Cafe Piano Player Has Lifelong Passion For Music

MALVERN - Stop in for lunch over the noon hour at the Classic Café in Malvern and there’s a good chance you’ll catch pianist Bill Gilbert playing a familiar show tune or easy listening number.

Gilbert, 85, comes by the café three or four times a week (usually during the lunch hour) to play the piano perched on a loft near the front window.

On a recent day, his repertoire included “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” “The Lullaby of Broadway” and the theme from “Love Story.”

“I think they (café patrons) enjoy it,” Gilbert said. “Some days I’m better than others, but they don’t complain about my bad notes.”

Gilbert has been playing the piano at the café for about two years, but he’s been a fixture in the Malvern community for decades.

For 30 years, Gilbert was a K-6 vocal music teacher for Malvern Public Schools and a leader in the Baroque Oratorio Choir of Southwest Iowa for 18 years. He’s been a church organist and is occasionally asked to do programs playing the 150-year-old grand piano at the Malvern Public Library.

Prior to coming to Malvern, he taught vocal and instrumental music in David City, Neb., and Louisville, Neb.

“I started teaching in ’53 in David City,” Gilbert said. “I retired from Malvern in 1994, but went back and substituted in the area for a few years.”

Music has been a passion for Gilbert since his childhood days in Beloit, Kan., where he took piano lessons and later learned to play the clarinet and E-flat alto saxophone.

“It was absolutely an amazing musical town,” Gilbert said. “There were five private music studios in the town when I was growing up there and the high school still has an orchestra. How many orchestras do you see in high schools?”

Gilbert said he enjoys playing several types of music on the piano, but is particularly partial to modern religious music.

“A lot of people recognize the songs I play and the young men seem to like the religious music,” he said. “They’ll come and say, ‘I know that song.’ Every once in awhile, I’ll even have old students come up to me here and introduce themselves.”

Gilbert plays for café patrons at his leisure and he’s always welcome, café hostess and server Cindy Bowley said.

“People really enjoy his music,” Bowley said. “Sometimes they even want to give him tips and he doesn’t want to take them.”

Gilbert said he gets as much enjoyment out of playing the piano as the café patrons do listening to him.

“I’m not where I was years ago, so I have to really work at it. I don’t play by ear, I need (musical) notes to play,” Gilbert said. “Doing this makes me work at it and I just appreciate the enjoyment the people get out of it.”

When he’s not playing music, Gilbert said he enjoys reading and traveling with his wife, Mary Jane. They have two children and four grandchildren.