60 Minutes (1968) s46e29 Episode Script

Ask Wall Street bankers the net worth of Paul Tudor Jones, and they'll tell you $4.
3 billion.
He's one of those hedge fund managers.
But ask a homeless child or a struggling family and they'll tell you that a spreadsheet is no way to measure a man.
Paul Tudor Jones wonders that if billionaires, like him, are such geniuses, then why do nearly two million people live in poverty in New York City alone? In 1988, he started a charity called the Robin Hood Foundation.
Now more than 25 years later, Robin Hood has given away nearly $1.
5 billion.
As we first showed you last May, it's become the city's largest private backer of charter schools, job training and food programs.
Tudor Jones has learned hard lessons -- for a latter day Robin Hood, it turns out giving to the poor is harder than he thought.
And as for taking from the rich? Well, he finds it's best to distract them.
Arena concert.
But it's a private party for the super rich.
The Robin Hood Foundation's annual fundraiser seats 4,000 in Manhattan's convention center.
[Seth Myers: It's amazing who is here tonight, give yourselves a round of applause.
It's like the one percent has its own one percent.
.]
They laugh, because it's true.
Billionaires, stars and athletes are here for the 22nd year to lay credit cards at the feet of Paul Tudor Jones.
[Paul Tudor Jones: Brothers and sisters of Robin Hood, new ideas, different ideas, crazy ideas, those are the ones that change the world and boy, does the world outside these walls need changing.
.]
Scott Pelley: What do you see when you look around the city? Paul Tudor Jones: I see people in pain, people in need, people at times without hope, looking for something that will give them some compelling future.
I see too many people in homeless shelters, on food stamps.
I think a lot of us don't like to focus on it, but it's a significant part of this country that needs to be addressed.
There was a time he was focused on himself.
This is Paul Tudor Jones in the 1980s, age Paul Tudor Jones: My mother told me I was gonna be a preacher.
I always wanted to be a millionaire or a movie director.
Scott Pelley: So you chose millionaire? Paul Tudor Jones: I don't know if I chose millionaire, I ultimately got to that point, yes.
That point and far beyond.
But his mother had seen something of a preacher and months after that documentary, Tudor Jones caught a glimpse of it too.
It was 1986, one Sunday night.
[Harry Reasoner: Millionaire with heart of gold offers hope to ghetto kids.]
Harry Reasoner met Gene Lang, a millionaire who guaranteed college tuition for every kid in one Harlem class.
[Harry Reasoner: Are they good kids? Do you like them? Gene Lang: Oh I love them.
I look at them now, all of them, as an extension of my family.
.]
Paul Tudor Jones: Well, the second that program finished, I picked up the phone.
I called Gene Lang.
And I said I wanna do what you're doing.
Scott Pelley: You know, I'm curious what it was about that program and about where you were in your life that ignited that spark in that moment? Paul Tudor Jones: There was probably a hole in my soul.
And I didn't really know it at the time.
And all of a sudden, here was this man that showed the joy of giving.
So the lesson that I learned was that there was a whole new journey in my life that was ahead of me that I had not yet even realized was there.
So he adopted a school too, confident that if he showered it with money, the students would thrive.
Paul Tudor Jones: I was throwing everything in the world I could at it.
I was taking them on trips every summer and providing after-school services.
We put so much time, energy, and love into them.
But he failed.
After five years, the grades in his school were no better than average.
Paul Tudor Jones: I felt like I had failed a great deal of those kids.
But failure, a lot of times, is the fire that forges the steel for success, right? There are going to be stops, there are gonna be failures.
There are gonna be setbacks.
But you grow from those and you get better and it becomes transformative.
Turned out a preacher's compassion needed a little Wall Street ruthlessness.
So Tudor Jones and his friends set up Robin Hood to invest in poverty programs in the same hardnosed way they invested in businesses.
Their offices are filled with analysts and accountants who help the best ideas develop and measure the results without mercy.
Mary Alice Hannan: My relationship with Robin Hood has evolved over the years like mother-daughter, you know, friend-and-foe-- Sister Mary Alice Hannan's soup kitchen in the Bronx had lived "hand to mouth" for almost a decade and then came Robin Hood with an offer to invest and expand.
Scott Pelley: Friend and foe? Mary Alice Hannan: Friend and foe.
