There is certainly much to be said about the woman who built up a $40 million foie gras business in a country where cheese whiz and peanut butter are the cracker toppings of choice. I, however, cannot say much at all, since the woman in question was unable to make the interview we had scheduled.
And so there I was at the Ludwig Bemelman Bar of the Carlyle hotel, a meeting place she had chosen. The two-strands of gargantuan silver costume pearls I had sported for the occasion were tugging on my neck as I sat alone, daunted by the menu of $25 martinis.
Enter Earl. Sliding onto the tufted leather bench in front of him, Earl Rose sat down to his piano and switched on the lamp above it, suddenly riling the clown riding a donkey and the bouquet of red balloons which were painted on its shade. In a painting to his left, two hares in spotted trousers were sipping gin tonics under the shade of a fringed umbrella, as a monkey in striped green tails jotted down their lunch order.
“Earl, did you have a good time at the Grammys?” said a passing waiter working the cocktail hour shift, his salt and pepper pompadour glazed black and gleaming as redolently as his white coat, with an emblazoned red “B” on its left lapel.
“I did. Sting was good, but I really liked that Corrine Bailey Rae,” responded Rose, setting his fingers to the ivories of the Steinway B before him, and rumbling out the beginnings of “The Girl from Ipanema.” Noticing that I had been listening in on his conversation, Rose said, “Hi.”
He paused and smiled an orienting smile, “How are you this evening?” If my table were any closer to the piano, I could have been sitting on its lid. After I introduced myself and explained my situation, Rose pointed out that my table’s proximity to the piano didn’t make it the best place to conduct an interview, though, as I soon discovered, it was the ideal place to interview the pianist.
Rose has been a piano player at the Bemelman Bar since he had a full head of hair, “a beautiful head of hair — all blonde,” he said, as the yellow buzzing spotlights above the piano rendered the keys as glossy as his head. Born in New York City to two champion ballroom dancers, Rose started playing the piano when he was seven. He has arranged and composed music for a sundry array of movies and television shows ranging from “Captain Kangaroo” to “Sex and the City.” He was a conductor on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” and between 1990 and 1995 created a musical library for “All My Children.”
“I did all sorts of source music for the soaps,” he told me, while taking a small break from the piano and coming over to my table for a chat. “Sharp tension, light tension, neutral, medium, dramatic, action, romantic, seductive—that was my favorite,” he added with a puckish grin. “It was a full-time job, eventually I left because I wanted a bit more flexibility.”
These days, between his bi-weekly stint at the Carlyle (Sunday and Monday nights), and the dappled composing jobs he takes, Rose said he’s “set.” Financially speaking, this translates to something like being wealthy enough to live a dog-walking distance from Central Park, but not so extravagantly as to break a cell phone contract and incur the associated fees. (Cingular is the only carrier that has no reception at the Bemelman Bar, and Rose can’t wait to switch to another carrier).
“I spend most of my day on the phone,” said Rose, “securing upcoming jobs—I have agents, but they can’t take care of everything.” Rose returns to the piano. Dressed in black from neck to toe, Rose brings definition to an otherwise disjointed hotel bar ambiance. In spite of the aspiring Anna Nicole who twirls on a stool, tantalizing convalescents with her new set of “g sharps,” and the Beyoncé look-alike downing chips and a pisco sour at a disconcertingly fast pace in a dark corner, Rose is serene. His head circulates slowly like the steady wheel of a cruise ship, as he plays a piece he’d composed for the movie,“White Oleander.”
As the night wears on, a couple with two children who look like refugees from the Von Trapp family (pre Frauline Maria), sit down to some mini-burgers, and a bleach-blonde woman whose botox made it look like she’s had a very unfortunate allergic reaction to her lipstick, comes over to the piano. “Earl, I’ve got my daughter with me tonight. Do you think you could play a few of these?” She hands him a napkin with four songs scribbled on it.
“Sure,” he said, handing her back the napkin. Minutes later, a man who has just bought a home (and a restaurant) in St. Tropez, requests “My Sweet Valentine.” “Or, ‘My Funny Valentine,’” said Rose, after the man has walked away. “It happens all the time, but at least it shows they’re interested in the music.”
That same man then heads over to a waiter. “I need a table for Wednesday night.” “No problem,” replied the waiter. “We have plenty of room on Wednesdays.” “Yeah, but I need the table,” replied the man. “I’m having dinner with Judi Collins — she’s a fan.” Immune to the ruckus of rattling ice and desperate egos, Rose rocks his left knee as if bouncing an invisible child.
His fingers scuttle like hairless tarantulas over the keys, flutter in place like fearless hummingbirds, then slow to a delicate slide, as if he were writing his name on a frosted window. The lisping sounds of a cluster of Spanish tourists are no threat to the melody he produces as his fingers snap fiercely like hungry alligators, then stride like prize-winning race horses over “They Can’t Take that Away from Me.”
Rose dims the spotlights above his piano (which when fully lit, buzz like an 18th century sewing machine), and disappears into a side room to switch on the background music that plays while he is not playing. He then returns to my table. As a bit of a joke, I tell Rose that the newspaper industry is losing business because everyone is listening to their Ipods instead of reading like they used to. “Maybe,” he said, “But people are just buying by the song, so many songs aren’t even heard—they just listen to the same ones over and over. Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa” was on side B of a record and was never heard until some DJ in Ohio realized it was better than ‘Unforgettable.’” (“Mona Lisa” was then #1 for eight consecutive weeks in 1950)
A man who composes music for “Stardust: The Bette Davis Story,” just as easily as for “America’s Next Top Model,” Rose believes in variety, despite the industry’s tendency towards edited homogenization. “Artists nowadays aren’t worried about the songs—it’s all the sound. Their music is edited until it sounds perfect, but perfect isn’t art.”
Shrugging his shoulders demurely and glancing over to my notebook, Rose asks casually, “Is that coffee?” “No, it’s tea — Earl Grey,” I said. “You mean you’ve been sitting here all this time drinking Earl Grey with Earl Rose?” Rose smiles, rises from the table, and reassumes his exclusive seat on the stool behind the ivory bar.