When pianists Andre Watts and Michael McCoy were in a jam, McCoy, the jazz pianist and jazz musician, called Watts.
“I was like, ‘Man, if I can just help you out here, man,'” McCoy recalled in a phone interview.
“He said, ‘You can’t help him, I’ll kill you.
He’s just like me.'”
Watts, who is now 70, said he was so desperate to help McCoy he could not believe his eyes.
“You can tell he’s in trouble, he’s got no money,” Watts said.
“So he said, I can’t tell you how many times I said, man, if you can help me, man.
You can do anything.”
Watts said he took the phone call and called McCoy back a few days later, only to learn he was dead.
Watts told the Houston Chronicle he could feel McCoy’s pulse.
He then got on the phone to his son and asked if he could help him.
The elder McCoy told the paper, “I’m in a worse place than he was.
And that’s why he was a good pianist.”
Watt, a Texas native who lives in Austin, Texas, died Saturday at age 75.
He was diagnosed with dementia, which is a progressive disease characterized by dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, according to the National Institutes of Health.
He received the National Medal of Science for his research in the field of the human brain, which began in the 1950s.
He was also a distinguished member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
