Junior Nick Heide started playing jazz piano during middle school in Las Vegas. Now he skips campus weekly to play professional gigs in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Toledo. 

“If you love something enough, everything kind of falls in place to make it happen,” Heide said. 

Heide’s first teacher played on the Las Vegas strip and taught him how to play in the tradition of Dave Brubeck and Vince Guaraldi. 

In high school he went to a performing arts school to specialize in jazz piano, where he was taught by professional musician Patrick Bowen. There he learned transcriptions and improvisation. Now Heide plays gigs regularly at the London Chophouse in Detroit, Lucille’s in Toledo, and Zal Gaz Grotto in Ann Arbor with the band PKO. The band is led by Paul Keller, a jazz bassist, band leader, and composer from Michigan who is Heide’s mentor and friend. 

Keller said the first time he heard Heide play he was impressed by the ease and passion with which he played for someone so young.

“I met Nick in his hometown of Las Vegas when I went out there to play at a new jazz club called Vic’s, and he was playing with a student group while still in high school,” Keller said. “I couldn’t believe that someone who was so young had such an interest in that style of jazz and had the faculty to pull it off. It was amazing to me.”

A few years later, Keller and Heide ran into each other when Keller came to campus with the Harry James Orchestra. Heide said they immediately clicked the second time they met, and Keller spontaneously offered him the opportunity to play with his band in Ann Arbor. 

“We hit it off, and there were a couple times when he needed someone to fill in for his piano player,” Heide said. “So he gave me a call and we developed this relationship similar to all my mentors in Las Vegas. He took me under his wing, and the next thing you know he’s letting me stay over in his house in between gigs, and he’s showing me new music and teaching me things. It’s been very exciting.” 

Keller said he was just as excited as Heide to be reunited and get the chance to play gigs together around Michigan. 

“He’s just about as good as anybody I’ve ever played with, especially at this young age, so the sky’s the limit for him,” Keller said.

Keller said the first time he played with Heide was surprising and delightful. He said he was impressed with Heide’s knowledge of jazz styles from the 1920s and ’30s, as well as bebop from the ’40s and ’50s. 

“It’s been very uplifting to me to be able to play with somebody that is very in touch with the old style of prehistoric jazz, but can take it into a modern and high energy place as well, delightful, satisfying and very rewarding,” Keller said.

As he continues studying economics at Hillsdale College, Heide said he enjoys studying the connection between classical languages and music.

“The thing I like most about jazz is that it’s a language, and studying classical languages here has really helped make that connection,” Heide said. 

Joseph Garnjobst, chairman and professor of classics, has spoken with Heide many times about the relation between jazz and language. 

“Musicians speak through music rather than words, when in sync with each other they create something that neither one individual could have done alone,” Garnjobst said. “It’s a magical moment that would be nice to create in class.” 

Garnjobst said classical languages and jazz are both learned through spontaneous practice.

“Jazz isn’t scripted. There’s always improvisation,” Garnjobst said. “In class there is technically a script, but student and teacher interactions cannot be scripted. The important part of these interactions is what each person brings to table, the same way musicians bring something to table.”

Keller said many emotions and thoughts are told through jazz.

“Just like any language, you can say all kinds of things, sometimes gentle, sometimes entertaining, sometimes happy, sometimes very harsh,” Keller said. 

Heide has worked on ear training so he can pick up on the spontaneous changes made by band members.

“Keller won’t even tell you the name of the tune or the key, he’s very spontaneous,” Heide said. “So I’ve developed an ear for most tunes. I could listen to it one way through, and then I’ve learned it already and can play it. I can also follow the harmony as it goes on, and play by ear.” 

Performing with a band has taught Heide it is important to be selfless and not to take attention from other band members, he said. 

“One of my mentors used to say: Listen to yourself last, because if you’re only focused on what you’re doing and trying to be creative on your own, you might be actually detracting from what other people are trying to do,” Heide said.  

Even with the right amount of selflessness, Heide is able to enjoy his favorite part of playing jazz — the melodies. 

“As a piano player, I have a role to support the soloist, vocalist, or whoever’s having the main voice, and I’m trying to support that by laying out the harmony, and then at the same time create a melody on my own,” Heide said. “The thing that attracts me most is the melody.”

The band plays together best when each player knows how to work with and around the other players, Heide said.

“There’s a lot that’s intuitive, but at the same time jazz is about surprises,” Heide said. “Sometimes whoever’s soloing will throw a curve ball, and then it’s interesting to learn how to play something unexpected and how to follow it.”

Heide said he loves jazz for the feeling it brings those who are playing and listening alike.

“I just love to swing and I love how it feels,” Hiede said. “It’s a very joyful kind of music and acts as a way to bring people together.”

The spontaneity of live jazz is better than any recording, Hiede said.

“There is nothing like going to a jazz club and seeing it happen in front of your face, in real time,” Heide said. “There is something really special about it which you have to experience for yourself.”