The first thing pianist Jonathan Davis talks about isn’t his music.
“I know Gram told me not to say anything about it, but I like gameshows,” Davis says. “I was just listening to “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
His great-grandmother, Carolyn Clark, giggles. “He likes anything with big wins. That and music are his favorite pastimes.”
They greet me as I step off the porch decorated with a church pew and an old bathtub still as white as the day it was made. Their historic bungalow on Mahoney Street is peaceful. Wide windows fill the rooms with calming light. Each couch throw pillow is deliberately placed. I’m afraid my clumsy steps will mess it up.
Davis lingers in the dining room, close to his bedroom door. The 23-year-old doesn’t venture into the living room where I entered. It’s full of obstacles.
He leads me to his room, a haven from the family pet’s barking. The bedsheets are pulled tight and neat. Clutter has been hidden in the vintage armoire. The piano rests in front of two large windows, chiffon drapes softening the early morning light from a springtime Florida sun.
“I hear the music before I get up in the morning,” Clark says. “He lives and breathes music.”
Davis sits at what they call his big bench. He plays.
The notes dance along the rays from the sky as his fingers tickle the keys of the Clavinova. We get lost in his music.
I close my eyes, alone with the sound. The vibrations resonate in my eardrums, moving my soul. At that moment, the pitch is all I have in this world. My other senses are muted.
Is this how Davis feels every time he plays?
Is he suspended weightless in an abyss he knows nothing about with music the only thing anchoring the reality of his universe, of his existence?
I want to feel what he feels when he plays. I keep my eyes closed.
Davis’ are open. But it doesn’t make a difference for him.
He is blind. And autistic.
HIS FIRST GALA
Before there was music, there was food.
Davis was a picky eater.
“The hardest part with him was getting him to eat,” Clark says.
She settles herself into a hugging, leather recliner next to Davis’ piano. He keeps playing.
“Everything was fine until it was time to eat,” Clark says.
She has raised him since he was a baby, taking him from the strawberry fields of Florida to a rural farm in Clinch Mountain, Tennessee, and back again.
Until he was 3, Davis would gag on his food and throw up on his tray. He didn’t like textures. To this day, he loathes pretzels, potato chips and anything with a hard crunch. Clark took him to a doctor.
“Dr. Pennington,” Davis says, still making music.
He remembers names. Lots of them. And numbers.
Turns out, nothing was wrong with Davis’ stomach. Davis just didn’t know how to chew. The revelation hit Clark when she visited the Tennessee School for the Blind and saw mothers carrying blenders onto campus with their children. They, too, would mush up the meals so that their children could eat.
“What is ‘chew’ or ‘bite?’” Clark asks. “You wouldn’t know if you can’t see. Who would ever think he didn’t know how to chew?”
So she coached him by slicing up apples — galas are his favorite — and waiting for him to open his mouth. She would place a slice halfway in and let him chomp down to take it.
Good boy. Bite.
It was one of the first important life lessons Clark taught him. And she continues to push his limits throughout his life, despite his disabilities.
88 KEYS, 10 FINGERS,
NO PROBLEM
“He’s always loved music,” Clark says. “Even the jingles on the commercials.”
She couldn’t ignore his passion for tunes. His first experience with structured lessons was the Angels Choir at Spires Chapel in Tennessee. The small, mountain church’s choir was mentored by the pastor’s family, who had their own traveling singing group.
“The Redeemed Quartet,” Davis says. He might be playing the piano beside us, but he is still listening to his Gram and me, hanging on every word and adding in his own stories and commentary.
“The biggest problem for them was to get the kids to sing,” Clark says. “They never had trouble getting Jonathan to sing. If you look at pictures of him from that time, his head is back, and his mouth in an ‘O.’”
The church gave him a keyboard — his first.
Clark gets out of the recliner and taps the bedroom door closed. Behind it is a keyboard, napping from its many years of musical mischief.
“It’s a Yamaha,” Davis says.
He didn’t know how to play it when it was first given to him. But he was intrigued from the start.
