My Musical Journey – The Beginning
Music has always been a significant part of who I am. I enjoyed listening to music at an early age. My father had been a jazz trombone player as a young person. My mom played the piano. My only aunt (had no uncles) loved jazz and classical music and played in an orchestra. Music was often being played in our house either on my parents' hi-fi or on the radio. Neither of my grandparents played much music, I don't remember hearing any music at either of their houses. The lone exception was they watched the Guy Lombardo show. What Guy Lombardo is probably most known for is hosting the New Year's Eve specials on TV for many years. If you are from Long Island, like me, you may know him from the Jones Beach Theater where he and his band were essentially the house band for the musical shows that were put on there. I never cared for or paid much attention to Guy Lombardo and his band, “The Royal Canadians”.
My dad had a collection of big band music, They were largely 78 albums. 78's were the standard record size before vinyl (45 and 33 RPM records). The 78 stands for the speed, number of revolutions (RPM) per minute, the disc/record is played at. 78's lasted until the late 50's where they were replaced by 45's (singles) and 33's (LP albums). My parents each year would celebrate their anniversary by going to a Broadway show in NYC, usually a musical. They would often buy the cast recording if they enjoyed the show. As I became old enough to actually pay attention to what was being played I began to either request or even play the music I liked best myself. I regularly played my favorite records from dad's jazz collection and from the Broadway cast albums.
With my dad being a trombone player he had a lot of Tommy Dorsey. Tommy Dorsey was his favorite trombone player. He also had some Jack Teagarden and Glen Miller. Of course he didn't just have Trombone guys. He had Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington. Those are the ones I remember. On the Broadway side the cast recordings included Porgy and Bess, South Pacific, Oklahoma, Li'l Abner, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Music Man, The Boy Friend, and Bye Bye Birdie. My favorites of dad's jazz music was a Tommy Dorsey album and a Louis Armstrong album. My favorite song was "Blue Skies" sung by a young Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. My two favorite Broadway albums were South Pacific and My Fair Lady.
My mom often listened to the radio. I remember hearing singers like Patti Page, Doris Day, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Eddie Fisher, Mel Torme, and others. I was the oldest child of the family so I didn't have an older brother or sister playing any music for me. I depended on the kindness of others. “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window” is one of earliest songs I remember. It's a Patti Page song from 1953. Another is “Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes that came out the following year. The 1st time I heard anything like rock-n-roll was at the home of my friends who had older brothers and/or sisters.
A 1955 song I remember is “The Ballad of Davey Crockett” - I think it was done by 2 or 3 different people but I was mostly familiar with Fess Parker's version because his version was the one used on Disney's Davey Crockett show that I watched. I also remember Tennessee Ernie Ford's “Sixteen Tons” from that year. I think that was played on the radio station my mom listened to. “Rock Around the Clock” was a huge hit that year too but I am not sure I heard it until the next year. It was the opening song to the movie “Blackboard Jungle” and that was significant because it was the 1st time a rock-n-roll song was featured in a mainstream movie. However, I remember it from the radio as I did not see that movie until a few years later.
Both my mom and my aunt (mom's sister) played classical music for me when I was young, probably preschool aged. The two I have the strongest memories of are Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite from my mom and Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" from my aunt.
1956 rolled around and that really was when the R&R period started and began to dominate the pop charts. 1956 brought us Elvis with “Hound Dog”, “Don't Be Cruel”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, and “Blue Suede Shoes”. I remember hearing both “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes” at my friend Jeff's house from his older brother.
On the home front my parents purchased Harry Belafonte's Calypso album, the sound track to Li'l Abner and My Fair Lady in '56. Somewhere about that time a new Frank Sinatra album showed up and a couple of years after that a Steve and Eydie album. There may have been others but those were the ones I liked. My parents were not buying a lot of new music then. I guess they were too busy raising us kids....
It would be two years later, 1958, when I began to tune into the R&R songs that were sometimes being played by my friends older siblings. I was 9 and that's when I started to focus on R&R music and began to cut back on listening to my parents' music. In the fall of that year I entered the 4th grade, In the spring at school I, actually the entire class, was introduced to the plastic song flute. The class was given lessons by the school's music teacher. Now there's a fun job... After that we were invited to select an instrument to learn and were provided information on where/how to rent your instrument of choice. This was voluntary and not the military kind of voluntary. I liked the sound of the clarinet and may have selected that but of course there was a nice trombone already at home at no charge so the decision to learn the trombone became the obvious choice. Everyone who chose to learn an instrument got individual lessons from the schools music teacher. The lessons started in the 5th grade and all lessons were all scheduled during the school day. If you did well you would be asked to join the school band when the music teacher thought you were ready. I was the 2nd person from the 5th grade level to be asked to join the band. The 1st one was a fellow classmate named Don. Don played the alto sax. Brian was the 3rd, he played the Clarinet. How, or even why, do I remember these things? No idea.
Turned out that our music teacher's main instrument was the trombone. One of his rules was you were never to touch his trombone. However, my Dad's trombone was evidently a pretty good one and after my first lesson the first thing he did at my lessons was trade instruments (trombones) for the lesson. He played my Dad's and I played his....
I was 10 when I entered the 5th grade. That fall the Kingston Trio released a new album “Here We Go Again” which was a follow-up to the successful debut album that had been released the year before. That 1st album had the hit song “Tom Dooley” on it. I was familiar with Tom Dooley. I stumbled across that (2nd) album at the King Kullen grocery story with my mom. I pleaded with her to let me buy it and she gave in. That was the first music I ever bought. Soon after that I started buying 45's. I found them at the new E. J. Korvettes department store. It was close by, just a block or so from our house but it was on the other side of a major road. I was not allowed to cross that street by myself so I was dependent on my parents or another adult to take me there. The very first 45 I purchased was “Goodbye Cruel World” by James Darren. I had heard it on "The Donna Reed" show. It closely followed by Chubby Checker's “The Twist” and I also bought David Seville's “Witch Doctor”. Hey, I was only like 10 or 11. And that was the beginning of my music buying addiction that has remained unchecked for 67 years and counting.
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