Over the 45 years he’s lived in Brookline, Ran Blake has watched the town evolve. But for a man famous for training musical memory, it’s no surprise Blake has never forgotten the good old days.
The jazz pianist — whose career spans more than 60 years, nearly 50 albums and innumerable mentees — feels the Brookline he remembers was more “personal,” and he misses many of the local businesses that gave the town its charm.
“So many places have closed, I can’t even remember. I try to stop thinking about it,” said Blake, now 90. “It’s like a whole lifetime has happened since 1980.”
From his apartment near Coolidge Corner, Blake told Brookline.News of the simple pleasures that continue to satiate his well-lived life, and the cherished spots in Brookline he once knew and still loves.
Blake moved to Boston in 1967 when the late Gunther Schuller, then president of the New England Conservatory, “set me up for life” by offering him a job. Blake soon became founding chair of the NEC’s Contemporary Musical Arts department — then called “Third Stream.”
Blake rarely read sheet music. His innovative teaching method, coined “primacy of the ear,” involved training musicians through listening and memorization.
“He was saying, learn everything by ear, make it part of your repertoire and then use your own idea of how it should go,” said Hankus Netsky, a former student of Blake’s who took over his position as CMA chair. “Now, here it is 53 years later, and I just retired as chair myself, but I’m handing it over to people who will continue this philosophy.”
Vocalist Christine Correa, who studied under Blake and released several albums with him, continues to use his repertoire technique in her teaching at Columbia University because it’s a “solid approach” using long-term memory.
Correa called Blake’s work at the NEC “a legacy in itself.”
Blake settled in Brookline in 1980. Given his heavy inspiration from film noir, Blake’s first love in Brookline was naturally the Coolidge Corner Theatre.
While the Coolidge still screens repertory films, Blake said it has “succumbed to showing films you can see everywhere.”
“What a treasure house it was,” he said. “I guess people did not want to go back and watch or cultivate it, so people became interested in what’s now available.”
Blake’s bed faces a shelf displaying an expansive collection of DVDs, and his “musical textbook” is connected to his TV, containing hundreds of his favorite film scenes compiled by a friend from Chestnut Hill. If he starts from the beginning on Monday, he will have rewatched every scene by Thursday.
Down the hall, a black curtain borders his home music room, and he requests a red-framed pair of sunglasses from his stockpile to wear before playing a few tunes on a sleek Falcone baby grand. Blake enjoys playing in the darkness, so he can visualize scenes and “storyboard” while his hands dance along the keys.
While his film collection provides an escape, Blake uses something else to stay present: math.
Blake began taking evening classes in the 1980s at Brookline High School, where he bartered music lessons with teachers and students in exchange for their mathematical expertise. He is currently studying vector calculus.
“Abstract algebra is the best antidepressant,” he said.
Blake loves the “wonderful” Public Library of Brookline, to which he’s dedicated a few of his concerts. He’s also a “great patron” of the Brookline Farmers’ Market and said while some people and products have changed over the years, the market has retained its spirit.
“I don’t go myself terribly much in the last few years, but sometimes I’m taken out by wheelchair to see my beloved market,” he said. “That one has retained something of the old days.”
Blake said while Brookline is not losing its personal touch at the rate Boston is, he wants people to appreciate the privilege of a private drugstore, local retailer or family-owned restaurant.
“We should be so lucky in Brookline to have these institutions,” he said.
However, what many of Blake’s students reminisce about from Brookline is Blake himself.
While on a leave of absence from Vassar College in the spring of 1979, Dominique Eade saw Blake play a solo concert in Harvard Square and said something “clicked.” Eade soon transferred to the NEC and began studying under Blake.
She described Blake as warm but of few words, a taskmaster who developed deep artistic connections with his students. Eade and Blake played their first duo performance of the song “All About Ronnie” in Third Stream’s fall concert.
“There’s a deep path that moment cut for me,” Eade said. “I knew I would probably be affiliated with Ran, have Ran as a mentor, colleague, performing and recording partner, for decades.”
Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa, another student and longtime collaborator of Blake’s, said Blake made her feel especially welcome as an international student, regularly inviting her and other students to his home for dinner.
“Ran really makes people feel welcome,” she said. “Especially people who don’t conform with expectations or, by some reason, would feel excluded.”
While he doesn’t go out as often as he used to, Blake said he has a “wonderful circle of friends” who visit him. But when he dreams, he said he can still see the Beacon Street and Washington Square he once frequented.
Blake will perform a 90th birthday concert Saturday, Sept. 27, at First Parish in Brookline. Reflecting on his years in the neighborhood, he said he hopes people learn to appreciate what they have before it’s gone.
“Of course, there’s some very good things that are famous [today], but so much is forgotten,” Blake said. “I want people to develop memories, nostalgia for the past, as well as stay in the present.”
This story is part of a partnership between Brookline.News and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
This story was originally published on September 22, 2025.
