Funny Valentine: Two inseparable Northwest musical performers reflect on their nearly 30-year friendship

The Emerald of Siam is the night spot for live music in the Tri-Cities. 

It’s a Thai place: Dark black walls, low ceiling, Thai-basil daiquiris and spicy noodles heaped in black bowls.

The second Saturday night of each month at the Emerald, you’ll hear Mary Lou Gnoza and her piano man, Stevie Haberman, at the keys. 

Sometimes they even play My Funny Valentine.

Mary Lou Gnoza performs at The Emerald of Siam, along with bandmates Stevie Haberman and Gary Danielson, on Feb. 10 in Richland, Washington.
(Credit: Annie Warren / NWPB)

Gnoza wears classic-salon-red hair. At 82, she sparkles. There are rhinestones on her cane and nails. 

“He makes me laugh,” she said. “And sometimes it’s really hard to sing when you’re laughing, but I enjoy it very much.” 

Haberman wears specs over a crinkly wink and his pants rolled in cuffs. 

“Well, first of all, our partnership–you know I’m married to the beautiful Deborah,” he said. “So, Deborah’s my wife. Mary Lou is my second wife. She’s my mistress.”

Gnoza broke in with, “Oh stop!” 

“Mistress of music,” Haberman said. “OK.”

“OK,” Gnoza said, shaking her head.

Katherine Nguyen and Ryan Thompson enjoy the live music while they wait for their meal on a date at The Emerald of Siam Feb. 10 in Richland, Washington. Thompson said he’s often heard about the venue in his Jazz history class at Columbia Basin College in Pasco.
(Credit: Annie Warren / NWPB)

They met in 1996, when Gnoza was asked to play with Haberman at an internet café.

“The door opens and here is this man in a big puffy parka,” she said. “He looked about this big. And one of those hunting hats that has ear flaps on it. I’m dying here! And mittens, not gloves, mittens! And I thought, ‘Oh please don’t let this be him.’” 

“It was winter,” Haberman said, defending himself. “It was winter.”

Mary Lou Gnoza: “I know! Anyway, he says, ‘You’re the voice,’ and I said, ‘You’re the keys.’ He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘More Than You Know in F.’ It went from someone’s playing the piano, to ‘Oh my God, listen to that man play.’ And it was like he was breathing at the same time I was. It’s like we’d been working together for years.”

The couple plays songs mostly from the 1920s through the 1950s–a period of jazz standards often referred to as the Great American Songbook.

The duo has made it through some bitter times, too. Almost 10 years ago in 2015, Gnoza lost her adult son, Tom. At the funeral, Haberman played. 

“It just felt so good, it was so comforting,” Gnoza said. “Here we’re just going on as normal, and I don’t think a child should ever die before the parents do. It’s such an immeasurable loss.” 

Mary Lou Gnoza and Stevie Haberman grip hands to support each other while taking a portrait during their performance at The Emerald of Siam in Richland Feb. 10. (Credit: Annie Warren / NWPB)

Haberman and Gnoza keep performing even when it gets tough. Haberman has Parkinson’s, but doesn’t shake when he plays. 

Gnoza said in the 28 years they’ve played together, they’ve never rehearsed their act. 

Still, outside of music, they don’t hang much.

“I mean, he doesn’t crochet,” Gnoza said. 

“I’m looking forward to my lessons in the rocking chair, when you put me in the rocking chair and I start crocheting,” Haberman quipped.

“For being such good friends, I don’t want to work with anybody else except Steve,” Gnoza said.  

These days they have to find other friends to drive them to the gigs from opposite ends of town. Getting there is hard and it’s gotten harder lately.

But once they get up on that stand–they’re in the exact right spot, together.

Longtime musical collaborators singer Mary Lou Gnoza and pianist Stevie Haberman enjoy a laugh as they stand for a portrait between sets at their monthly performance at The Emerald of Siam in Richland, Washington.
(Credit: Annie Warren / NWPB)

Editor’s note: Kyle Norris, Justin Chapman, Connor Henricksen and Ricky James Riddell contributed to this report.