Howland native Alton Merrell worked with Emmy Award-winning actor Glynn Turman to help him give a convincing performance as a 1920s jazz pianist in the film "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," which debuts Friday on Netflix. (Submitted photo)

If the music scenes in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” look realistic, Alton Merrell is one of the reasons why.

The 1994 Howland High School graduate, who now lives in Pittsburgh, coached Emmy-winning actor Glynn Turman on how to be believable as a piano player in the movie, which debuts Friday on Netflix.

The movie stars Viola Davis and features Chadwick Boseman in his final film role. It is based on a play by Pittsburgh native August Wilson and was shot in the city in 2019.

In a 2019 interview, Merrell said he initially thought the film producers wanted him to teach Turman how to play the complex stride-piano jazz of the 1920s in only a few weeks. Instead, thanks to the magic of movies, Turman only has to look like he’s playing.

“Once I got a clear understanding, I just shook my head. I can’t believe this,” Merrell said. “Someone calling you to teach someone else how to look like they’re doing something you do all the time, and then you get paid for it? I saw it as a blessing.”

Merrell earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music and earned a doctorate in jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Merrell taught Turman, who played Mayor Clayton Royce on HBO’s “The Wire” and was part of the original Broadway cast for the play “A Raisin in the Sun,” the importance of the left hand in that stride-piano style and helped him learn the movement of the right hand by having Turman sing the melody and move his right hand up and down the keys to match his voice.

“If you can sing it, you can play it, and that worked,” Merrell said.