Blind jazz pianist to join Black Hills trumpeter for Frank Sinatra performance

Sioux Falls music lovers will have the privilege of witnessing a “musical savant” in September.

Jazz musician Tony DeBlois was born premature, blind and autistic. Yet by age 15, he was offered a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music and diagnosed with the rare syndrome that presents as “people with developmental limitations who exhibit brilliance in some other aspect of life.”

Today at 51 years old, DeBlois can perfectly play 20 instruments, knows nearly 10,000 jazz pieces by heart and has played piano with famed orchestras in Singapore, Thailand, Dublin, China, Nigeria and, most recently, for the United Nations in New York City.

He’ll perform Sept. 27 at the Washington Pavilion for “Come Fly with Me: A Frank Sinatra Tribute,” both to sing and play piano for 50 years’ worth of Sinatra tunes.

DeBlois can play Bach’s fugues on command and Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues” or Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia” by ear. He says he’ll play you whatever you want.

“I just love being up on a stage,” DeBlois says. “If someone shouts a song, I play the song.”

During an interview with the Argus Leader, DeBlois even performed Lil’ Bow Wow’s “Basketball” 2 minutes after never having heard of the song or even playing rap music before.

“Tony’s ear is impeccable,” says Black Hills trumpeter Alex Massa, also a nationally known jazz musician. He’ll perform with DeBlois for the tribute show.

“It’s a joy and a learning experience to watch someone you’re performing with listen so well and so fast,” Massa said.

Massa is the artistic director of the re-established South Dakota Jazz Orchestra, based in the Black Hills and considered the state’s flagship jazz ensemble.

He’s spent the past few years combining big band musicians from both sides of the state and last year hosted their first show in over a decade to a sold-out crowd in Rapid City.

The SDJO will join Massa and DeBlois during the Sinatra tribute next month.

DeBlois leans into the imperfection of jazz

Jazz is improvisational. It’s not meant to be perfect, Massa said, which is why he believes DeBlois’ prodigious effort fits so well into the spontaneous genre.

“Tony brings a different energy on stage than you’d get with anyone else, because he doesn’t have any expectation that usually surrounds music,” Massa said. “When something doesn’t go the way we rehearsed it, he turns it into a masterpiece.

“With him, it’s never crash and burn,” he said. “It’s lift off and fly.”

Massa said jazz music reminds him “that I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to be real and present” and that DeBlois exhibits that same kind of engagement.

They’ve known each other for two years now.

“Every now and then, you’ll see someone on stage having the time of their life,” he said. “But Tony does that every time he enters the room until the time he goes to bed. His energy is infectious.”

‘The joy of my life’

DeBlois’ mother, Jan DeBlois, says Tony didn’t learn conversational speech until adulthood, so music “was his language.”

She began studying and then teaching special education to support her son and developed lesson plans around what she was learning as a mother raising a musical savant. She attended hearings and mediations to enact the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and in 2005 wrote a book about Tony, titled “Some Kind of Genius.”

The two of them live together in Rapid City.

“Tony is the joy of my life,” she says. “God knew what he was doing when he put the two of us together.”

Jan says when performers join Tony on stage, she notices “they really up their game” and connect with him, “wanting to be better.”

Massa will direct the SDJO’s 18-piece big band while Tony’s on the piano for “Come Fly With Me.” The two of them have played together many times before.

“What Tony brings to the stage is an uninhibited joy I have never seen,” Massa said.