I visited an old friend of mine, and retired arranger keyboard entertainer, Jerry Burns. Jerry and his wife Elsa played the Baltimore nite club and restaurant circuit for nearly a half century, he was Peabody trained, and knew more about musical instruments than anyone I ever met. His fingers flowed over the keyboard like magic, and when he played a piano or sax, you could close your eyes and they were as realistic sounding as if there were a fantastic pianist or sax player standing right in front of you.

He tried out my S-950, which is light years ahead of his old PSR-2000. His wife, Elsa, who was an outstanding vocalist, especially with jazz numbers, sang some of the songs Jerry played on the S-950 using my old Samson Q7 plugged directly into the keyboard's mic input using a homemade adapter cable. I was amazed at just how great they still sounded after three years of not playing or singing a note. WOW!

I'm quite confident that Jerry could sit down and record demos for any keyboard, and make them sound like a million bucks. He didn't need any special effects, he just played as he has always played. As has been stated many times on this and other forums, "It's not the keyboard - it's the keyboard player!" So true - so true. While driving home that afternoon, I thought to myself, Damned, I should have recorded that. But alas, I was too enthralled with what I was hearing from my old friends.

Cheers,

Gary