Professor’s music honors ailing wife

Dr. John Webb and wife, Toni, dance at a friend’s anniversary party after her accident.

A UT Tyler professor intends to present more than just typical jazz music for the Jazz at the Braithwaite Recital inside the Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center on Monday.

Dr. John Webb’s wife, Toni, was struck by a car last November as she attempted to walk across the intersection of Front and Bonner streets. “The fact that she survived is a miracle,”  Webb said.

Webb, with his John Webb Trio, is planning to perform a song,  “Angel Mist,” which he wrote to illustrate his wife’s struggles and daily victories. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. “It was clear she had lost almost all her memory,” Webb said about his wife’s condition at the hospital.

Webb said she was in a coma for about five days and spent a month in intensive care, unable to move or speak without difficulty.  She regained most of her memory, allowing Webb and family to understand about 15 percent of what she said, while being able to walk about 10 steps with a walker and assistance from a nurse.

“In February, she started to come into her personality,”  Webb said.  “ You know, for a while there she was quiet and learning how to talk, but in February she started bubbling up and just started being  funny and laughing, and singing songs and just being really good-natured and she has been that way ever since.”

Toni Webb is expected to attend the recital to hear her husband play the piano alongside friends Alex Blair on the bass and Jeff Shelton on the drums. The program consists of more than seven songs, leaving “Angel Mist” for the end.

“She’s been very courageous through the whole thing.  More courageous than anybody, so she’s my hero. She’s really been something,” Webb said.