Michael Blitz
Wally was my father. In some ways, we didn't know each other well. In others, we were to each other as deep as a well. He once told me that "if you know music and math, everything else is easy." Turns out not to be true, but it's been a useful idea. What is true is that Dad knew music. He never really learned to read it, but he could play. The piano was an extension of his hands and mind. Mathematical puzzles were like toys. I once played him "Skating Away" by Jethro Tull. Immediately after hearing it once, he played four versions of it on the piano-- jazz, blues, "classical" and then another strange version he called "blues-ical". The latter ought to be a musical genre for the ages.