `how'd we do that?' ''
In 1985, he did a week at the Village Vanguard and recorded a live album there with legendary bassist Ron Carter, violinist Michael Urbaniak, and drummer Lenny White.
''It was Michael Urbaniak's gig, but Carter and White were on it. Playing with those two was like going to school for me,'' says Gerber, who recorded a handful of albums as a sideman and a duo fusion album, Gift Division, with Mark Nobel during his time in New York.
***
A short-lived relationship brought him back to Miami, a city that Gerber says is much easier for him to get around.
''I learned cane travel at the school for the blind,'' says Gerber. ``But the traffic in New York is a nightmare. The sound bounces off the buildings and I can't hear where I'm going.''
But Miami has never been much of a jazz town. He occasionally sat in with greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and James Moody when they passed through town, but Gerber -- like so many top-notch musicians -- has had to cobble together a living with occasional gigs at hotels and restaurants and the rare dedicated jazz venue such as the Van Dyke Cafe.
In 1991, some producers asked him to record an album, but Gerber -- whom Sullivan and Maggio both describe as an ardent jazz purist -- wasn't happy with the outcome.
''The producers wanted a certain sound for their label. Even though I kept trying for it to be more like me, they did not want that at all. It sounds more like elevator music, it's got no fire in it. And the song that does have fire, it's slick. It's got too many notes, '' he says. Ironically, the album is titled This Is Michael Gerber.
In 1995, Gerber, who grew up in a religious family, felt the Lord wanted him to go back to school, get his master's degree and teach. Not too long after, he re-married. He and his wife, Atlanta, have a music ministry, performing in several North Miami churches.
Now, Gerber is teaching private lessons and music at Miami Dade College, working on his master's degree at Florida International University and playing out when the situation is right. He has a steady Saturday night gig at the Village Cafe in Miami Shores, where he says he's been treated better than anywhere he's ever played, though it's not a jazz gig.
Thursday night's show at Arturo's, however, will be all jazz. Gerber will take the stage with bassist Rick Doll and drummer Andrew Atkinson for a performance by the man Maggio describes as ``one of the most spontaneously creative pianists in the country.''