Harvey experience inspires jazz musician
Vel Lewis felt a song coming after Hurricane Harvey ravaged his neighborhood and left nearly a foot of water on the first floor of his Sugar Land home.
The acclaimed 64-year-old jazz musician, who has performed at the Apollo Theater and toured with such artists as Dionne Warwick, was left just like other Houston-area residents after Harvey — displaced for six months as his home was rebuilt.
The experience inspired him to write a song called “Houston Strong,” which was released earlier this year.
“The song itself was just something I had to (do) for my heart,” said Lewis, who plays the Hammond organ and several other instruments. “I think this city needs a good shot of strength and energy to know that we are strong.”
The composition is infused with music that he feels has deep roots in the city, including jazz, zydeco and country western.
“If I come up with something that’s really strong, funky, makes you want to get up and dance, then I think that will be something I dedicate to the city and, hopefully, people will latch onto it,” Lewis said.
Instrument donations
Although Harvey and hurricane relief have faded from some conversations, Lewis and his wife, Ada, are striving to keep both alive with his Faith 2 Form Music Foundation. The couple started the foundation with the hopes of making donations to students who may have lost instruments during the storm. A planned holiday concert at Thurgood Marshall High School on Dec. 9 aims to raise money for the cause and allow Lewis to perform with the students on stage.
They also hope that students who eventually receive musical instruments through the foundation will perform in a Fort Bend County jazz festival alongside Lewis and other artists. His wife says they hope to take trips with students in the future, including to her native Brazil.
A Philadelphia native, Lewis said he was pushed into music by his mother.
“One day, when I turned 10 years old, she said, ‘You’re going to learn how to play an instrument,’ ” Lewis recalled while sitting in his Sugar Land home as his own music played on a Pandora station.
In love with the organ
He tried the flute, but it didn’t stick. He remembers admiring a friend who played the organ and thought he might give it a try.
“It seemed fun the way he did it,” Lewis said. “Fingers just going. Hands just going.”
Lewis soon fell in love with the organ, which helped kick off his career in the music business. He began touring while he was in high school with a local group called The Futures.
He even took lessons from Edward Woodley Kalehoff Sr., a musician who played piano at the White House for President Harry Truman.
Lewis said music kept him focused in high school, pushing him to graduate near the top of his class.
“I was able to handle advanced studies of academic curriculum because of the ability to control the mind better,” Lewis said. “When you have music, you can focus, you can concentrate a lot better.”
His career would continue to blossom as he began touring with The Delfonics, the popular soul group that helped define the “Philadelphia sound” of the late ’60s and early ’70s with hits such as “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time).”
Giving opportunities
As he matured as a musician, Lewis went on to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, to hear Patti LaBelle sing inside the offices of Philadelphia International Records and to help write music for popular television shows such as “Friends,” “Mad About You,” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
It is all about the music to Lewis, who has a piano-shaped pool in his backyard and a grand piano at the front entrance of his house.
Still, the memories of Harvey remain fresh in the minds of the Lewises, who had to hastily evacuate their house by boat. They did not return home until February.
“Everything we had planned for last year, we couldn’t do it,” Ada Lewis said. “We had to stop everything. It’s a devastating situation. It’s not only because you are out of your home, but your whole life gets upside down.”
The couple is pushing forward, though, and is inspired to help educate students about the opportunities music could hold for them. They said they hope music is something that students keep with them forever.
“We want people to carry this along through life,” Ada Lewis said.
“If I come up with something that’s really strong, funky, makes you want to get up and dance, then I think that will be something I dedicate to the city and, hopefully, people will latch onto it.”
Vel Lewis, jazz musician