CARMEN STAAF, a 28-year-old New England Conservatory-trained jazz pianist, does what she has to do to make ends meet. Last year, she played accordion in a musical about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, starring puppets. More recently, she played ragtime piano with a xylophone band--in a dog costume.
But those gigs were nothing compared with talking her way into a $920-a-month studio apartment big enough for a bed and a baby grand. “I kept pestering the landlords,” said Ms. Staaf, a finalist in a jazz competition this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington. “I sent them a list of friends who lived in the building. I sent them my CD. It was like I was auditioning.”
Wait--her CD?
You’ve heard of singing for your supper. At 99 Ocean Avenue, in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, you can sing for your shelter.
And end up living next door to someone just like you.
There’s Peter Seymour, 31, who has played string bass for the Cleveland Orchestra and whose chamber-music ensemble Project played to a standing-room-only crowd at Joe’s Pub in March. He lives upstairs from Mark Small, 34, a saxophone player who tours with the singer Michael Bubl, and next door to Dan Tepfer, a pianist and composer who recently performed at the Village Vanguard with the venerable jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz.
“I am very proud of them,” said Ivona Hertz, who owns the building and a sister building, at 75 Ocean Avenue, with her husband, Joseph.
The warm feelings are mutual. Ask Mr. Tepfer, 27, about his brilliant career — he won the 2006 Montreux Jazz Festival solo piano competition and a Cole Porter fellowship from the American Pianists Association — and he’ll tell you: “I played at Ivona’s office party.”
But those gigs were nothing compared with talking her way into a $920-a-month studio apartment big enough for a bed and a baby grand. “I kept pestering the landlords,” said Ms. Staaf, a finalist in a jazz competition this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington. “I sent them a list of friends who lived in the building. I sent them my CD. It was like I was auditioning.”
Wait--her CD?
You’ve heard of singing for your supper. At 99 Ocean Avenue, in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, you can sing for your shelter.
And end up living next door to someone just like you.
There’s Peter Seymour, 31, who has played string bass for the Cleveland Orchestra and whose chamber-music ensemble Project played to a standing-room-only crowd at Joe’s Pub in March. He lives upstairs from Mark Small, 34, a saxophone player who tours with the singer Michael Bubl, and next door to Dan Tepfer, a pianist and composer who recently performed at the Village Vanguard with the venerable jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz.
“I am very proud of them,” said Ivona Hertz, who owns the building and a sister building, at 75 Ocean Avenue, with her husband, Joseph.
The warm feelings are mutual. Ask Mr. Tepfer, 27, about his brilliant career — he won the 2006 Montreux Jazz Festival solo piano competition and a Cole Porter fellowship from the American Pianists Association — and he’ll tell you: “I played at Ivona’s office party.”
