Black History Month 2025 - February 15 - Walt

This year, as a 60-turning-61 white man, I am going to highlight African Americans that have had some kind of influence in my life. Some are famous, some are friends, and others are just people. #blackhistorymonth

February 15th - Walt

When I was at University of Miami, the floor I lived on in the now-destroyed 360 Tower complex was designated a music floor, which meant that you could practice or play music until 11:00 every night. The floor was mostly music majors, and I felt sorry for those students who were not. I don’t remember how I met Walt, but I remembered on of the very first times I hung out in his room.

Walt was a full scholarship tuba sophomore. He was about 6’4”, and built like an athlete, but his main interests were music, and science fiction. He was incredibly well-read, and he had an eclectic music library.

His favorite genre was progressive rock, but he called in “Fusion”. I guess they were pretty similar, but, looking at them now, progressive rock starts with rock-and-roll and gets more jazzy, and fusion starts with jazz and gravitates towards more electronics and rock beats.

Walt introduced me to Yes, Bill Bruford, King Crimson, Dixie Dregs, etc. We would sit in his room and play music for each other all of the time. I miss that! I would point out little things I heard in what he was playing for me, and about half the time, he hadn’t heard them! And he did the same for me.

He also loved orchestral music, which is good, since that was the career path of a tuba major if you did not want to be a professor. I got to hear him play Symphonie Fantastique, and 1812 Overture. He was an amazing player.

I borrowed my sister’s Marantz Superscope cassette recorder second semester. It was unique, in that it had the ability to play tapes at half-speed, which made whatever you were listening to play twice as slow, but down an octave. All of the jazz majors used those to transcribe solos. One day, I played my favorite recording of Rite Of Spring for Walt, and there is one place where the tuba plays an emphatic low C to start the weird rhythm pattern. I replayed that note for him at half speed, and it was amazing. Those Chicago Symphony brass players…

He started dating a woman named Pam. Pam looked black, she had the biggest ‘fro you can imagine. But she was actually Egyptian, and her parents did not want her dating a black man. The two of them went through a lot of emotional turmoil the last few weeks of the school year, and Walt’s grades fell, and I think he lost his scholarship.

I don’t know what happened to him after I left Miami. The one time I wrote him a letter to his parents’ house, he never wrote back. And I have never found him on social media. He was incredibly smart, well-spoken, well-read, and musically talented. I hope he ended up OK.