Every once in a while, someone so young does anything so you still can’t help – how does he do that? That’s what happened the first time we heard Matthew Whitaker play the piano. Matthew is a blind jazz pianist and has been performing all over the world since he was 11. He has been called a prodigy and, as we noted when this tale was first broadcast in February, his skill is so extraordinary. It has also attracted the attention of scientists who are now reading his brain and trying to perceive his vision of music.
Whitaker doesn’t just play music, he plays with her. Distorted melodies, creating complex harmonies and improvising at breakneck speed. They’re acoustic acrobatics conducted on 88 keys and this is for sensitive souls.
Whitaker made his first appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival.
“It’s amazing to be here. That’s where jazz started,” Whitaker told Sharyn Alfonsi, 60 Minutes correspondent.
Whitaker plays with his shoes so he can feel the pedals and his head turned to feel the crowd. The complexity and spontaneity of their sets make the most experienced musicians sweat and jazz lovers go crazy. But even with all his talent, Whitaker said he still felt nervous before a big show.
“Honestly, I’m a little nervous, ” said Whitaker. “But, you know, once I started playing, I felt good.”
Jazz Fest is a jambalaya for the senses. Whitaker, Alfonsi and their team negotiated their way through the dense reddish humidity, the sweltering crowds and the 14 music scenes that spread across the fair grounds. But while walking, Alfonsi realized that Whitaker was able to cut through the sensory attack and identify the songs in seconds.
“He plays ‘Just closer’. Yes. “Just a walk with you, ” said Whitaker, identifying a song he had heard.
“I’ve heard 3 notes and you already know what song that is? Sir,” Alfonsi.
Whitaker grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey. His parents, Moses and May Whitaker, say Matthew had an ear for music before he could even talk.
He played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. But he played with both hands,” Moses Whitaker said. “Matt played the chords and melody of the song at the same time. He hadn’t had a lesson or anything. And he was three. Then my question: ‘Ok, whoever showed you how to do Someone had to show Matthew howArray… how to play this song. And no one showed it.”
Matthew Whitaker, born at 24 weeks old, weighed 1 pound 11 ounces. His parents learned that he had less than a 50% chance of survival. One of the many headaches he faced was pre-maturity retinopathy, a disease that can lead to blindness.
“I guess at the time I didn’t think he’d make it,” Whitaker said. “So it was, you know, just really scary.”
Whitaker’s parents looked at him helplessly as he was facing 11 surgeries to save his vision. After two years of concern, they no longer needed him to be subjected. Even if it meant he’d be permanently blind.
“We felt he was going through a lot of trouble,” Moses Whitaker said. Because the doctors didn’t see it getting better. We just said, “You know what? That’s enough of that. Let’s treat things as they are.”
Doctors told the Whitakers that Matthew may never speak, but the challenges didn’t end there.
“They said that he might not crawl,” Moses Whitaker said. “And he might not ever walk. Because he needed those things to see. You know most kids learn to crawl, they learn to walk because they want to try to get to something. Well, Matthew couldn’t see to get to anything. So a lot of his toys and stuff we had to have sounds. So that he would want to crawl, want to reach those things.”
He began to move slowly toward the music, sliding over the speaker to feel the music. No one in Whitaker’s circle of relatives was a musician, but his grandfather bought his first keyboard at the age of 3. It didn’t take long for Whitaker to show that he had a gift.
“They were rhymes more than anything,” Moses Whitaker said. “So it’s not that complicated. But what he does is complicated. Because as many young people don’t play with either hand. And they don’t play chords and harmonies and all that. And Matt doing it.”
So the Whitakers located an instructor in Matthew, which proved difficult.
“At the time, we got a lot of answers where other people said he was too young,” Whitaker said, “he was 3 at the time, or, ‘I don’t know how to teach a blind child.'”
Dalia Sakas has agreed to meet with Matthew. Sakas is director of musical studies at Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School in New York, one for the visually impaired.
“Then we brought him in, ” said Moses Whitaker. “And Dalia played the piano… and Matt repeated. Then she played again and Matt repeated. She said to let him in. We’ll make the exception.
Sakas has been training Whitaker ever since. She’s a classically concert pianist.
