“She’ll never catch a man talking like that. She’s just too loud,” said one woman to another as they entered the dressing room at Frugal Fannie’s.

They were frumpy old ladies with gray hair and clothes that had gone out of style years ago. The other woman didn’t comment. She had an armload of polyester pants–pull-on, the kind you’d find in JC Penneys.

Mrs. Schutzmann’s pudgy hands danced over the keyboard, her flabby arms swayed, her powdery face soft, alive with the music of Johannes Brahms. The music my mother listened to on the radio was nothing like this. Her music was loud and rhythmic–bangy. This music poured out as if it was coming from some