When he was setting the parisian music world abuzz with his precocious piano playing in the 1840s, the young Camille Saint-Saeens was taken to play for the great Hector Berlioz. Saint-Saeens, with an aplomb beyond his years, dashed off a dazzling keyboard display. "All he lacks," announced Berlioz, "is inexperience." Aficionados had much the same reaction to two sophisticated young pianists who made New York City debuts last week. One was jazzman Matt Savage, who led his trio through a swinging, bop-tinged evening at Manhattan's Blue Note. His sets ranged from the standard My Favorite Things to originals like Groovin' on Mount Everest. He traced melodies simply, sometimes decorating them with trills, and shifted between softly gliding passages and furious fantasias with his arms whipping up and down the keyboard, using even his fist to bang out a climactic chord. "Scary" marveled jazz pianist D.D. Jackson, who was in the Blue Note audience. So it was, especially for a performer who was up well past his bedtime and who could barely reach the pedals with his favorite blue sneakers. Savage is 11 years old.
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