Brad Mehldau and a memory of "M*A*S*H"

At tonight's Basel concert by the Brad Mehldau Trio, with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums (and Jorge Rossy on drums for the final encore), Mehldau played several passages in his solo on "Here's That Rainy Day" with just his left hand – chordal, then arpeggiated, then melodic. And I was surprised by a memory: in an episode of "M*A*S*H", Maj. Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) had a patient, Private David Sheridan (James Stephens), who was a pianist traumatized by the permanent nerve damage in his wounded right hand. When I looked up those details just now, I was struck by how vivid my memory of Stephens's face was. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 14 November 2021)

James Stephens on "M*A*S*H" in 1980