Alma Pillot, “Noisy Neighbors”

When we started this site, my partners and I all had a vague hope that our mission involved archiving - recording and preserving something that was, by nature, ephemeral. This week, an event occurred that suddenly brought that element of the project into sharp focus. One of our joke tellers has passed away.

I was introduced to Alma Pillot by her nephew Jonathan, who was an early aficionado of OJTJ. He suggested that his 88 year old Aunt, a former dancer and an irrepressible force of nature, would be a great addition. He wasn’t wrong. I think, when you watch Alma tell a story, you see that she characterizes many of the things that I have come to cherish in the joke tellers of this generation: a magnificent poise, a proud delight in laughter and the ability to bestow it, and a knowing gleam of mischievous spirit.

Her son Judd, was kind enough to share the following:

My mom, Alma, passed away on Sunday, at around 11 am in a wonderful hospice in Hackensack, NJ. She would have been 89 in November. The last week of her life was amazing — we had a friend bring a keyboard to the hospital room, and mom wowed us with “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “What a Difference a Day Makes”, “Hard Hearted Hannah”, “Anything Goes”, and a slew of other great standards that she belted out like she was headlining at the Copa, or in the big room at the Desert Inn.

I have a ton of video — a treasure beyond words — we’re calling that day of singing, “The Cardiac Cabaret Cruise.

Thank you again for giving my mom the opportunity to appear on OJTJ. it was a thrill for her, a great gift, truly.

Thank you, Alma.