Roy Eaton is by all definitions a true Renaissance man.  His professional accomplishments have spanned the diverse worlds of classical music, the healing arts, esoteric philosophy (he is a thirty-year practitioner of Transcendental Meditation), and the competitive arena of advertising.

For the past eighteen years, this eclectic man of spiritual vision has chosen to make his home on Roosevelt Island.  He first came here after being introduced to the Island by his dear friend, Bernie Silverman (with whom he was taking a class in Jewish Biblical studies).

Eaton is an award-winning classical pianist and recording artist.  In the past several years he has released three critically acclaimed albums: Joyful Joplin (Newport Classics), Meditative Chopin (Seventh Wave) and Joplin Piano Rags (Sony Classical).

He has also been one of the most successful jingle writers in the history of the advertising world.  In fact, some of the most memorable commercials ever aired on television and radio were written and arranged by him, and performed by a host of musical luminaries.  There was "Beefaroni's full of meat, Beefaroni's really neat.  Hooray for Beefaroni!" and the catchy commercial lyric, "You can trust your car to the man that wears the star, the big, bright, Texaco star!"  Many of Eaton's original commercials now air on cable's "TV Land Network."  He says, "A wonderful thing about my commercial experience is that I've gotten to know, and to be on a personal, friendly basis with, musicians who are now recognized for their greatness... Bill Evans, Ron Carter, Blossom Dearie, Nina Simone, Clark Terry, Doc Severinsen, Cannonball Adderly, Milt Jackson and Barry Manilow (whom, at the time, I didn't actually want to sing on a jingle that he wrote for me!).  I think that I might have been a refreshing surprise for those high calibre musicians, because here I was – an ad agency guy who actually knew what he was doing."

In addition to all of this, the essential Roy Eaton is devoted to a spiritual path of exploration and equally devoted to a firm belief in the unity of mankind.  It is hard to imagine that such a quiet, humble man carries such an amazing amount of life experience with him.  His unlined, practically ageless face is a huge endorsement for his and his wife's health-conscious life-style.

Roy's wife, Barbara Pittman (whom he wed in 1996), shares his enthusiasm for and commitment to Roosevelt Island.  She is a busy nurse-practitioner for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, as well as being an acupuncturist, and an involved mother to her son, Joshua, a film student at NYU.  Soon, Barbara will be beginning a new challenge as the supervisor in "Triage" in the new "Alternative Therapies" section of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.  The couple, always expanding their horizons, recently returned from an acupuncture seminar in Viet Nam.  While in the Far East, Roy also performed a concert of classical music at the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory.

Roy Eaton was born in Sugar Hill, Harlem, in 1930.  During the two decades following his birth, the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing, and was an absolutely undeniable breeding ground for genius jazz musicians and jazz vocalists, as well as African-American social activists, writers and actors, such as the great Paul Robeson.

Although the young Roy Eaton was surrounded by jazz, he felt a special affinity for classical music, which continues to this day.  He began playing classical piano at age six, and won his first competition at age thirteen.  His parents were Jamaican immigrants, and his hard-working mechanic father made a respectable but modest salary.  Luxuries were few during the Depression.  The family piano that Roy first learned to play on was an old Mason & Hamlin upright.  Today, he describes his late mother, Bernice Neil Eaton, as a woman of tremendous fortitude, spirituality and amazing persuasive abilities.  She believed in Roy's talent, and knew that he needed a decent piano to progress as an artist.  Somehow she managed to buy a rebuilt grand from the Steinway factory.  To this day, no one knows where or how she obtained the funds.

Throughout his youth, Eaton continued to evolve as a classical musician.  His mother's emotional support was essential, and given unselfishly.  She frequently told Roy and his siblings, "You are very bright children, but you're black, and getting 100% will not be enough.  If you're going to be successful in this world, you have to do 200%...  A challenge is your opportunity to grow.  It's to your benefit."  If Roy came home from school with a 97, the first thing out of his mother's mouth was, "What happened to the other three percent?"  Roy has said that it was largely through his mother's leadership that he and his three siblings realized the importance of spiritual development.

Bernice Neil Eaton died in January, but Roy says he senses her presence constantly, and it's clear that her effect on his life and personal drive is all-encompassing.  In 1950, when Roy graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the City College of New York, he simultaneously earned his B.M. degree from the Manhattan School of Music.  And on the same day he graduated, he played in the finals of the Kosciuszko Foundation's Chopin Competition.  When he returned home from the graduation ceremony, the phone was ringing – a call from the Foundation President telling him he had won.

Though still enamored of classics, Eaton has a foot in the jazz world, as well.  "Although I don't really perform as a jazz artist, I do have several compositions that are frequently performed.  Tenor saxophone legend Sonny Rollins plays one of my things – he is also from Sugar Hill, in fact, we grew up together.  He lived at 377, and I lived at 375.  He and his sister and I went to the High School of Music and Art together.  On the street you would hear me playing something classical on the piano, and Sonny practicing jazz improvisations all day long."

Eaton's formal education also includes a Graduate Fellowship at Yale and Master's Degree in piano and conducting from the Manhattan School of Music.  He has performed in concert in many of the nation's most prestigious concert sites, including a memorable concert at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in 1992.

In the '50's, Roy was drafted, and it was in the army that he first became interested in popular American standards and jazz.  "In the jazz idiom, I love to listen to Bill Evans.  No question.  In terms of my personal style... the style that I most admire would be exemplified by the great Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson.  I also loved Bud Powell, but it was tough to see what drugs did to him."

It was also in the '50's that Eaton began working in advertising, for agencies like Young & Rubicam and Benton & Bowles.  In the 1980's, after nearly thirty years of creative output, Roy decided to retire from the advertising business.  "I left advertising because the guys in charge were only looking at the bottom line, and they felt that someone who could just administer musicians' contracts could perform the job just as easily – so they got a clerk, and eliminated the music department.  They did me a favor, of course, in that I was able to go out and start really doing creative things for myself.  They had a total non-recognition of what it was that I was doing.  Now, in the advertising world, they're not even making the effort to write original music – they're using standards, and spending millions of dollars on music rights for existing tunes."

Roy Eaton initially became interested in both Transcendental Meditation and alternative medicine as part of his recovery process from a near-fatal car accident – an accident that claimed the life of his then wife of ten months.  Always evolving, he maintains a busy teaching schedule at The Manhattan School of Music, and also works as a Shiatsu massage therapist, and he recently became involved in film... both as a performer, and in casting.

As the father of three grown sons, and step-father to Joshua, Roy is particularly concerned with the well-being and development of Roosevelt Island's youth.  "To deal with the problems of our youth...I don't know how to communicate this to others who have not seen the possibility of an inward vision, but I feel that the changes that we want to see here on the Island have to come about as a change of consciousness.  It is not a matter of dealing with the individual actions, or acts, or looking at the surface manifestations, but, rather, making sure that the place you're coming from in your observation and in your interaction is from a 'glass half-full' perspective.  For the past week or so, I've been looking around – just opening up my eyes a little bit more.  The things I saw here were beautiful and exciting – much more worthy of recognition and acknowledgment than the negative occurrences that do happen.  Our Island is brimming with life, activity, joy and hope.  So many extraordinary things are happening here.  It's a matter of 'Where's your vision?'  'What are you seeing?'."