Little is left to chance in a big department store. The subtle fragrance, warm
lighting, shrewd positioning of jewelry, gloves and shoes — everywhere you look,
retail specialists finesse the sensory details to dazzle, tease, please and
persuade you to stay.

Just a little bit longer.

Even retailers that are short on ambience and long on bargains plot their
stores with serendipity in mind, hoping you’ll stumble upon “treasures” and
imagine they’re your finds alone. They’re selling a story line, and you’re the star.

You can resist, resist, of course, or you can succumb — and be pulled into
the story, as well as the store. In Nordstrom, we’ve tried mightily to resist,
but no no avail. As you rise three floors on the escalator in the downtown
store’s atrium, the light bounces off the mirrors, the jazz piano swells and
you’re not in Portland anymore, you’re in “Casablanca.” It’s ostentatious,
it’s crazy, it’s wildly romantic — it’s wonderful.

(“All this just for me?” you ask, abashed, the shy guest overwhelmed, and
secretly gratified by the generous host.)

Still, it’s hard to second-guess Nordstrom for gradually discontinuing the live
piano playing. No doubt the retail gods have blessed this decision as surely as
they’ve signed off on all the rest. Presumably, they approved the tint of the
aquamarine Christmas trees this year, dusted the snow just so and rationed
the lights to an understated twinkle.

Presumably, they know what they’re doing. As The Oregonian’s Laura Gunderson
reported Wednesday, the company says customers actually prefer canned
music, or at least they compliment the piped-in music more. So beginning soon
(with some variations at different stores) although the pianos will stay, they’ll
mostly go unplayed.

And who are we to question this call? In a tough retail environment, we’re
lucky to live in a city that has big department stores downtown at all, let alone
big stores with pianists in residence. Still, we ran downtown a bit wistfully
Wednesday, wishing we’d told someone, anyone, at Nordstrom how much
we enjoy Matthew Kern’s solo jazz accompaniment to shopping.

Looking a little teary, Kern couldn’t really talk, of course, — as always, he was
playing his heart out on the the store’s Steinway & Sons baby grand. But we
interrupted him just to wish him the best and pick up his CD “Afterhours. ”

And here’s the thing: Of course we never stopped to compliment him before
because it would have been rude. You don’t go over and interrupt a piano player
with your thanks. You listen, you enjoy, you appreciate. And, in this case,
all right we admit it: It means we probably took Kern and the other piano
players for granted.

But after all the years we’ve listened to them, and they’ve implored us —
melodramatically — to linger, it’s only fair to repeat that motif today and say: Stay.

Just a little bit longer.

— Mary Pitman Kitch

Copyright © 2003-2008 - Matthew Kern