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Jack Zell
Workshop: Musical Adventures with Jack Zell
Time: 11:00 - 11:45am
Place: Youth Area |
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www.JRZellPublishing.com
Listening to My Grandpa Eat by Jack Zell
This song is dedicated to the memory of my Grandpa, Edbert Payne Zell Sr., who I loved very much. It recalls some of my child-hood images of visiting him at his home. He was born February, 1885 in Springfield, Ohio, and while still a l boy, moved with his family in a covered wagon to Cayuga, Indiana near the confluence of the Vermillion and Wabash Rivers. There he met and married my Grandma, Georgia T. Fable of nearby Eugene, Ind. Their only surviving child was my Dad.
Grandpa practiced law and served as circuit court judge in Vermillion County, Indiana. He died in our home in 1962 after a long illness. I miss him still.
Grandpa’s remarkable life spanned ‘horse-and-buggy days’ to landing a man on the moon. In the winter he wore a fedora and spats. A pronounced limp resulted from a teenage injury, when the horse he was riding slipped on the ice and crushed his leg beneath it. Grandpa wore an old fashioned hearing-aid with a large amplifier under his shirt and a big earpiece connected by a long wire that snaked up out of his collar and over his ear. Often times it whistled loudly.
When he ate his false teeth did click, his nose wheezed and whistled, and his lips smacked deliciously. All of these noises were a kind of wonderful music to my ‘little kid’s’ ears, especially since making eating sounds at the table was looked down upon at my house.
Grandpa helped me to love good music, too. His Dad, Oscar Zell, had organized a small frontier orchestra, and taught him to play the viola in the ensemble. Grandpa’s mother, Viola Payne Zell played the melodeon. Oscar and Viola performed art songs together back in Springfield, Ohio.
Grandpa knew good music, and how to help me appreciate it. I would to sit on his lap in front of his record player as he conducted a phantom orchestra, teaching it all to me. I miss those times, and treasure his memory.
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| Jack Zell is a grandpa who has been making delightful music for many years. Now based in Roanoke, Virginia, Jack loves nothing more than teaching kids to sing and love music. Music can be a powerful teaching tool , and Jack tries to impart little gems of knowledge to kids through the lyrics to his songs. While he composes music of all kinds, the kid in Jack emerges for such children’s songs as Listening To My Grandpa Eat. |
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Mason Adams
Leonard Adkins
Nancy Wright Beasley
Ellen Byerrum
Susann Cokal
HelenKay Dimon
A. Roger Ekrich
Fred First
Jon Harris
Gary Jackson
Mary McManaway
James W. Morrison
Becky Mushko
Colleen Redman
Sally Roseveare
Michael Shoulders
Matthew Warner
Jack Zell
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