91-year old ragtime piano player accompanied by me and my brother

I was at my Mom’s rest home a few weeks ago and walked in on a little lady sitting at the piano playing for the old folks. (This is in the wing for elderly and challenged residents.) It was ragtime music and great. I learned who she was and called her up. Did she want me with my bass and my brother with his banjo to sit in with her? “Oh, yes, that would be great!”

This is the 2nd time we’ve played together. Lew taped this last Tuesday, and the joint was rockin’. (We haven’t even practiced together yet.) These are songs that I used to play with my quartet in high school, a lot of them from the ’20s, so I was right at home.

I’m working at my bass playing and Bob is pretty good on the banjo. Phoebe is actually thrilled. I told her we’re just enhancing her. I’m calling us the Phoebe Babo trio. She says when she was a girl, she played the drums. She started on the piano later on in life, and she’s just got it. She is a grand lady. The 80-90-year-olds love us. On Tuesday, as soon as we started playing, people came in from all over. The caregiver women were dancing, my mom’s caregiver Clara was shakin’ it. A lady named Jane knows the words to every song. Peggy was 88 that day and celebrating with wolf whistles at the end of each song.