I mean this in a loving way, but I loved and hated them in 30 seconds.
And I'm sure they felt the same way about me.
Love was nice but Robin Hood wanted data.
Who was being served, how many, what was the cost? Did the data support expansion? And where was the nun's business plan? Mary Alice Hannan: So I'm like, "OK.
" Scott Pelley: You're just trying to get through today? Mary Alice Hannan: Today, right.
So the first thing was a five-year strategic plan and I went, "Ugh, alright.
" And it was a long, tedious experience.
And it was wonderful and we came up with all these spectacular goals and that was really, really good.
Yay, yay! It was the follow up of the goals that became the challenge.
Paul Tudor Jones: We started asking grantees, "What are your goals?" and then holding them accountable and yet, at the same time, providing management expertise and providing administrative help and legal help and help to secure buildings.
So we weren't just holding them accountable.
We were helping them along the way.
Robin Hood invested 5 million in the kitchen's expansion goals and now they're serving more than twice as many as before.
But when programs don't perform, Robin Hood takes the money back.
Paul Tudor Jones: Every year we probably de-fund because the fact that they're not wonderful.
Not because of the fact that they're not trying real hard, but because we're not getting the results.
Scott Pelley: You do that to 5 percent to Paul Tudor Jones: Yes, because we're always trying to find new things, and by definition, you're gonna fail at times.
It's what you have to do to be at the forefront of actually finding a way to kick poverty's ass.
Recently Robin Hood's board of directors met at the soup kitchen.
The personal net worth of the board adds up to $25 billion.
Robin Hood takes all of its expenses from the board members, so 100 percent of donations are given to the poor.
Just like its namesake.
Paul Tudor Jones: If you said to me what part of our success is due to our name, I'd say it's a big part of it 'cause it's a great name, right? It says everything.
Scott Pelley: Is that what happens at that gala we went to? Taking from the rich? Well, you put the arm on them.
Paul Tudor Jones: But many years from now, when you look back on your life and you are at your end, would you trade those fleeting luxuries for one chance, just one chance to return to this night.
And give a hundred thousand people a chance to grab their dream.
Scott Pelley: You were shaking people by their ankles.
Paul Tudor Jones: You cannot have significance in this life if it's all about you.
You get your significance, you find your joy in life through service and sacrifice.
It's pure and simple.
Big charity galas often bring in $3 million to $5 million.
Tudor Jones took in more than $57 million this night.
The money goes to about 500 projects.
Robin Hood spent $126 million last year, with a heavy emphasis on schools.
Scott Pelley: You are graduating your first class.
Jabali Sawicki: Hallelujah.
Jabali Sawicki is headmaster of what was a crack house.
An old school in Brooklyn had been abandoned as the neighborhood collapsed.
Jabali Sawicki: It's dilapidated.
It's falling down.
People walk by and they put graffiti on it.
That's exactly how people viewed African American boys at the time.
Sawicki was hired by Tudor Jones.
And they opened the Excellence Boys Charter School, grades K through 8.
Tudor Jones believes that his experiment with that middle school in the 1980s failed because he caught the kids too late.
Paul Tudor Jones: The only way to break the cycle of poverty statistically is higher levels of education attract higher levels of income.
The only way to beat poverty in America is to completely, totally transform our public education system.
It's the only way.
Now Robin Hood is supporting younger kids in 98 schools.
It spent $35 million turning the crack house into a crack program.
They call students here "scholars.
" The day is long and they don't waste a minute.
Not even when they're passing from one class to the next.
New York City's Department of Education tells us the Excellence Boys School is significantly better than average in math and science, and slightly better in English.
The boys have reached the city's top 20 percent even though some of them start the day in homeless shelters and others in troubled homes.
Scott Pelley: There was a shooting near the school recently.
How did the boys handle that? Jabali Sawicki: A tragic event.
The father of one of our scholars was murdered one block away.
And to make matters even worse, two of our other scholars in the school witnessed the entire thing.
Scott Pelley: What did you tell the boys? Jabali Sawicki: That in 15 to 20 years, they're gonna be the men that are out on the street, navigating that world.
Excellence symbolizes the greatest mechanism for us to create a world where no one ever has to see their father buried, or no one ever has to walk up to the casket, look into that father's closed eyes, and ask mommy, is he sleeping? And we told them, "That's why we do this.
