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On an industrial stretch of the western edge of Hell’s Kitchen, a tall man with a helmet of silver hair was perched over a keyboard and a rack of sheet music inside a 2,000-square-foot space that recalled a high school band room.

It was late October, the day before an anticipated live televised performance of a song the pianist and composer had written 36 years earlier. “Let’s take it from letter B,” the man said in the sonorous, distinctive baritone of John Tesh.

A regal horn fanfare joined by strings and a kicking rhythm section followed. The tune, called “Roundball Rock,” is better known as the “NBA on NBC” theme song. A 2013 “Saturday Night Live” sketch spoofed the wordless anthem, with Tim Robinson singing the invented lyrics “ba ba ba b

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