Felix

This is Felix Wilkins , a street musician in Philadelphia.Life has dealt him many twists and turns but he always remains true to his passion for music.You can hear him play here

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qvIenwgjnA and read his fascinating life story written by Michelle Alton here...

Beat

By Michelle Alton

Felix Wilkins was playing “Anchors Aweigh” on the City Hall Concourse in Suburban Station when I first saw him during my commute.

I had just begun a new job in Philadelphia after a period of unemployment. Raised in Edison, New Jersey, I‘d built my career in central New Jersey pharmaceutical companies as a clinical researcher. Then suddenly, like so many others across the country, one morning I drove to work only to find myself without a job on the drive home. Now I was making a new start, with a whole new understanding of how it felt to be down and out. Perhaps that’s what drew me to the street musician as I still struggled to overcome the confidence loss I’d suffered after the layoff.

In the past, large cities had always been sources of fear and intimidation to me. So coming to Philly each day was opening my eyes to so many sources of its wonderment — and also to its darker, gloomier sides.

A street flutist in Center City, Felix (I did not even know his name at the time) was a tall, lean, older, striking-looking black man. He was usually dressed in a stylish suit, starched shirt, perfectly-knotted tie and matching handkerchief, and had Old Glory draped over his rolling suitcase’s extended handle. He played the notes flawlessly, and every so often a passer-by smiled and placed a dollar bill in his flute case.

I noted that Wednesday was his usual day, and found myself happily anticipating those mid-week mornings. In addition to his patriotic fare, he also played show tunes, other popular music and a collection of national anthems.

An avid amateur photographer, during lunch breaks, I trek about the city with my camera chronicling the “HYPERLINK "http://maltonphotos.zenfolio.com/philadelphia/slideshow"Philadelphia Experience,” for my website. As I became more familiar with the city, my feelings about it changed as well. My photographer’s eye noticed more details and my other senses became more attuned to its sights, smells, textures, and sounds.

On one noon-time jaunt, I was short-cutting through the east entrance of City Hall, camera conspicuous around my neck, headed toward Market Street, when I caught wind of the flutist in the concourse near the souvenir shop.

Noticing my camera as I passed through, he barreled up to me and asked if I would photograph him. “It’s my birthday!” he announced, thrusting his drivers’ license into my hand to prove it. He turned 68 that day. “Will you put my picture on the Internet?”

Happy to accommodate, though a bit wary at first, I made camera adjustments to compensate for the difficult lighting conditions: half dark with midday light streaming in through the low archways. While I snapped shot after shot, the flutist played, on bended knee, by his American flag. Moments later, a heavy-set, mustached man of about 45, sporting a red headband and yellow printed bandana, and leaning heavily on his cane, hobbled into the hallway.

The flutist approached him, and began speaking in Spanish. Suddenly, the man was singing his country’s national anthem, accompanied by the flute player. Though absorbed by the rapport that had sprung up spontaneously between the two men, I just kept shooting until the man finally limped off.

Later that week, as my birthday gift to the flutist, I posted the photos to my website. On the following Wednesday morning, I presented him with two full-color prints, mounted in gift folders. “You’re a good photographer, “he exclaimed, to my great pleasure.

I waved to him as I hustled off to work. But during the next week, my thoughts repeatedly returned to him. One day, on a coffee break, I typed, “Philadelphia + flutist + Suburban Station” into a Google search box to see what I could learn. On the first hit, I read about Felix’s arrest near Rittenhouse Square about three years before. There was no law on the books forbidding the playing of music on street corners, but he had been handcuffed and spent 45 minutes in jail. The next item was a headline announcing that he was being awarded compensation to settle his suit against the city for unlawful arrest. The article went on to say that Felix was a Panamanian musician and a retired professor of music at Brooklyn College. His life was beginning to fascinate me.

I also found rave reviews of his music and several outstanding decades-old recordings. Renowned jazz flutist, Andrea Brachfeld, in an internet interview, explained that Felix had been an early mentor to her in New York, and she credited Felix with having “shown her the ropes” back in 1972. He was so accomplished, —and judging from the mp3s I downloaded, an amazingly talented musician. Now I was determined to understand how such a man had wound up busking on the streets of Philadelphia, playing patriotic tunes for small change and occasional smiles. Convinced Felix had a story to tell, I made it a point to strike up conversations with him on several subsequent Wednesdays, and our chats became warm and friendly. “I’m an ethnomusicologist,” he told me one day, when we were talking outside City Hall. "Whatever is that?" I wondered.

Suddenly energized, Felix, not trying to disguise his passion, explained that you don’t just learn the music -- you learn the geography, culture, cuisine, customs, literature, architecture, and ethnicity of a country. Then, when you play the music, you impart the feel of the region from which it arose. To provide a more visual explanation, he went on “Take music from the Baroque period. It’s a very rough sort of music.” To illustrate, he sang a few sort of choppy sounding segments from a Bach fugue.