" This is the graduation of the first class to go from kindergarten to eighth grade.
Some of them are headed to top prep schools.
Scott Pelley: When you're standing up there, looking across all those faces, what are you going to see? Paul Tudor Jones: I'm going to see first and foremost, men of character After that failure with the older kids, Tudor Jones is focused now on the starting line.
Paul Tudor Jones: Today we're going to blow this.
The race starts after you leave this room today.
Are you guys ready? I can't hear you.
Are you guys ready? Ready, set, (whistle blow) After 26 years of Robin Hood, countless lives have been changed but the city's poverty rate doesn't.
It's about 20 percent year in and year out.
If Robin Hood is a hedge fund for humanity, then a Wall Street trader would say that Tudor Jones is buying on the "futures" market -- a bet that investing in young children and families will pay big dividends in the next generation.
Paul Tudor Jones: I don't think there's ever actually a point where you can say I won.
It's a constant battle.
I could see myself, I could see myself with the coffin lid dropping and me still knocking on the top of it, trying to get out, 'cause I think there'll still be a war to fight.
Scott Pelley: And more to do.
Paul Tudor Jones: And more to do.
After our story aired the first time Robin Hood held another gala.
The take this time? Almost $81 million.
You may -- or may not -- recall that a few years back, we brought you a story about a handful of people with memories that are almost unimaginable: name virtually any date in their lives, and they can tell you what they were doing that day, the day of the week, sometimes even the weather -- all within seconds.
It's a kind of memory that is brand new to science -- literally unheard of just a decade ago.
After our original story aired, the scientists studying this phenomenon were flooded with calls and emails.
We were so intrigued, we decided to follow the research to see what further study might reveal about these remarkable memories and what it may mean for the rest of us.
As we reported earlier this year, they now have many more subjects, including a 10-year-old boy.
But first, meet -- or refresh your memory of -- our original memory wizards.
Dr.
James McGaugh: A 7.
1 earthquake hit the San Francisco-Oakland area on? All: October 17th, 1989.
Bob Petrella: Tuesday.
Marilu Henner: I remember we were watching the game of the World Series.
Aurora: When were the Oscars held in 1999? Louise Owen: In 1999? Sunday, March 21st.
Aurora: Yes.
Perfect.
They remember what they did Louise Owen: I went to a fabulous Oscar party that day.
What they care about Lesley Stahl: When was the last time the Redskins beat the Steelers? Bob Petrella: Hmm.
Oh, in '91.
November 17th, Sometimes even the shoes they wore.
Marilu Henner: These I wore on April the 21st of this year, so that was a Tuesday.
Marilu Henner: Oh, these shoes I got a long time ago It's the way most of us remember yesterday.
Marilu Henner: 1982.
I got them.
April the Dr.
James McGaugh: This is a detective story.
The scientist who first identified this condition and has been studying it ever since, is Dr.
James McGaugh at the University of California Irvine.
An eye condition requires him to wear a clouded lens.
Dr.
James McGaugh: We are pretending that we are Sherlock Holmes.
We've arrived on the scene of a crime of something that's unusual.
All of a sudden, we have a new phenomenon of memory, and we're trying to figure out how it is that this happened.
When we did our first story, only six people in the world had been identified with this ability, one of them by chance the actress Marilu Henner.
But that number changed quickly.
Lesley Stahl: OK, quiz.
What's the date that that story first aired? Several: December 19th, 2010-- Lesley Stahl: What day of the week was it? Several: Sunday.
Joey DeGrandis, Bill Brown, Tracy Fersan, and Jerrard Heard are among the 50 new subjects.
Lesley Stahl: All right, what happened on June 25th, 2009? Several: Michael Jackson-- Tracy Fersan: Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett died, too-- Bill Brown: Farrah Fawcett, that morning.
Tracy Fersan: They both died the same day.
And when they think about those days, they actually relive them.
Tracy Fersan: It's not just a question of numbers, dates and times.
It's emotion.
And so, you know, when we wake up on that certain day of the year, it's kind of like how everybody wakes up feeling on 9/11.
Lesley Stahl: Do you even know that when I think of something five years ago, I don't have much emotion attached to it? Bill Brown: I can't even relate to that.
Several: Yeah.
Bill Brown: I don't even understand that.
Lesley Stahl: So, Joe, how old were you when you first realized that you could do this? Joey DeGrandis: I was about 10 years old.