“After a year of just hitting it, I decided I needed to find someone to teach him,” Clark says.
She didn’t know of anyone in the isolated town tucked in the folds of Clinch Mountain, so she asked a member of the church where Davis might be able to learn. The parishioner sent her 22 miles away, down snaking Flat Gap Road to TN-1, which turned right into Main Street, Rogersville.
For his first lesson, Davis’ teacher took his hand and placed it on the piano’s nameplate. Then she guided it down to the keys.
“This is middle C,” Clark says, back in her recliner, mimicking the teacher. “Do you know what comes after C?”
Davis knew: D. They repeated it with E, F, G. Davis wanted to go on further. That day, he also learned the chords stop at G.
He laughs at the memory, the kind of laugh that fills a floundering cocktail party and brings it back to life. His hands explode onto the keys of his piano. He’s playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” the first song he ever memorized.
“He has a rare gift that some autistic people have,” Clark says. “It didn’t take but a few lessons, and he realized he could put the keys together to make music. She taught you everything.”
“Yes, things like this.”
He switches from the elementary “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to the forever classic “Für Elise.” He plays for a moment.
“And so on.”
He switches again, to Albert Ellmenreich’s “Spinning Song.” It’s one he hasn’t played since he was young, and yet, he doesn’t skip a beat.
One last song is cued in his immediate playlist, Bach’s “Prelude in C.”
“That’s pretty,” Clark says. “I like that.
“No one can ever stop me,” Davis says.
“No one will,” Clark says. “I’d have to break all ten fingers.”
“I have a t-shirt that says, ’88 keys, 10 fingers, no problem,’” he says.
We laugh together. Sitting on the edge of his bed, I can’t help but be charmed by his resilient sense of humor.
A LIFE WORTH LIVING
Davis knows all the classics. But he plays beyond that genre. He is invited to churches, clubs, fundraisers and galas to play concerts. One of the most memorable was a MacDonald Training Center anniversary party at the Straz Center in Tampa.
“It was fantastic,” he says. “I can’t even tell you.”
He picks his set lists carefully. Psalms for some, classical for others. His favorite is country.
Clark keeps a calendar for him. His appearances are far too many to keep track of in their heads, even though Davis has a remarkable memory.
His next performance is called Music of the Night, an Arts Council of Plant City event. Ticket sales from the June 7 concert will raise money for the Council’s scholarship fund. Scholarships go to aspiring arts students in the Plant City-area.
He will be playing with Rossano Spallino, a pop star from Sicily, and local performing arts student, Emile Hanscom.
I recall what event coordinator Cheryl Worsham told me in an earlier phone conversation about the talented, young pianist:
“He’s wonderful, he’s a savant. Working with him, I don’t notice any disabilities at all. Outwardly, they are not apparent. He has overcome incredible obstacles and has a wonderful attitude to accomplish so much in his very short life.”
Now I see for myself exactly what she was talking about. In his room, he strokes the keys, his children. Then he shoots off his chair.
“Being blind is normal for me,” Davis says. “You can be blind and still be happy.”
I smile. The church bells across the street ring in triumph.
He goes back to playing. He has a three-hour rehearsal tomorrow for the event, although I’m told he can play for much longer. Clark sneaks me out the door. The same is true for today. I could be there for two more hours if we let him have his way.
She walks me to the front porch.
Elvis’ “Evening Prayer” is wafting from his bedroom. I smell spring roses and promise.
“Being different is what makes him special,” Clark says to me. “Through his whole life, I try to tell him that … no one needs to pity him … for him, it’s just life.”
The music dwindles to a soft close. The chair creaks. A switch. His radio is on. He’s finishing “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
This is his life.
IF YOU GO
Music of the Night
When: 4 p.m. Sunday, June 7
Where: Plant City Entertainment, 101 N. Thomas St.
Cost: $25 per person
Info: Proceeds go to the Arts Council of Plant City’s scholarship fund. For reservations call Cheryl Worsham, (813) 973-1770.
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.