23: Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Mid-City L.A.

23: Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Mid-City L.A.
Designed by: Ray McCray
Piano type: Console
Playability: Good
Weather: 75°F, sunny, hazy
How I got here: Car (4/29); Bicycle (5/3)

Just a mile up La Brea and a bit east on Washington was another street piano, in front of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center. There were few people walking by, and there was a car parked on the street, turns out it was someone visiting the medical marijuana dispensary across the street.

I had been to this center, named after the area's former city councilman who served from the mid-'80s to the late '90s, just this past January to attend a city council redistricting hearing. The theatre inside seats about 400.

When I arrived, there were two women talking to a man, all of them in their Sunday best, standing in front of the center. I was tinkering around on the piano until the man took out some folding chairs from his SUV. I asked, "Oh, is there something going on here today?" and he said, "We're just here to listen to the piano!" Turns out they organized their own pop-up concert between 2 and 4 p.m.

The man's name was Charles Dickerson, director of the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, who is doing a concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on July 8. I also told him about Make Music Los Angeles on June 21 and invited his orchestra to come participate (fliers were handed out of course...).

There were about half a dozen people here, (including one woman who I occasionally sub for as a pianist at a nearby church), a few of them played, and two women pulled up later, one of them was a singer-songwriter named Taylor Thompson, making her own tour of the street pianos who sang one of her originals.

Charles played some standards, including "Misty," and some of us sang along.

The design of the piano itself paid tribute to jazz and blues legends. To pay tribute to a local institution who had his recording studio down the street, I sang and played Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind."

Immediately afterward I went to an L.A. Riots Commemoration Program (Saigu) in Downtown L.A. which was organized by faith groups in the Korean community and had Mayor Villaraigosa, Rev. Cecil Murray and Edward James Olmos in attendance. I was told to get there by 3 p.m. - no worries though, It was basically just a straight shot down Washington at Grand Ave.

The original video performance was accidentally erased, so I had to return here on May 3 to re-record my song (I think I did a much better job the second time around anyway). Here's "Georgia On My Mind":