For a practical woman, pianist Lois Vaughan has a habit of making impractical choices.
She and her husband, Richard, live in a cramped two-bedroom house they bought 12 years ago in an unfashionable neighborhood in Newport, which Vaughan refers to as "off Broadway." Their yard is small. And they have a cat.
None of that mattered, though, when they met Charlie, a greyhound. He was handsome, gentle, quiet and he didn't drool. In short, he was irresistible.
The same could be said for Vaughan's music. In 1983 at age 33, with a biology degree from Cornell University, she left her job as assistant director of a nature center outside Boston to try to make it as a jazz pianist. The decision was either foolish or gutsy, depending on your perspective. She had barely touched a keyboard in 12 years.
AT 9 O'CLOCK in her living room one morning in December, Vaughan paces between the stereo and the piano, one hand cradling a bowl of fresh fruit, yogurt and soy powder, the other alternately punching buttons on the stereo and tapping the piano keys.
She is 54 and thin, with pale-blue eyes, a wedge of light brown curls and an unmanicured radiance. She is dressed in blue jeans, cotton turtleneck, green flannel shirt and weathered work boots.
Her cat, Sponge, is perched on a coffee table near the window; Charlie is splayed out on a giant square pillow embroidered with his name.
The living room is comfortably cluttered: mismatched chairs, end tables, a loosely slipcovered sofa and stacks of books and CDs. The only luster is the gleaming black Samick parlor grand piano.
Vaughan plays and replays a tape that her piano teacher, Diamond Centofanti, made of their last lesson. She listens, taps on the piano keys, rewinds the tape and listens -- over and over.
The effort to hone her craft is a constant struggle. With the demands of performing, especially during the holidays, and teaching piano, her weeks are jam-packed. She plays at concerts, private parties, corporate events, weddings, funerals and restaurants.
This particular week is unusually busy: Vaughan is performing five out of seven nights. On this night, she'll play at a retirement party in East Greenwich put on by the Community College of Rhode Island.
When you work for yourself -- as do 24,000 Rhode Islanders, or roughly 5 percent of the state's labor force -- there are no paid holidays or vacation days or health benefits or company retirement plans. And if there's no work, there's no money.
"If I have enough time, I'm worried," Vaughan says. "And if I have enough work, I don't have enough time. It's always a balancing act; it's always kind of looking ahead . . . trying to balance having too little work and too much."
Yet for a professional musician having too much work is almost a luxury -- few musicians are able to survive only by playing music. In Rhode Island in 2001, just 375 people earned a living as full-time musicians, according to tax-return data collected by the U.S. Census for a forthcoming report, "New England's Creative Economy: An Update," by Gregory Wassall, a Northeastern University economist.
Vaughan's husband, Richard, who is semi-retired, collects Social Security, but it doesn't even cover their $720-a-month health-insurance premiums. Add in co-pays for doctor's visits and prescription drugs, and their health care costs rise to about $1,000 per month -- more than their mortgage and property tax payments combined. And in January, when Vaughan has fewer bookings, their monthly household income can dip to $3,500.
Every month they divide a sheet of paper down the middle and put expenses on one side and income on the other, and try to make them match.
To manage, they live simply. They rarely go to movies or concerts. They eat out only two or three times a month. And if they take a vacation, they often sleep in a tent.
Vaughan also stays focused. She and her husband don't own a TV. And they don't have children, unless you count Charlie and Sponge.
Standing near the piano, Vaughan scoops up the last mouthful of her breakfast. Finding the time to eat is a problem sometimes. "I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna eat lunch and dinner," she says. "I'm probably not going to."
Her husband appears. He is 65 but looks younger; tall and trim, in a wide-brim hat, paint-stained chinos and a dusty jacket. Richard Eberhard builds furniture and boats.
"I need about five or six dollars," he says to Vaughan.
"I don't have it," she says, checking her wallet. "I have four dollars."
Never mind, he says. "I'll borrow it."
They hug and he leaves.
Normally when Vaughan has a gig, Eberhard is her set-up guy. He lugs the heavy equipment, so she doesn't aggravate her tendinitis. But on this afternoon he's working on a sailboat at the pier, so she's on her own.
Vaughan rummages through her closet trying to decide what to wear for the performance. She can't be bothered with shopping for clothes, so one of the few luxuries she allows is having outfits made for her. The slinky ankle-length black dress made from a Vogue pattern is a favorite. So are the black slacks with the ivory lace top.
She recites a list: Clothes. Makeup. Music. Electric piano. Amplifier. Both of her amplifiers are on the blink, so she'll have to borrow one from a friend in Tiverton and drop hers off at the repair shop in North Providence.
Vaughan darts, sparrow-like, from room to room. Charlie lifts his head off his front paw and perks his ears, taking in her movements.
Outside, the rear view in her silver Volkswagen Jetta is partially blocked by the amplifier in the back seat. Vaughan slips behind the wheel and pops Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas songs into the seven-disc player and presses the gas pedal.
THE BANQUET ROOM at Twenty Water Street Warehouse Tavern, in East Greenwich, offers a picture-perfect view of icy Greenwich Cove. Greenery and tiny white lights adorn the walls.
Vaughan hauls her electric piano up two flights of stairs before asking one of the restaurant workers for help with the amplifier. The room is empty and cold. Vaughan wears her fingerless knit gloves.
