How a famous musician learned a new tune

There is a well-known story about the late singer Ella Fitzgerald, which her bass player, Keter Betts, recently recalled for me. When she was young, she entered a talent contest at New York's Apollo Theater - as a dancer. As she waited in the wings, the act before her consisted of three girls who danced so well she decided that, compared to them, she was no dancer. So at the last minute, she changed her act and sang instead. She won the contest, was noticed, and her career grew from there.

But I was talking to Keter Betts to confirm a story about him, a story my mother told me that is not so well known. It happens to be on the same subject: the amazing ways in which people are led to new callings.

In the late 1960s, after my brother and I went off at college, my mother, Evelyn Ordman, retired from being an active member of the Parent Teacher Association of Montgomery County, Md. She took a job working for that school system. Her assignments included recruiting volunteers and seeking cultural enrichment programs, especially in connection with the schools receiving enrichment funding under the federal Title I program. She sometimes found these volunteers in very unexpected ways. And some of the people she worked with were affected in ways neither she nor they expected.

One of the schools in the northern part of the county, Taylor Elementary, had a not-uncommon problem: The white children included the children of landowners or professionals, and were stylishly dressed. The black children were typically the children of sharecroppers or maintenance workers and were often dressed in hand-me-downs. (Frequently, for the girls, these were the rich girls' castoff party dresses.)

The school principal asked Evelyn: "Could you find us a black professional man who could visit the school? The children need to see a successful black man."

Evelyn, fairly new at her job, might have had no idea where to start. But that week she had a phone call from one of her cousins. Arthur was a very short and slight man, who had an adopted son who was comparatively gigantic. And the son had just gotten into a fight on the school playground with a fellow pupil.

Arthur said, "This immense black man appeared at the door, asked for me, and when I came to the door he broke out laughing." The man had said, once he'd controlled his laughter, "Your kid beat up my kid, and I came over to talk. Your son is so big that I thought you'd be my size, and I was worried one of us might take a poke at the other. But given our difference in sizes, maybe you should just talk to your kid about fighting at school."

Arthur could tell Evelyn that the man was named Keter Betts, that he looked respectable, and that he lived in a nice neighborhood. So Evelyn called Mr. Betts and asked what he did.

"I'm a musician," he said.

"Great," said my mother. "Could you come visit one of our schools?"

He said, "Do you know anything about me?"

"No, just that your name is Keter Betts and that my cousin says you are good looking."

"Well, I'm a bass player," he said. "The bass isn't a solo instrument, and I don't know the first thing about playing for kids. I play in night clubs."

"You've got a kid, don't you?"

"Yes, five of them."

"Then you know about kids. And you know, there are an awful lot of kids in the schools in the north part of the county who have never seen a live musician. How about trying it just once or twice?"

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