RIP Jane Jarvis -- 94

[Guest Kong76]

NYT: Jane Jarvis, who brought a jazz sensibility to unlikely places as an organist for the New York Mets and a programmer for Muzak, died on Monday at the Lillian Booth Actors� Home in Englewood, N.J. She was 94.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Brian. She had lived at the actors� home since shortly after being forced out of her Upper East Side apartment, the result of an adjacent building�s destruction in a crane collapse in 2008.

Ms. Jarvis�s career was bracketed by jazz, which she considered her first love: she formed a jazz band in her native Indiana as a teenager, and she worked steadily as a jazz pianist, mostly in New York, from her mid-60s into her 90s. But for more than two decades she was best known as a ballpark organist.

After eight years playing for the Braves at County Stadium in Milwaukee, she was a fixture at Shea Stadium from 1964 to 1979, performing a repertory that mixed jazz staples like Charlie Parker�s �Scrapple From the Apple� with more conventional fare like �Take Me Out to the Ballgame� and �Meet the Mets.�

[Guest Kong76]

Nice article from May 2008:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/04/28/2008-04-28_jane_jarvis_recalls_the_happy_times_and_.html

[seawolf17]

Ah, nuts. I wanted to get her autograph into my collection, but I couldn't find her. Thanks for the memories, Jane.

[metirish]

Rest In Peace

[G-Fafif]

Thank you, Ms. Jarvis.

[Guest themetfairy]

RIP to a true Met legend.

I feel like yet another link to my childhood has vanished.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Play me out, Benny.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

A giant!

I know they won't wear a patch or anything. but I sure hope the Mets have a moment of silence or some other commemoration of Ms. Jarvis' years of service to the team.

[G-Fafif]

A giant!

I know they won't wear a patch or anything. but I sure hope the Mets have a moment of silence or some other commemoration of Ms. Jarvis' years of service to the team.[/quote:3h35i9x1]

Better yet, a moment of organ.

[bmfc1]

How about "Jane Jarvis Day"? They must have tapes of her classics (unless the Wilpons left them at Shea or sold them to the highest bidder). One game, instead of the usual music, play nothing but recordings of Jane's music.

[Theoldmole]

I vote for a Jane Jarvis day.

And in memory of Jane, let's get rid of canned music and bring back an organist.

[MFS62]

RIP, Jane.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

I could personally do with 162 games without the standard canned noise, but one would be nice.

[HahnSolo]

I vote for a Jane Jarvis day.

And in memory of Jane, let's get rid of canned music and bring back an organist.[/quote:2o4al704]

For one day at least in her honor.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

That old Thomas organ would be a neat thing to have in the Mets Hall of Fame museum!

[batmagadanleadoff]

That old Thomas organ would be a neat thing to have in the Mets Hall of Fame museum![/quote:7dmvlcvt]

Some memorabilia collector has Jane's Shea Stadium organ. Uni watch interviewed the collector last year.

[Benjamin Grimm]

*Thanks to Edgy DC for the suggestion.

[Guest Kong76]

Must have been a twi-night doubleheader, she's got the five
o'clock shadow thing going in that shot.

(sorry, Jane ... you know I love you)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nah, that's great work, Ted Turner coloring and all.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Nice one, Grimmy.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Love the silouette. Not as awesome as the WIFEY icon on Anna Benson's card but then again nothing is.

[G-Fafif]

Great card! And great remembrance from Marty Noble here.

I'm sure when the Mets get around to issuing an official release expressing their condolences, it will be nice, too.

[metirish]

Great card! And great remembrance from Marty Noble here.

I'm sure when the Mets get around to issuing an official release expressing their condolences, it will be nice, too.

[G-Fafif]

Mark Herrmann in Newsday does a fine job:

Mets organist Jane Jarvis remembered as creative soul

Jane Jarvis' story always was a remarkable, lyrical one. She was orphaned at 13 when both of her parents were killed by a train. She was a classically trained musician who was revered by her peers in jazz. She became a music industry executive at a time when women almost never reached that height. But nothing in her life struck a chord with the public more than her sprightly renditions of "Meet the Mets" and "Let's Go Mets" (the latter was her own composition) on the Thomas organ at Shea Stadium. Jarvis, whose death Monday at age 94 was announced Saturday, will remain a mainstay in the hearts of New Yorkers. "I can remember, note for note, the way she played 'Meet the Mets,' " Ron Swoboda, one of the 1969 Miracle Mets, said yesterday. "She had some pretty good jazz chops, but she never overplayed the organ at Shea. What made it special was that you knew it was Jane Jarvis playing that music.'' Swoboda has become a jazz buff since moving to New Orleans. "This is a sad day,'' he said. Longtime Mets fans will never forget the light touch with which she played such tunes as "Felix the Cat" for second baseman Felix Millan and the jazz hit "Scrapple From the Apple" during a manager's argument with umpires. Her blend of innocence, humor and understated sophistication, on top of a baseline of respected musical ability, made Jarvis as big a name as many players from 1964 to 1979. In a 2008 interview with Newsday, she reflected on her era at Shea and said, "It was too wonderful for words." At the time, Jarvis' health was not good, but her spirits were soaring. She had just been allowed back into her East 50th Street apartment after having been displaced for a week by damage from a crane collapse. She said then: "You are talking to one of the happiest people who ever lived . . . Everything I have ever wanted in this life fits in a one-room apartment." As Howie Rose, a childhood Mets fan turned Mets broadcaster said not too long ago: "She had a different lilt to everything she played, including 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' There were certain things unique to that ballpark, and she was one of them." Her belongings included an upright piano, which she played every day. Jarvis spent her final months at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J., where her son Brian was with her when she died. Jarvis also is survived by daughter Jeanne Garcia of Florida. "She was the star out there," said Ann Ruckert, a Manhattan-based musician and teacher and longtime close friend of Jarvis. "A few of us would go to the nursing home and have jam sessions with her." Jarvis was a child prodigy with a terrific memory for songs. As a child, she played any tune anyone requested at a department store in Milwaukee. She took refuge in music after her parents were killed. (Jane didn't realize until she saw the obituaries that her father was American Indian, Ruckert said.) She studied at several conservatories, had her own TV show and was offered a gig playing for Braves games. She moved to New York in the early 1960s and took a job with the Muzak recording company. "She started as a receptionist and wound up as senior vice president in charge of all production," Ruckert said. "She kept all the jazz musicians working." They would come to hear her play at Zinno and other clubs in Greenwich Village. She cherished their friendship, and that of Mets fans. "Her whole life," Ruckert said, "was too wonderful for words."

[ashie62]

As a kid the organ at Shea was part of a real world class experience. Thank you Jane

Today's claptrack? I guess teams get paid to play it or is it to generate excitement?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The Hat Dance was the best.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The team does do prerecorded organ during weekend day games, no?

Using Jarvis' recordings of "MTM" and "Hat Dance" would be a really, REALLY easy tribute to execute.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Projecting Jane: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/recalling-a-meeting-with-the-pied-piper-of-shea/

[G-Fafif]

Even with a crane collapsing around her, Jane sure maintained her sense of self. A friend at the Times let on several years ago, pre-accident, that there are famous people who work closely with the paper on their obituary well in advance of their demise (pending the unforeseen, since no one knows when demise is destined) to make sure posterity portrays them just so. Jane Jarvis, he confided (after I met her), was one of those people.

[Guest themetfairy]

I remember taking a tour of the NY Times when I was in high school, and being very impressed by the obituaries-in-waiting. It's nice to know that Jane was similarly impressed by the concept.