It's almost 3 o'clock, and except for breakfast, Vaughan has only had some crackers and hummus nibbled in the car. She orders a Coke, which she hates but prefers to coffee for a caffeine-sugar buzz.
Setup takes a half-hour. Thirty-five minutes before show time -- when most performing women would be locked in the bathroom pulling on pantyhose and dabbing on makeup -- Vaughan is still in her jeans. She works a lint brush over the black drape around her electric piano and amplifier as though it is her best outfit.
"Is there a damp cloth that I can borrow?" she asks the head waiter. "I've got some things to wipe off here."
The music stand, keyboard and speaker all get wiped down, with motherly care.
Over the loudspeakers, Bing Crosby is crooning, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . ." as Vaughan tries to do a sound check.
TRAINED AS a classical pianist from age 5, Lois Vaughan felt the lure of a musical career for as long as she can remember. Hearing a new piece of music was like visiting an exotic place. The all-Beethoven concert that her father took her to at the Keinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, N.Y., when she was a girl transported her.
Her first exposure to jazz was in her home in Youngstown, N.Y., where she and her older brother, Ray, would play records of Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.
After graduating from the Lewiston-Porter High School in Youngstown, Vaughan enrolled in a small music school in Boston with the intention of becoming a professional pianist. But her confidence was shaken at age 19, when her piano teacher told her that she'd never be a performer. She dropped out to pursue another passion, for the outdoors, and enrolled in a biology program at Cornell University. She worked at the Hale Reservation, outside of Boston, eventually becoming assistant director -- her dreams of a musical career tucked away, like her stacks of yellowed sheet music.
"Probably I wasn't good enough to be a classical musician," Vaughan says. "Maybe I'm not good enough to be a jazz musician. But I think my determination has paid off."
Vaughan has a hard time recalling precisely what finally inspired her, in her early 30s, to save up and buy herself an upright Steinway. She dug out one of her favorite scores -- Brahms' Intermezzo in A major, opus 118, number 2. Although it was way beyond her ability after so many years, she slogged through the piece, learning it all over again. Then she was hooked.
Vaughan quit her job and moved in with her aunt and uncle in Newport, who offered her a rent-free room for six months. She studied piano in Boston and, when the six months were up, began driving a school bus to pay her rent.
"When I remember being in my other job -- which I did love -- I remember feeling like I was waiting for something; more kind of in an existential way," Vaughan says. "And once I started doing the music, even though it's very difficult, I certainly have felt like I'm not waiting anymore."
PERFORMANCE IS, by definition, the act of drawing attention to oneself. Performing background music, on the other hand, is more akin to providing lighting or decor. The purpose is to create atmosphere -- a presence more sensed than noticed.
Pianist Lois Vaughan appears perfectly content not to be the center of attention. Seated at her electric piano, near the entrance to the banquet room, dressed elegantly in black slacks and white lace top, she opens with a light tune: "I Can't Get Started," by Vernon Duke. Back straight, chin high, she tilts her head slightly, delicate fingers dancing on white ivory.
Her repertoire during holiday performances is mostly Christmas carols, but her personal favorites are such jazz legends as Davis and Monk, Count Basie and John Coltrane.
Ask her a question about music and she launches into a breathless exploration of the craft.
On teaching music: "The relationship between a teacher and a student is a very powerful relationship in some ways. . . I like to open up avenues to people for their own self-expression. I try to teach them to be their own teacher."
On being measured by others: "I think right now I'm at a point where I value my own compass."
On the music business: "The thing about surviving in the business is you have to have a very thick skin. But to be a musician, you have to be very sensitive. It's a paradox."
On performing: "When I'm playing -- especially lately with other musicians, and everything falls into place -- it is the most incredible feeling, like we're all together in the moment with this wonderful sound. . . Everything falls away, not in an irresponsible way, but almost in a meditative way, and yet it's nothing like meditation."
As she plays, men in suits and woman in pumps stand with their backs to her, sipping drinks and chatting. The waiter waltzes by carrying a tray filled with scallops wrapped in bacon and miniature meatballs, leaving a delicious aroma.
One of the guests, from the Community College of Rhode Island, where Vaughan studied jazz, recognizes her and stops to say hello. As they chat, Vaughan keeps playing. The party runs for three hours, and midway through Vaughan can no longer ignore her hunger. The next time the waiter passes, she waves him down and he deposits a small paper plate of hors d'oeuvres near the keyboard. A bearded guest brings her a glass of ice water. A professor of English, she learns, he sits down next to her to listen.
When Vaughan first started playing at private parties, she occasionally caught the eye of male guests. Although Vaughan doesn't sing when she plays, these admirers often would, which meant that she would be subjected to long, painful minutes while the guest, with liquor breath, crooned in her ear. She laughs, saying that doesn't happen any more.
This evening, the guests are polite and courteous. The sky over the bay darkens, light bounces off the windows, casting reflections.
Vaughan says she hopes to record her own music some day.
"My dream someday is to play at the Newport Jazz Festival," she says. Then she adds: "I'm not there yet; I've got a long way to go."
That's a sentiment she expresses often, though modesty is not the only reason. She has been around the music business long enough to know what it takes to get ahead. Discipline hardly begins to describe it.
Still, after years of running from what she was afraid that she might never accomplish, Vaughan is all right with not knowing.
Maybe she is proof that reaching your goal isn't always what matters; it's the daring to try.
Lois Vaughan can be contacted through her Web site, www.loisvjazz.com
