Piano

The 80-plus-year-old piano sat worn, battered and useless in the sunroom of the Summit School for several years. Its broken keys and worn-out pedals made it unusable by the music teacher who visited Summit, a Delaware County Intermediate Unit school for profound and severely impaired children. Since no money was available for repairs, Summit principal Marilyn Royfe said, the instrument seemed headed for the trash dump, and the students seemed resigned to listening to electronic music.

He is a drummer, but he also plays the piano. He is African American, but is also quick to acknowledge his American Indian and European roots. Jack DeJohnette, musician, is also a complex human being, a man whose musicianship and spirituality has led him into a myriad of directions. For the last several years, DeJohnette, who lives in upstate New York, has been exploring the culture of the Cataraugus Seneca people. "Native Americans have a connection with the land and the spiritual aspect of things that seems to be an element that is missing in many Western societies," said DeJohnette, whose heritage includes Seminole and Crow.

From all evidences, Cecil Taylor has, of late, been in one of his mute periods. Not on piano, mind you. Would he be appearing this evening in the "Jazz Live" Series of the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum to show his vacation slides? To say Taylor is a virtuoso of the pianoforte is to say that Einstein was a numbers cruncher. The boundaries of Taylor's pianistics confound description. He gets things out of a piano that not even a piano knows are in there. He not only delights and amazes his audiences, he overwhelms them.

Christine Malone Kline is adamant that everyone can make music. Her husband, John C. Kline, believes that everyone can learn to draw. The couple, residents of Devon, and friend Chris Kennedy are putting their beliefs on the line by creating Klinestudios.com, a business that provides music and art lessons via the Internet. "This is a way for children, or adults, to learn the basics: how to read music, the correct way to hold a pencil when drawing," Christine Kline said. "We are not stealing students from traditional teachers.

"Defendant Zola" was warned by the Internal Disputes Resolution Committee, then fined $600, and now that duly elected body is taking the intransigent tenant to court, seeking a permanent injunction to "alleviate the nuisance. " The long-smoldering conflict illustrates how living in close quarters presents the same challenges for sophisticated and affluent folks as for the poor residents of public housing projects. "Defendant Zola" is 80-year-old Ethel Zola, who lives in a second-floor condominium unit in the Rittenhouse Savoy on Rittenhouse Square in Center City.

John Tesh jokes? You'd better believe the man's heard a thousand of them. "One recent newspaper headline characterized me as 'Bland Ambition,' " related the former "Entertainment Tonight" host/-hunk, sometime sports commentator, celebrity hubby (he's married to actress Connie Selleca) and now almost full-time pop instrumentalist, bandleader and record company executive. Sunday, Tesh shows off that artistic side in a performance at the Blockbuster Sony Music Entertainment Centre in Camden.

It's Oscar week at Highland High and everyone's a critic, including Alex DeAngelis, South Jersey's best high school tennis player. Remember the movie Hoop Dreams from a few years back, the documentary on two boys growing up playing basketball? Remember the endless interviews of basketball players, from peewee leaguers to NBA stars, who said watching Hoop Dreams had felt like watching their own lives? There was a movie in this year's Oscar race that did the same thing for DeAngelis, but not because he's a tennis player.

For Ed Rose, music is the thing. From the time he was 9 and taking flute lessons until now, at 72, teaching piano and voice lessons, music has been his life. Through high school and work as a claims adjuster, in a job with a credit company, and throughout his military career - including both the Army and the Navy - it was there. Even during service on a battleship, playing tag with Russian submarines in the North Atlantic, he found time for it. He intends to keep playing and performing music as long as he can. Why?

The Boston Red Sox are tearing up the American League, winning nearly 75 percent of their games, pounding the ball at a collective .300 clip, posting the best pitching stats in the circuit. No wonder their fans are miserable. The Red Sox last bestrode the baseball world during the Woodrow Wilson era, so their fans expect the worst. Maybe ace hurler Pedro Martinez blows out his arm for good. Or shortstop Nomar Garciaparra shatters his wrist again. Or the Green Monster wall falls on Rickey Henderson's head.

Gone from the Barnes Foundation: a Steinway piano, a work by Henri Matisse, a ceramic vase by filmmaker Jean Renoir, a collection of spirituals on sheet music - "hundreds of things are missing," executive director Kimberly Camp said Wednesday. But it turns out that there's a piano sitting in Barbara and James Abbott's living room in Ardmore that sounds a lot like the one Camp is talking about. Steinway? Check. Came from the Barnes? Check. The Abbotts bought the piano from the Barnes in 1996 after the foundation placed an advertisement in the Main Line Times to sell the instrument.