![]() ![]() When he comes around to talking about his father, though, he lingers in the memory for a while. Jimmy Yargeau photoįraser explains that his mother was one of 13 children, and that he’s named after his mother’s favourite brother, Paul – an RCMP officer. The street piano has now been put away, but you can hear Fraser play at the Ivanhoe open mic most Sundays, starting at 4 p.m. The 83-year-old pianist easily recites the names and details of old employers, family friends, his stint in the army, evenings at the ANZA Club – another Main Street-area open mic haunt – and his exploits performing on the radio and as a church organist. In addition to keeping him spry, his fingers stumbling only slightly as he stops to whip off a lively rendition of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” his craft is clearly also keeping him sharp. And I don’t want to die till I’m about 150 years of age,” he says, with a laugh. The way I look at it, the day you stop learning is the day you die. ![]() “I read music because I want to learn new music. There was one day, he says, where he made $60 – but that required him to play for almost eight hours on the street.Īs he pats his shirt looking for something to smoke, Fraser explains that he doesn’t practice as much as he used to, but he still regularly buys and reads music. He hums it as he recalls the tune, a smattering of silver rings catching the light as his hands move.įraser is a regular at this spot when the pianos are out (he plays at the Ivanhoe Pub open mic on Sundays, as well), making his way down from his nearby apartment – itself stocked with a Korg electric piano and roughly 700 pieces of sheet music – to earn a little money each day for “cigarettes and booze.”Ī handful of loonies, toonies and a sole five dollar bill already line his lucky leather hat. He doesn’t remember the type of piano he first played, but the first piece of music he ever learned was a melodic piece called “The Clock.” On a sunny day recently, his back turned to the keys as he takes a break to chat, the octogenarian explains that he started taking formal piano lessons in 1949, but his education started earlier, on the family farm growing up in Saskatchewan, under the tutelage of his self-taught and talented sisters. Paul Peter Fraser sits in the square to share his love of music. The piano sits in the square as part of the seasonal Pianos on the Street program. Chances are, if you walked along the seawall near Spyglass Place this summer, you heard him: an older gentleman, dark sunglasses shielding his eyes, walker parked practically at his side, pressing ragtime classics and classical music out of the keys of a battered but friendly looking outdoor piano. ![]()
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December 2022
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