It was the fall of '94.
Lesley Stahl: It was a Tuesday.
[Man: How's it going so far? You tricking people?.]
Joey DeGrandis: We had a fourth grade magic show at the very end of the year.
It was Thursday, June 1st, of '95.
And I remember-- like the week before, you know, trying to think of, "What-- what am I gonna do? I'm not a magician.
My mom said to me, "Why don't you-- why don't you do your date thing? You know, just blow some calendars up behind you.
You know, stand with your back facing the calendars, and when people come by, ask them to pick a date.
" And that's what I did.
[Man: OK, how 'bout if we pick, um, Jan.
8th, Joey DeGrandis: Friday.
Man: How 'bout Dec.
15, 1993? Joey DeGrandis: Wednesday.
Man: How 'bout Feb.
9th, 1994? Joey DeGrandis: Uh, Wednesday again.
Man: Correct.
.]
Until now, Joey's videotape was the closest the researchers had come to seeing this ability in a child.
Enter Jake Hausler, age 10.
Lesley Stahl: What day of the week was Halloween Jake Hausler: Monday.
That one I didn't even have to think about.
Lesley Stahl: New Year's Day 2010.
Jake Hausler: Friday.
Lesley Stahl: Friday.
Jake Hausler: I remember that 'cause I was up all night at the Blues game.
That's when Jake was 6.
He lives in St.
Louis, loves sports and is, in most respects, a typical Lesley Stahl: What happened related to school on January 30th, 2013? Jake Hausler: --that day.
I'm pretty sure-- oh, wait.
That's a trick question.
We didn't have school that day.
Yeah, there was a huge lightning storm that last night.
I'm like, "Hey, we didn't have school that day.
" Jake's parents, Sari and Eric Hausler, and his older brother Ben, say they knew something was up with Jake's memory when he was only three and he had memorized the inspection stickers on the neighbors' cars.
Then he started with the dates.
Sari Hausler: We'd be driving in the car and we'd be talking about a past event and he would say, "Oh that was a Tuesday.
" And there was the time the family dog threw up in her crate.
Sari Hausler: He says to me, "Well mom, tomorrow would be a year since the last time she threw up in her crate.
" Jake Hausler: I remember the first time was Thursday, May 10th, 2012.
Sari Hausler: I mean, he just-- Lesley Stahl: Wow.
Sari Hausler: --has a lotta things that are stuck in his head.
Eric Hausler: A lot in there.
Lesley Stahl: What did you think was going on? Sari Hausler: We didn't know.
Eric Hausler: Not really sure.
They heard about Dr.
McGaugh's research from our first story and brought Jake out to Irvine for testing.
Dr.
McGaugh says seeing this ability in a child firsthand is significant.
[Kid on beanbag: What did you have for breakfast on Jan.
1st, 2013? Jake Hausler: It was actually pancakes.
.]
We wondered if seeing it this early proves it's innate? Well, take a look at this.
Dr.
James McGaugh: May 27th 2012.
Do you know what day of the week that was? Tyler Hickenbottom: That was a Sunday.
Dr.
James McGaugh: You're right.
There is exactly one child in the world other than Jake who's been identified so far with this ability - 11-year-old Tyler Hickenbottom.
And in a fortuitous coincidence, Tyler happens to be an identical twin.
He and his brother Chad share the same genes.
Chad Hickenbottom: I think I might have worn an orange shirt.
But surprisingly, not the same memory.
Tyler Hickenbottom: No, that was in 2012 when you had to wear the neon shirt.
Dr.
McGaugh and his team haven't scanned Chad and Tyler's brains yet to see what secrets they might hold, but they have put Jake into an MRI scanner, as well as many of the adults.
The latest findings show a more active pathway between the front and back of the brain.
Dr.
James McGaugh: That would say that the reason that they can do that, in part, might be because the different parts of the brain have greater access to each other.
And so that is exciting.
And we're gonna have to explore that in more detail.
In the meantime, McGaugh and his team have made some surprising new discoveries in their low-tech testing.
They showed the memory wizards a short film about a dinner party, and later gave them a memory test.
Dr.
James McGaugh: How many coffee mugs were on the kitchen table in the opening scene? Bill Brown: I don't know.
Jerrard Heard: None? Joey DeGrandis: I'm gonna guess four.
