I called him Nic.  Pecola (his wife), his friends, and everyone who played music with him, knew him as Rod.  But his Hispanic students always addressed him as Maestro, a Spanish word meaning teacher, professor, a man eminently skilled in practice, a title of respect, a title of dignity, a master.  And Nic was all that. 

     Many great artists have walked this planet over centuries and millennia, individuals born with a talent or ability that demands such devotion, time, practice, that to honor the endeavor requires a life of great selfishness.  And yet the art itself is meant to be shared, it is hard to imagine an act of creation that does not yearn to be released and received by others, hard to imagine an artist who does not have a listener, a participant, as part of the core experience of her or his craft. 

     When I met Nic, who was in his early seventies at the time, he was teaching in a small basement room on 53rd Street west of 8th Avenue in New York City.  A small upright piano and stool, a green chalkboard, a couple chairs, were the furnishings, laughter and music of incredible majesty the inhabitants.  A handful of students passed through, and Nic would commute by subway from his home near Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to greet his young friends, and share his knowledge.  

      But I think Nic entered his most sacred world when he sat to play, each time opening himself up to the spirit of music that had grown within over his then long life, flowing through his hands and fingers as he passed the melodies, rhythms, and harmonies through the relaxation of his body and arms, the weight of gravity, and the phrasing of his breath, into the keys, hammers, vibrating strings, and wood of his instrument.

Nic shared his understanding of harmony and composition with his students, shared the stories of his life that brought him to the United States from Panama in 1928 to play with and amongst the great 20th century jazz musicians, and energetically embraced an attempt to preserve his work so that a wider audience could benefit.   For 12 years Nic and I, with the help of others, worked with limited resources, an electric typewriter, hand-held cassette tape recorder, a video camera, and as the computer age dawned, a dual-floppy disc computer, and at the end, an electronic keyboard and midi software.  A great deal of raw material was collected, and it exists today in various stages of completion.  Tapes with teachings and stories remain to be transcribed, arrangements to be translated into sheet music, audio and videotapes from which music can be culled, midi songfiles from which the keys to his sophisticated melodies and harmonies can be unlocked.

And now the age of cyberspace offers the next step in this work, the opportunity to expose Nic's music, teaching, and life stories, to those with a mouse and a screen.  Working through this website is a major step that I know would have thrilled Nic.  Refined editing will come in time, but I will not hesitate to throw some of this work out to the wind, scratchy recordings, blemished music cuts, partially edited writings and soundbites.  It is my hope that you may experience the joy and life that is expressed by Nic. 

After finishing playing a song, Nic would pause, fold his hands in his lap, eyes and head downcast for a moment as the final sounds sunk in and dissipated.  One time he looked up and said, "I must have a good soul, because everything I play sounds so pretty."  An honest moment from a man who had earned it.