“Life is great,” said Ramsey Lewis on an April afternoon, socially distanced in his Streeterville home in Chicago.

Our conversation was originally to be of the face-to-face variety, but with faces having become a focal point of health awareness, we instead took to the phone.

At 85, Lewis is now enjoying the freedom of retirement. He stepped away from touring nearly two years ago, leaving behind the roars of recognition he would hear when playing the first bars of “Hang On Sloopy.” No more audiences, no more applause. Why, I wondered.