‘Pure Piano Moods’ back in action
Singers are known to make comebacks, but it’s hard to think of a pianist in this country who has done so. Either they keep working, playing or teaching, or they simply disappear into obscurity once they stop. Mehroon Wahab, a precocious child pianist who blossomed into an entertainer much in demand in the 1970s, is one who managed to break free of self-imposed obscurity.
Her come back recital ‘Pure Piano Moods’, staged at the Goethe Institute last week, amounted to a very pleasant musical evening with a wide-ranging repertoire that seemed to have a little of everything – from Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Chopin to Gershwin, Glen Miller, Barbara Streisand, The Beatles and the Bee Gees.
Come back performances can be very hard on the nerves. If the audience remembers you, they would expect the old standard, even an improvement over that. If they don’t know you, you just have to rise up to their expectations. Mehroon Wahab managed to carry it off with aplomb, without a false note, her left foot tapping the beat to the jazzier tunes.
This sort of medley can be very refreshing if done rightly, because the piano recitals you see in Colombo veer towards the classical. There is a demand for performers of lighter music, such as jazz and pop. Technically, jazz piano can be as demanding as anything classical, and many jazz artists show classical influences. One hopes that Mehroon Wahab will continue playing her kind of music in the years to come.
She began playing piano at the age of three, after watching her mother, a qualified music teacher, play classical compositions. By the age of five, she was playing songs such as ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Unforgettable.’ Discovering a natural talent to play by ear, she became the youngest member (at age seven) of a seven-member band which included her two brothers. At age nine, her rendition of ‘Autumn Leaves’ won her the Runner Up award at the 1968 Elasto Talent Quest. When she was just 15, she had her own 15-minute weekly radio programme hosted by the SLBC, accompanied by Ralph Menezies on double bass and Vernon McLeod on drums.
Soon after leaving school, Mehroon found herself in great demand by the top hotels of Colombo, and she could play over 600 songs without any notation. Performing with leading bands, including the Peter Prins Combo, she became a top-notch jazz pianist and was described by a German journalist as “the young girl who played astoundingly wonderful music by heart, with poignant expression and virtuosity.”
The programme was enlivened by short quips by husband Shafeeq Wahab, whose anecdotes showed considerable knowledge and passion about world music.
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