A Jazzman’s Final Refuge

Hank Jones, the legendary jazz pianist, led an oddly bifurcated existence toward the end of his 91 years on earth.

He stayed active till the very end, collecting a Grammy last year and touring the world. But when he wasn’t on the road, he lived in near isolation in a 12-by-12-foot room at 108th Street and Broadway, ordering in three meals a day from the diner downstairs and practicing incessantly on an electric keyboard plugged into headphones.

“He was worried he would bother the neighbors,” said Mr. Jones’s roommate and landlord, Manny Ramirez. “The neighbors would ask, ‘Why don’t we hear Hank anymore?’ I said, ‘He locks himself in his room all the time.’”

On Sunday, Mr. Jones died at a hospice in the Bronx, only a few weeks after returning from Japan.

On Monday night, Mr. Ramirez entered Mr. Jones’s room to begin cleaning it out.

Mr. Jones had left it locked and deadbolted. Mr. Ramirez, 66, took a hammer and large chisel, bashed a hole in the door, stuck his hand through and opened it.

He switched on the light and there was the room: suitcases, sheet music and jazz awards cluttered around an unmade bed. On the cluttered night-table was a book of Sherlock Holmes stories.

Scattered about were CDs of Debussy, Ravel and Chopin. In the clothes closets were designer neckties and sharp-looking suits. On one shelf was a supply of light bulbs. On another were a coffee maker and an unopened bottle of fine Champagne. Nearby were three large leather music folders: for piano, bass and drums.

The Yamaha electric piano had a pair of headphones lying on the keyboard and a music exercise book still on the music stand, along with one of Mr. Jones’s compositions.

“He would practice while listening to classical music – classical was his favorite music,” Mr. Ramirez said.

Mr. Ramirez, who would occasionally take Mr. Jones to visit his wife in an assisted-care facility upstate, said that in general, he was unable to pull Mr. Jones out of his reclusion.

“I’d say, ‘Come on, Hank, watch some sports with me,’” he recalled. “But he’d say, ‘Nope, got to practice.’ He was still a perfectionist at age 91 — 2 or 3 in the morning, it didn’t matter. I wondered, ‘When does he sleep?’”

Lisa Gersten, who lives in the next apartment, walked in. She too knew Mr. Jones. Her three daughters would listen to him play from outside the room. She went and got a photograph of two of her daughters and Mr. Jones posing with his Grammy award.

“He kept it in a box like a pair of shoes,” said Ms. Gersten.

“It’s been a real New York experience, living next to him,” she added. “You never know who your neighbors are in this city.” After Mr. Jones agreed to jam with one of her musician friends, she wrote a note to him and taped it to his door.

On Monday night the note remained there. It read simply: “Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.”