“I was performing a couple of recitals and the Dvorak Piano Quintet is a piece actually for a piano and string quartet. So there’s five of us,” Sakas said. “So Matt and his mom came to hear, you know, the night I played. He comes in Saturday morning. I walk into the studio and he’s playing the opening of the Dvorak Quintet. You know, and then the cello comes in and he knew that whole thing… And I thought, Oh, very nice.”
Dvorak’s Piano Quintet is a stimulating piece for five musicians. Whitaker played his edition of the five portions on his piano.
Sakas told Alfosni that Whitaker can listen to a piece of music one time and then play it.
“It’s crazy, ” said Alfonsi.
“Yes, it’s crazy, ” said Sakas.
“Can this be exhausting?” asked Alfonsi.
“Yes, well, it’s scarier than exhausting,” Sakas said. “Because you didn’t have to blow it up. Because you have someone with that talent, this creativity, that enthusiasm. You don’t have to smother it. You don’t have to ruin it. It’s obvious, you know, you have anything to offer the world, so you need to make it possible.”
At the age of 11, Whitaker performed worldwide. His first paid concert in Capri, Italy, where he cut his chops with experienced jazz musicians. Since then, he has conducted in more than two hundred clubs and concert halls around the world.
This trapped Dr. Charles Limb.
Limb, himself a musician, is a surgeon and neuroscientist who uses brain MRI to better understand how other exceptionally artistic people do what they do.
“I think every time someone sees Matthew play the piano, the first thing you think is, ‘How does he do that?’ Only instead of asking me, I’m trying to answer the question,” Limb said.
Specifically, Limb needs to know why some artists’ brains seem more stressed to give rise to new ideas. In Whitaker’s case, improvise. But when Limb approached the Whitakers, they were dubious.
“Why do you come to you and say, “Can we position your child in this sweep?” And then you think, you know, lab rabbit,” Whitaker said. “Or do you know, ‘What are they trying to do with my son?’
Once Limb also explained other artists had participated, the Whitakers agreed to let him scan Matthew’s brain. He brought Whitaker to an MRI facility at the University of California, San Francisco and put him in the scanner with a mini keyboard on his lap.
Whitaker played a melody, his feet guarding the time, while Limb and his team recorded the degrees of activity of his brain with the MRI scanner.
Then Limb put Whitaker through a different series of auditory tests. He showed us the results.
“So we started not watching the music, but through someone so we gave a lecture that the most other people would be a bit boring,” Limb said. “That’s what happened when he was listening, and then, appealing because he’s blind, we looked at his visual cortex. And we didn’t see any significant activity there.”
“So nothing happens,” Alfonsi.
“Exactly. And then we replaced the soundtrack with it. And we put on a band that he did very well, Snarky Puppy,” Limb said. “That’s what’s converting into your brain.”
“Jeeze. Lights up,” Alfonsi said.
“Quite remarkable. Your whole brain is stimulated through music,” Limb said. “Your visual cortex is activated everywhere. It turns out that your brain takes that component of tissue that is not stimulated through vision and uses it or is helping you understand music with it.”
“So he’s using that visual part of his brain to kind of see music as it were?” Alfonsi asked.
“Exactly, yes. And so, it’s kind of a loan that the brain component is borrowed and reconnected to it, listening to music,” Limb said.
When Whitaker reported on his brain scans while listening to music, he was surprised.
“I didn’t even know this was happening,” Whitaker said.
What does he mean by that?
“I love music,” Whitaker said.
His love of music was never questioned. But Whitaker’s teacher, Dalia Sakas, tried to make sure whitaker wasn’t just a flash on the pot prodigy. She came to him to be a literate musician.
To do this, you will have to feel, read and retain the issues that make up the music, first to the right hand and then to the left. It’s an incredibly slow procedure and Whitaker doesn’t like to slow down. When we interviewed him, he was incredibly well educated and incredibly angry.
On the piano, he’s a natural joy. Change the classics to Beyoncé. But what’s so special is that he takes these songs, any song, improvising on time to make it his own.
Whitaker’s newest album is called “Now Hear This”. One critic noted that it looks like Whitaker is betting on six hands.
Produced through Katy Textor, Kate Morris and Michael Karzis. Associate producer, Cristina Gallotto. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.