ON PIANIST NICK ANTHAN AND HIS "KEYS TO PLEASE THE CHICKADEES"

BY TONY PORCO

A prodigy is someone who seems almost born with extraordinary

talent, who has achieved mastery in a given field by his or her
teens that would take the rest of us a lifetime. Picasso, Mozart,
and Mendelssohn leap immediately to mind. In our twentysomething
generation in America, the best example may be the poet Jendi
Reiter.
Nick Anthan, by this definition, was not a prodigy. He was
more reminiscent of someone like Van Gogh, whose early work showed
excellent potential but who did not reach full brilliance until
well after youth. Anthan, a pianist from suburban Maryland who died
in a swimming accident at the age of 20 on May 23, 1992, had
similar early promise, and lacked only the opportunity to reach the
later stage. One senses that had he lived, we would have been
blessed with an ultimate masterwork. Instead, we have only the
potential-laden early work, a single cassette called "Keys to
Please the Chickadees," which he recorded by himself in December
1991 and which was released only at the Tower Records in Rockville.
Fortunately for those of us who must, as Wordsworth put it, find
strength in what remains behind, this early work does not merely
have potential, but is a complete world in and of itself, like many
good and great works of art. Anthan does not dazzle us with
precocious virtuosity, but he does let us into a world, a full and
vibrant one, for the forty minutes that this cassette lasts.
There are fourteen instrumental pieces on this remarkable
recording, all written by Anthan or cowritten with his brother,
mostly recorded with acoustic or electric piano with occasional
synthesizer overdubs. This is not counting the deadpan spoken
introductions Anthan gives each piece, done to the accompaniment of
a ticking clock, which prevent the tape from getting excessively
serious. Anthan--obviously having a lot of fun--jokes, tells tall
stories, belches, and gives sometimes convoluted explanations of
the origins of each composition idea. The opening speech for the
first piece, "Keys," which is also the performer’s introduction to
his tape, is wonderfully typical: "You see, it's really all about
time. I got 50-minute tapes, and I got 37 minutes of music, so I'm
forced to do one of those Bob Marley things where you talk in
between the songs. Since this is mostly a piano recording, I
decided to start off with something a bit...weird."
With that (and at the moment he's done talking) Anthan
launches into "Keys," and indeed it is not very typical of what
comes later--a swirling, dense electronic piece that sounds like it
came from a spy movie. The track that follows, "Picnic," gives the
listener a better idea of what the rest of the tape will be like.
"When I think of picnics, I think of summertime, and I think of
peanut butter sandwiches that get mushy, and I think I would like
to go on a picnic. This next song is called 'Picnic.'" The piece
itself is like a glossy old picture of one's mates on an outing,
like a sunny suburban afternoon which turns overcast as it creates
memories. It could be hideously sentimental, but Anthan's laconic
introduction and the deft touch of his playing prevent it. "Last
Chapter," an old but still-loved project from an earlier recording,
comes next, and has a similar sound. (Curiously, although Anthan
talks about earlier recordings on the tape, nothing else has been
released or is known to the salespeople at Tower.)
Anthan has little to say about his mother, other than that she
is a piano player like himself and that she "likes pigs," something
he mentions twice. "Mother" is a shade weaker than the previous
very strong pieces; over Anthan's usual basic piano melody, he
overdubs a string-like synth part which comes off as a little
pompous. On a fundamental and abstract level, however, the piece
works. I had the eerie feeling that I had met Mrs. Anthan by the
end of the first listening. The feeling one gets is reminiscent of
Brancusi's abstract marble "portrait" of one of his dealers, Agnes
Meyer; one gets a feeling of the dignity, poise, and slight elitism
of Ms. Meyer even though the work bears only a very slight
resemblance to a human form. Another comparison might be drawn with
the guitarist Leo Kottke, like Anthan a musician concentrating on
solo instrumentals that he writes himself. In one of Kottke's
recent compositions, "The Late Zone," he plays hilariously sluggish
chords to imitate his father, whose favorite hobby was sleep.
The inspiration for the next piece, "Pitch Control," was,
according to Nick, an inoperative pitch control on one of his old
electric keyboards (which, of course, he demonstrates). The piece
reflects these origins better than one expected, being just
slightly more eccentric and off-center than the preceding ones.
The side closes out with "Blues Jam for You," a fairly
straightforward boogie-woogie stomper (as the name implies) well
suited to the parties where Anthan says he performs it, and "Sane
Sonata." Nick was high enough on his talent to compare himself
(facetiously) to Mozart before launching into the final piece. The
music following this assertion, appropriately, is precious and
stereotypically classical-sounding, making fun of Nick's childish
arrogance and charming us at the same time. (The best in this vein
is yet to come.)
Like most of us, Anthan had ambivalent feelings about the
panhandlers that sometimes seem to be all over the DC area: "I
don't want to be mean to bums, but sometimes, I wish...they
wouldn't bother me," he tells us overdramatically. This comes
through in "Get Out of My Face, Bum;" the title smacks of punk
bravado, but in fact this is a searching, uncertain work. Following
it is "No Name" (because he couldn't think of one), a "bad-ass"
Joplin-ish ragtime piece that Anthan credits to his brother, also
a musician and composer.
The next two pieces are in an entirely different vein. Both
very serious (even if the introductions aren't), they are
astoundingly memorable and approach brilliance. Anthan had an
unmistakable talent for coming up with melodies that linger, and it
is proven here. The genesis of "BJ" was a Billy Joel song from The
Stranger (most likely "She's Always a Woman"); Anthan decided that
he could "(do) more with" a snippet of that song's melody. The
result is such a beautiful, unforgettable tune that we soon forgive
him for his presumption. "My Love," a very quick composition
according to the introduction, similarly stays in my head well
after its long, majestic fadeout. Once again, as with "Picnic,"
Anthan's laconic introductions and unpretentiousness prevent the
earnestness of his music from becoming sentimentality, while their
beguiling beauty makes them something more than just a slacker's
inside joke.
As we near the end, Anthan dusts off his synthesizer once
again. "Angels" is a testimony to its author's deeply held
religious beliefs; it bears a strong resemblance to the earlier
"Mother" with a slightly pompous string-synth overdub. "Reach," the
only song with no acoustic piano, is a theme-and-variation piece
like many of the others. The sound is quite different, though;
there is an aquatic feel, as though it were some kind of experiment
by Jimmy Buffett, or a soundtrack to a documentary movie about
sailboating or sea turtles. It's likable and relaxing, although it
does go on a little too long.
The tape ends with its finest moment. "To Please" originated
with an incident at Anthan's summer camp in which he was asked to
come up with a spontaneous composition in front of an audience. The
result seems to indicate that Anthan did his best work under
pressure; it is a stunning piece of minimalism, austere and
immensely dignified, a Philip Glass-like evocation of a distant
past or a glorious future. When it finally fades all the way out,
and Nick is confessing that he does not have the words with which
to end the tape, I have the same thought. Eerily, the piece evokes
the loss I feel, not being able to hear anything more from such a
gifted young man; however, it also neatly encapsulates the luck I
feel for having found this artifact of his existence here.

--Tony Porco, 1995 (Revised 1998)