Aurora: The answer's one.
Dr.
James McGaugh: The surprising thing is they are no better than the rest of us in memory of that film.
Now their explanation for this is that they didn't live that -- in other words they're just watching it, that was not their life.
But even when it comes to their own lives, there have been some unexpected findings.
In a new test, McGaugh's team asked the wizards - as well as non-wizards like me - to go back day by day to see how much we remember.
Lesley Stahl: So yesterday I went to the gym.
Marilu Henner: For breakfast I had pineapple and some papaya Joey: I remember waking up at 9:22 actually.
Lesley Stahl: I remember exactly what I had for lunch.
I remember-- I could tell you in rich detail.
Dr.
James McGaugh: In memory of what happened yesterday-- we are as good as they are.
That surprised me.
But we have pretty good memories of yesterday.
A couple days later, they're-- we're almost as good as they are.
Lesley Stahl: And I remember Sunday quite well.
Bob Petrella: And then at 10 o'clock I had a banana.
Marilu Henner: I really had to go to the bathroom, so we had to Dr.
James McGaugh: But their rate of forgetting is very small and ours is large.
So by the time we get to a week, we're very different in our memories.
And we get to a month and they are still almost as good as they were a week afterwards.
And we've gone to almost zero.
They are not exceptional learners.
They are very poor forgetters.
Lesley Stahl (voiceover): I was definitely a strong forgetter - I couldn't remember anything when I got to the end of the previous week.
Lesley Stahl: [trying to remember.]
Thursday and Friday? Wow.
But is it really that we forget? Watch what happened after my test, when my 60 Minutes colleagues reminded me that the Thursday and Friday I'd been struggling with, we had been together shooting a story.
Lesley Stahl: Was that Thursday and Friday? Lesley Stahl: When I was prompted, then I remembered in great detail.
I just couldn't bring it up.
Dr.
James McGaugh: Right-- you are-- have arrived at what we think is the most critical issue in this research.
// Do they have in their brains retrieval mechanisms for memory that we don't have? Now if that's the case, that would suggest the possibility that we have all those memories.
We're just like them, but we don't have the hooks to get the memories out.
Wouldn't that be interesting? If that were the case, the possibility would be that we could do something which would make those memories come out better.
Wouldn't that be exciting? But that raises an important question -- would we really want to remember it all? Lesley Stahl: What is the hardest part of having this kind of memory? Jake Hausler: The worst thing is that I can remember every bad thing that happened to me-- Lesley Stahl: You remember every bad thing.
Jake Hausler: I remember this from "The Lion King.
" (sings) "Leave the past behind.
" But I can't do that.
Lesley Stahl: But do you think you have to learn how to make it fade? Jake Hausler: It's probably gonna be hard to-- Lesley Stahl: To let it go.
Jake Hausler: Because I can't forget it.
Eric Hausler: We were in New Jersey this summer on vacation.
And he woke up one day and he said-- "This was a really bad day last year because you yelled at me.
" Lesley Stahl: Oh, my gosh.
Eric Hausler: Yeah, as a father you go, "Aw, geez, I didn't-- remember.
What did I say.
What-- what was it--" Lesley Stahl: But he said it's a bad day-- Eric Hausler: Breaks your heart.
Sari Hausler: I think for us, time heals.
Or at least lessens it.
And I feel that for them it probably doesn't.
Jake Hausler: I can't let it fade because I just have that type of memory that can remember everything.
We thought it might help Jake to meet some other people with "that type of memory.
" Marilu Henner: So cute -- look at you! Oh my gosh, are you darling! So we brought him together with Louise Owen, Bob Petrella, and Marilu Henner.
To break the ice, Bob asked Jake about sports.
Bob Petrella: So Oct.
27, 2011.
Jake: (laughs) Oct.
27, 2011.
Bob Petrella: Think about it -- if you're a Cardinals fan you should know that.
Jake Hausler: Game 6.
Bob Petrella: That's it.
Jake Hausler: Give it up, baby, give it up, baby.
Bob Petrella: Who hit the key hit? Jake Hausler: Dave Freese.
Bob Petrella: That's it.
Yeah.
Jake Hausler: Center field.
Bob Petrella: Alright, he's validated.
It was like a super-memory summit.
Lesley Stahl: Is it as if you're living it again, as opposed to, for me, kind of a two-dimensional memory? Louise Owen: For me it is.
