TELLER OF TALES

YOU DON’T GET AN ANSWER when you ask Michel Camilo a question, you get a story—like the one about how he gravitated toward the piano as a child growing up in the Dominican Republic.

“When I turned almost five, that Christmas my mother and father gave me a very tiny accordion,” says the now 65-year-old pianist, bandleader, and composer. “Luckily it was in tune, so I was able to pick out the melody to ‘Silent Night’ by ear. I discovered the notes on my own. Then the next one I played was ‘Happy Birthday.’ The family said, ‘Wow!’ because I was learning really fast. My uncle could also play accordion, and just by watching him, I was picking up everything. Then, by the time I was six, I started coming up with my own melodies. It was natural to me. My parents noticed it and hired a professional musician, who used to come to my home. I would sit with him and play my new songs: simple melodies yet with a structure. I was writing all kinds of things.

“But my first love was piano,” Camilo continues. “My grandparents had one of those old uprights, which all of us would play. I didn’t know how to play the piano well. I just moved my right hand, but not the left yet, because I was used to playing the accordion. Then when I was nine, I asked my parents to send me to the conservatory, and