Martin E. Bexler

I first heard “Peg” in the summer of 1978, in a quiet room with good lighting.

I was twelve, and my braces were being adjusted in an orthodontist’s office on Speedway Boulevard in Tucson. The ceiling speaker was not loud. I did not hear a popular song. I heard a chord, a bright, close cluster placed under the chorus, and I understood that a chord could be built, as a restoration is built, and that someone had built this one on purpose.1

I decided that afternoon to become two things: someone who understood that chord, and someone who worked in a quiet room with good lighting. I managed the second first.

I studied classical piano until I was seventeen, through the Grade 8 examination of the conservatory syllabus, which I passed, and stopped there in order to complete the prerequisites for dental school. I attended dental school in the Midwest. In 2003 I purchased an established practice in Moon Valley, where I remain. For some thirty years I listened to these records on reference headphones and did not attempt to play them.

In the autumn of 2009, the house being quiet, I sat down to voice the opening of “Aja” with two hands. The arrangement was completed in 2015. It is recorded in the arrangement log at 1,140 hours.

Interpretation

This is not a tribute act. A pianist who performs Brahms is not a Brahms tribute. He is an interpreter, and his obligation is to the score, not to a particular recording of it. My obligation is to the songs.

The songs of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen carry two sensibilities, which I think of as the harmonic and the sardonic. It is generally assumed that they required two people. I hold that they can be held in one practice, with sufficient discipline, and the program is presented on that basis.2

I am sometimes asked whether the arrangements are original. They are original in the sense that a restoration is original. The tooth is not mine. The crown is. Each arrangement begins by removing only what must be removed, and then restores the remainder to function. What is restored is mine, and is credited accordingly.

It should be said that the program has been presented in the Valley continuously since the Vesper Room engagement of June 16, 2012. It is, in that sense, the Valley’s original.

Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017. The program has continued.

The room

In 2013 the guest house was converted into a rehearsal room, with bass traps, a floated floor, a humidity controller for the piano and a pair of reference monitors placed by laser.3 My wife, Elaine, a landscape architect, designed the room. Guests now stay at a hotel.

The instrument is an 88-key weighted stage piano on a stand welded to my specifications, with a thirteen-note pedalboard for the bass, played in socks. The additional parts are prepared in the rehearsal room and reproduced from a laptop. The equipment is labeled. The technical rider gives particulars.

The practice

I do not discuss performance work at the practice, and the practice is not discussed here, except to say that engagements are scheduled around its hours. Please do not contact the practice regarding engagements.

Bexler Restorative Dentistry, Moon Valley. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 7:30–4:30 · Wednesday 8:00–12:00 · Friday by appointment.