I mean, you say the date and I'm there, as though it happened moments ago, rather than 28 years ago.
Lesley Stahl: And that is both emotionally and smelling and touching? Louise Owen: It really feels like-- time travel.
Marilu Henner: --the whole thing, is right there.
Bob Petrella: Yeah.
It-- you can feel-- you can almost feel the clothes you were wearing.
Marilu Henner: Exactly.
Jake Hausler: I can do that.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think it's sad that the rest of us lose so much memory of our own lives? Do you feel-- Louise Owen: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: --sorry for us? Louise Owen: I do.
Lesley Stahl: You do? Louise Owen: I do.
Louise said she feels her memory is a gift, and she had some encouragement for the newest member of the memory club.
Louise Owen: I think it's like having a super power.
And, you know, you can be normal-- Jake Hausler: Superior! Louise Owen: --yeah, you can be Clark Kent.
You can sort of blend in with everybody else.
But then, when you really need to fly, you can totally fly.
And it's awesome.
Lesley Stahl: On balance, taking your life, are you glad you have this memory? Or you wish you didn't have this memory? Jake Hausler: I'm glad.
Lesley Stahl: You're glad on balance.
Jake Hausler: Yeah After our story aired, Dr.
Mcgaugh and his team heard from dozens of parents who suspect their children have this type of memory too.
And Marilu Henner is working as a consultant on the CBS drama "Unforgettable," about a detective who uses her Henner-like memory to solve crimes.
Beauty has a way of turning up in places where you'd least expect it.
We went to the Democratic Republic of Congo two years ago, the poorest country in the world.
Kinshasa, the capital, has a population of 10 million and almost nothing in the way of hope or peace.
Until recently, there was a well-kept secret down there.
Kinshasa has a symphony orchestra, the only one in Central Africa, the only all-black one in the world.
It's called the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra.
We'd never heard of it.
No one we called had ever heard of it.
But when we got there we were surprised to find 200 musicians and vocalists, who'd never played outside Kinshasa, or had been outside Kinshasa.
We were even more surprised to find joy in the Congo.
When we told the musicians they would be on "60 Minutes," they didn't know what we were talking about but, still, they invited us to a performance.
And tonight, we thought it would be good to hear them again.
We caught up with them as they were preparing outside their concert hall, a rented warehouse.
As curtain time neared, we had no idea what to expect.
But maestro Armand Diangienda seemed confident and began the evening with bang.
The music, Carmina Burana, was written by German composer Carl Orff 75 years ago.
Did he ever dream that it would be played in the Congo? It wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for Armand and a strange twist of fate.
Armand was a commercial pilot until 20 years ago when his airline went bust.
So, like ex-pilots often do, he decided to put together an orchestra.
He was missing a few things.
Bob Simon: You had no musicians, you had no teachers, you had no instruments.
Armand Diangienda: Yes.
Bob Simon: And you had no one who knew how to read music? Armand Diangienda: No, nobody.
Nobody.
Armand's English is limited.
He preferred speaking French, Congo's official language.
Bob Simon: When you started asking people if they wanted to be members of this orchestra, did they have any idea what you were talking about? Translation for Armand Diangienda: In the beginning, he said, people made fun of us, saying here in the Congo classical music puts people to sleep.
But Armand pressed on.
He taught himself how to read music and play the piano, play the trombone, the guitar and the cello.
He talked a few members of his church into joining him.
They brought their friends which brought more problems.
Translation for Armand Diangienda: We only had five or six violins, he said, for the the violin.
Translation for Armand Diangienda: So they took turns, he said.
One would play for 15 or 20 minutes at a time.
That was very difficult.
But more instruments started coming in.
Some were donated; others rescued from local thrift shops -- in various states of disrepair.
Then it was up to Albert -- the orchestra's surgeon -- to heal them.
He wasn't always gentle with his patients, but they survived.
Armand told us that when a violin string broke in those early days, they used whatever they had at hand to fix it.
Bob Simon: You took the wire from a bicycle? Armand Diangienda: Bicycle, yes.
Bob Simon: The brake of a bicycle, and turned it into a string for a violin? Armand Diangienda: Yes.
Bob Simon: And it played music? Armand Diangienda: Oui.
And with every functioning instrument, more would-be musicians poured in.