“Now look at that baroque carving near that window,” he went on, pointing at a portion of the City Hall façade and growing more animated. “It is also rough, just like the music from that period.” Though I didn’t really understand the analogy, the teacher in Felix was surfacing before my eyes and ears. And I thought, “He is not down and out, or a loser. He actually loves what he does!” Felix speaks fluent Spanish and English, and “gets by” in Greek and Portuguese and can also utter several phrases in a Chinese dialect. I was awed at the knowledge and passion of this man who played for coins in the train station. And although flute is Felix’s major love, he also plays saxophone, clarinet, piano, violin, cello, and other instruments. And he sings! He describes himself as a classical flutist, jazz and dance band performer. As we spoke, he artfully played and sang excerpts from Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Pachelbel, and Chopin.

Then he stood, suddenly switching to Charanga, a spirited Cuban/African dance genre, played on the flute in impossibly high registers. His crocodile leather-clad feet stepped and danced rhythmically in place on the pavement. I looked around in disbelief, astounded that no one on the plaza seemed to be paying any mind to the music. I would have expected other lunchtime shade seekers to be lined up, ears cocked, to hear what was going to happen next. But as I was becoming more and more mesmerized by his performance, they went about the business of enjoying their sandwiches, oblivious to Felix’s performance.

When he finished, we talked some more, and I learned that this man who takes such joy in his music does so in spite of a hard-lived life. That was when I realized the common ground we shared: My passion and gift for photography had carried me through one of the most difficult periods of my life –the sudden loss of livelihood. Could it carry me farther? I think it was at that moment that I began to plan a new chapter in my life.

Born to Jamaican parents in Panama City, Felix’s family lived in a rough neighborhood where his father worked by day as a laborer and played saxophone in local clubs at night. The elder Wilkins didn’t want his children following in his footsteps because of the drug-infused lifestyle typical of nightclub musicians there. But when his father came home one night to find his reed protector wedged into the belly of the horn, he realized that young Felix must have been playing while he was at work. So his father began to teach him Saxophone, but also made him agree to attend vocational school to learn a marketable skill. Felix promised. He became certified as an automotive mechanic and then studied at Panama’s National Conservatory of Music, where his romance with the flute began.

Active in Latin dance bands, most notably in Conjunto Impacto, (Joint Impact), he also played first flute in the Panamanian police band, and dabbled in composition. Some of his work was recorded by other artists.

Ambitious and married with two small children -- a boy and a girl -- his dream was to immigrate to America to play in the big jazz and Salsa bands. Felix brought his family to New York City, where a relative had offered to sponsor him. Supporting himself as a mechanic, and later, working at a bank, he played flute in various bands around the city. He played and recorded with Latin legends like Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Machito, Patato and Johnny Pacheco. During this time, his flute was also featured in the album Tico Alegre Allstars Live at Carnegie Hall with Joe Cuba. At the same time he began to study music at Brooklyn College, struggling to work full time, attend classes, be a family man, and hone his performance skills by playing in clubs.

So Felix left his day-job and joined the welfare rolls. A divorce from his wife soon followed. When he speaks about the woman he still carries a torch for to this day – 40 years later – his facial muscles flatten and his voice becomes muted as he allows the memory of those painful years to settle on his mind.

“But why,” I asked, “would she not have given you another chance, knowing that you cared so much for her?”

"Well," he offered, “In those days, I was a machismo man.” Felix, like most of us, also had a dark side. I did not question him further on this as I watched the sadness spread across his eyes. I didn’t want to prolong the grief he seemed to be reliving. But he told me that what transpired caused his wife to forbid contact with his children until many years later, when they were grown and had families of their own.

But that grief, I learned, nourished his music. He says he still loved her with all his heart and soul, and to keep his sorrow from overwhelming him, he threw himself into his education. One of his dreams had been to teach music to young people. He returned to Brooklyn College, where he completed a four-year degree in less than three years, earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1977 and eventually accepted a teaching position. He returned to Panama in the mid-1980s where he taught at the U.S.-supported Panama Canal College, the National Conservatory of Music, and the University of Panama. While there, he also played with a consortium called "Jazz Unlimited," and arranged and performed his own salsa version of "Baroque and Blue," a classical and blues fusion composition by the acclaimed pianist, Claude Bolling. In 1994 he returned to the United States, settling in Philadelphia.

He supported himself meagerly, playing gigs with a Cuban dance band called "Foto y su Charanga" and giving private music lessons to both adults and children. He says he loves to work with children because their lives are uncomplicated and they don’t skip as many lessons as adults.

Now, one or two days a week, Felix keeps his performance skills honed by playing on the streets of Center City, Philadelphia. He plays the morning commute in Suburban Station, outside a wig shop near the City Hall exit. In the afternoon, he migrates to the Historic District, where his flute fills the air with patriotic American tunes mixed with World Music. He is retired now, collects a very modest Social Security check, and lives in subsidized senior housing. He still loves to play his flute, saying, “Music is my soul. “If I don’t play, I will lose it,” he explains with a sort of distant look in his dark, expressive eyes. He truly enjoys the smiles and good will of the “regulars” at the train station, and of all who appreciate his warmth, his enthusiasm, and most of all, his spirited playing.

The next week, as I hurry through the train station, I hear in the distance a most heavenly flute rendition of Beethoven's "Fur Elise." As I round the next bend, I spot Felix, perched on a high stack of newspapers outside the wig shop, eyes closed, playing as though to an audience of angels. I stand and listen quietly as he finishes the piece, completely unaware of my presence. It is a brilliant and thrilling performance.

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