This year, because of the pandemic, musicians and their audiences have needed to find new ways to share music. For some it’s been drive-in concerts or streaming sessions online. In New Orleans, we caught up with a concert on wheels, known as the Piano on a Truck, which in fact, it is! This evening, the man at the 88s was Cincinnati native and now New Orleans pianist Josh Paxton.
Josh Paxton: “Yeah, the Piano on a Truck, a recent phenomenon that has taken off, much to my delight. Jacques Ferland, who I knew casually before, stuck a grand piano in the back of his truck and drives it around, and he has different piano players play it, and I’m one of them. It sounds kind of goofy when you first hear about it; I know I was certainly skeptical, but what it has turned into has been really great. In these days, to finish a song and hear applause of any kind, even if it’s one person, is pretty miraculous, but to hear it all around–
Nick Spitzer: 360 baby!
JP: Yeah it’s like playing an arena, a very small arena. So it’s nice to be back in the old neighborhood and you know–
NS: Elevated on the truck making music.
JP: Yeah and spread a little joy I hope.
Jacques Ferland: My name is Jacques Ferland, and I got into the piano business as a hobby. I’d buy old pianos, fix them up, sell them, tune them, and then I moved to New Orleans, and I turned it into a semi-permanent job. The first thing I did when they closed the venues is put the piano on a truck and started driving around and having little mini concerts in front of people’s places. We did a birthday early on in March when this all went down, when the COVID thing went down. A photographer came by for the paper, took a picture and put it in the paper, and before I knew it I was getting calls, yeah just like that.
NS: You had to install a second phone line to get all the messages.
JF: Exactly I even have a secretary.
NS: Amazing what a piano on a truck can do for somebody.
JF: I know right, I’m super rich!
NS: How many piano players have you got? I see one truck and one piano but do you have multiple players?
JF: Yeah I mean we’ve got about at least ten people have played it so far, but on rotation I’ve got about three or four right now.
NS: You sound like the coach in baseball.
JF: Yeah totally.
NS: But of course New Orleans is, as much as it is a drum town and a trumpet town, it is a piano town.
JF: It’s very much a piano town, and it’s one of the many reasons why I love here because people love hearing real live piano.
NS: And getting it out on the streets where cars pass and the public can be seen and heard makes it a whole different thing than being inside a nightclub.
JF: Yeah I mean it’s a different experience. It’s not always perfect but hey if you want to hear it, this is pretty well the only venue you’re gonna hear live piano right now.
NS: The truck is tricked out; I see the lights, I see the piano. Is the piano just sitting in there? Do you have it braced?
JF: Yeah I mean I’ve got a 4x6 replacing the front legs, and then that’s bolted into the sides, and it’s obviously bolted into the piano from there, but the back leg is still on, and I’ve got straps. It’s not going anywhere. I have a ’72 International pickup truck that just needs brakes, which is a small detail, but as soon as I can get that thing on the road, I’ll have two.
NS: Tell me about getting Josh out here tonight.
JF: I mean Josh has been playing on the piano for a couple of months now.
NS: On the piano on the truck.
JF: Yeah, sorry on the piano on the truck.
NS: I think he’s played a little while longer than a couple months.
JF: Yeah you’re right. He’s great. He’s very entertaining. I had one birthday party where they were like, at the last minute, “We have this singer that wants to sing with him,” and she brought charts, and they pulled it off. They’d never played before together, and it was awesome.
To hear the full program, tune in Saturdays at 5 and Sundays at 6 on WWNO, or listen at americanroutes.org.