Before long, Armand's house became a makeshift conservatory.
Armand was the dean.
Every room, every corridor, no matter how small or dark or stifling was teeming with sound.
Outdoors, the parking lot was a quiet spot to practice the viola.
But even this was an oasis compared to what was on the other side of the walls.
The Congo is, after all, a war-torn country -- has been for 60 years.
This is where most of the musicians live, on unpaved streets with little in the way of running water, electricity or sanitation.
The musicians don't get paid for playing in the orchestra.
Some work in the market, selling whatever they can.
Very few people in Kinshasa make more than $50 a month or live past 50.
Sylvie Mbela's life has gotten even more demanding since she started in the orchestra 17 years ago.
She's got three kids now.
There are no daycare centers in the neighborhood, so the kids are always with her, never far from her fiddle.
But when she turns from mother to musician, she says she has left this planet.
She is not in the Congo anymore.
For years, Sylvie and the orchestra played on but only in Kinshasa -- no one outside the Congo knew anything about them until 2010.
That's when two German filmmakers made a documentary which was shown in Germany.
It so inspired musicians in Germany, they sent down instruments and then themselves to give master classes.
Opera vocalists Rolf Schmitz-Malburg and Sabine Kallhammer came to teach technique and diction.
And if you ever questioned that music is the universal language, watch this a German-speaking teacher tutoring a French-speaking African how to sing an aria in Italian.
But when Rolf and Sabine moved onto the full choir it wasn't so easy.
Bob Simon: Were they pleased to see you? Do you think that they said, "Oh, how wonderful we have two white people here to teach us how to play music"? Sabine Kallhammer: They had experiences with other white people, so I can really understand that they were careful, and a little shy.
But they really were open to learn.
At times they weren't sure what they were learning or why.
What was this all about? The exercises are designed to loosen you up, the Germans explained and, after a while, they did.
Sabine Kallhammer: And then they started to sing for us, and then we were, like, ah-- Sabine Kallhammer: Their faces change when they do their music.
Sabine Kallhammer: I mean if you live in Kinshasa there is no culture life here, so these people have to find a way to go to some other places.
Making music is one way to go on a trip, a cheap trip because you can just close your eyes, they do that very often and they are somewhere else.
Rolf moved onto the next class.
That's where we met two tenors, brothers Carrime and Valvi Bilolo.
They live in the countryside, 10 miles from Armand's place.
They took us there.
The boys' parents, two brothers and a sister share a three-room blockhouse.
Carrime and Valvi certainly had to learn the importance of harmony growing up here, so by the time they met Armand, harmony was second nature.
Bob Simon: When did you join the orchestra? Carrime Bilolo: En 2003, le 8 Novembre 2003.
Bob Simon: The 8th of November in 2003.
Carrime Bilolo: Yes.
Bob Simon: Why do you think you remember the exact date? Carrime Bilolo: Bon c'est la naissance pour nous - [Well, he said, it's like a birth for us in this symphony orchestra, so it's a date we can't forget.
.]
And this is how they get to rehearsal.
Six days a week, 90 minutes each way.
Some would call it a trek.
For them, it's a commute.
When they get downtown, the last stretch is on a bus.
What keeps them going? The music, always the music.
Sabine Kallhammer: They come here every day.
They sing, and they go home.
It's really amazing.
Bob Simon: It's pretty difficult to relate to that, isn't it? Sabine Kallhammer: Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think that anybody would do that with this conditions, in our country, no.
The boys and the choir have quite a repertoire now: Bach, Mendelssohn, Handel and, of course, Beethoven.
The week we were there, the orchestra was rehearsing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Not exactly starter music, but Armand was determined to take it on and, like a good general, he reviewed all his troops.
The choir, OK.
The strings? Not bad.
But the full orchestra? Not quite.
French horns, he said, "You're hitting it too hard" "Be mindful of the echo", he told the string section.
Finally, it all came together and on the night of the performance, in this rented warehouse, Beethoven came alive.
It's called the Ode to Joy, the last movement of Beethoven's last symphony.
It has been played with more expertise beforebut with more joy? Hard to imagine.
In the last two years since we first broadcast this story, the orchestra has been invited to perform in some major cities including Berlin, Monte Carlo, and Los Angeles.
This story is also sad for us, the wonderful man who co-produced it, Clem Taylor, died a month ago.