Sonoma pianist Howard Weil has found the keys to a happy life

Howard Weil’s piano playing puts a lilt in the heart of those who gather at Vintage House twice a week to hear his tunes.|

Howard Weil’s piano playing puts a lilt in the heart of those who gather at Vintage House twice a week to hear his tunes, where his melodies have been bringing back memories for almost 25 years.

Beginning his ongoing gig not too long after retiring to Sonoma, Weil nearly never misses his 1 to 2 p.m. session of nostalgia, playing music made famous mostly before 1955. “I don’t play modern music,” he said. Classical, show tunes, top 40 from the 1940s and even college fight songs can be heard as the senior set sings along to “Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame.”

Weil can play almost anything, but he shies away from reading music, even though he knows how. “There’s always a battle between those who read well and those who play by ear. I can duplicate almost any sound,” he said.

The piano has been a constant in his life since his mother, a Julliard-trained musician, taught him to play when he was a boy growing up in Brooklyn. Life wasn’t easy in those days, and money was tight after his father died when Weil, an only child, was 8 years old. His mother starting teaching piano lessons to help make ends meet, and there was many a month when there wasn’t much money.

On a bright note, one of his mother’s students was Beatrice, and when Weil walked her home after her lessons, he knew someday she would be his wife. First he finished high school, signed up with the US Army Air Corp and flew 15 missions out of Italy in B-17 bombers during World War II. He was trained as a bull turret gunner, but because he mastered Morse code, he served has the bomber’s radio operator.

An aptitude test he took after the war, he says, showed “a latent ability for numbers” so Weil went on to Long Island University to study accounting. After earning his CPA and marrying Beatrice, he ran his own firm for many years, while they raised their two sons, Alan and Steven on Long Island. Specializing in working with doctors and medical offices, he said his clients were known to say, “You stay with Weil and you’ll sleep nights,” as he kept everything on the up and up.

When their sons moved to the Bay Area to attend college and settle here, the Weils headed west, too, landing in Sonoma in the late 1980s. They’d been happily married for 42 years when Beatrice passed away soon after their move. In 1991, Weil married Lillian, with whom he shared 21 wonderful years until she also passed away four years ago. “I was lucky,” he said. “I had two great marriages.”

Now Weil is 92, dons red suspenders, and loves playing his lifelong friend the piano as much as he always has. While sitting at the piano in the living room of his sunny, souvenir-decorated home, he lets the keys answer the question, “What’s your favorite song?”

First comes “As Time Goes By” from “Casablanca,” followed by “Happy Days Are Here Again.” (Weil comments: “Vets associate certain music with their war experience.”)

Then his favorite show tune, “Some Enchanted Evening” from “South Pacific” followed by “Cabaret,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “Oklahoma!” His most cherished classical composer is Edvard Grieg.

Weil reminisces about his many travels, a man who mastered the art of a vacation by taking the entire month of August off when he and Beatrice were raising their family.

“In New York there is not a single tax due in August,” he said, explaining the luxury. There were road trips to Washington D.C., and adventures in Alaska, the beginnings of what became a lifetime of trips and touring.

Europe, Iceland, Australia, Costa Rica, Singapore and Sri Lanka are the beginning of a long list of places he’s been. He said he thinks the most beautiful are Greece and the fjords of Norway, and perhaps the most meaningful was Israel. “There’s a certain feeling about it that comes through (that) you never experience any other place, whether you are a Christian or a Jew,” he said.

For Weil, a grandfather of three, life has been long and life has been good. And it has always been blessed with music, and his gift from his mother – the ability to play the piano. “It’s been my way of becoming my own person and a way to meet people.” Besides Vintage House, he also visits Broadway Villa skilled nursing facility, playing regularly for the patients.

“Sometimes you see the music bring a light to their eyes,” he said.

A light he’s known his entire life.

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