A Percusive Tribute to Tony Bennett

And that’s that. I had the good fortune of being brought up by parents who appreciated good music. Show tunes (we lived in NYC), big band, symphonic music, jazz and yes, the great vocalists. They didn’t do rock or country.

The records would just appear in a little metal rack next to the old Westinghouse hi-fi in the room in our 400 square foot apartment in Queens I shared with my older brother.

My father was an virtuoso whistler, but my mother was the singer. She actually cut a 78 rpm demo record that, sadly, disintegrated many years ago. We played the grooves out it. At one time she aspired to a musical theater career. Instead she sang around the house all the time, almost never with the correct lyrics. Didn’t matter.

Music was always part of our lives. Our apartment was too small for a piano, so my mother got us accordion lessons because at least the right hand was the same as the piano and we learned to read music.

She later brought home a nylon string guitar she got for 10 books of green stamps. It came with a little pamphlet with the diagrams for the G, C, D7 and G7 chords. Enough to play about a million songs.

All this time we’d play those records. I learned all the tunes for Broadway shows I’d never see because cast albums for Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl and Carousel were always spinning on the hi-fi. I did eventually get to see Fiddler but only the movie versions of the others. Same tunes, but not the same.

Then one day Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” showed up. Of course, we knew Tony’s music from his TV appearances and on the radio, but this album was a revelation.

Oh, the title tune was, of course, the big hit, but the deeper cuts were what cut more deeply to me. “Once Upon a Time,” “Love For Sale,” “Tender is the Night,” “The Best is Yet to Come.” The whole damn thing.

It wasn’t only the warm tones of his wonderful tenor, but the intricate phrasing, the syncopated timing on some, his ability to sustain a note or clip one in an irrestible stacatto. As kids might have said way back when, “it sent me!”

Well, I certainly couldn’t play the accordion or even the guitar, really to Tony. No, it had to be the drums. It was right around the time that album came out when those plastic tops started appearing on coffee cans.

I had my mother save me an empty on. I filled it with coins and paper clips, put a little slit in the plastic top and, ha! I had my first snare drum.

I’d take my desk chair, pull it up to the hi-fi, place my coffee can snare between my legs and using number 2 pencils as my drumsticks.

But I needed a cymbal. Ha! Used some flat metal pieces from my Erector set and covered them with tin foil. Not bad.

Then I placed the needle on Tony’s masterpiece and banged away at every gorgeous cut. I quickly picked up the beats when Tony got jazzy, attempted soft brush strokes for the ballads, gave it my best shot when Tony got creative with his phrasing but never, ever quit.

The album would end and I’d just place the needle back to the beginning and start again. I didn’t do that with any other album or artist. It was just Tony.

Oh, we had stuff from Frank and Barbra, but not Bing or Dean. I remember playing a bit to Sinatra and maybe even a little Streisand’s first couple of albums, but no one as often as Tony Bennett.

Over the years we’d see entertainers from that era pass away: Sinatra, Crosby, Martin, Milton Berle. I always thought when Tony Bennett left this Earth, that pretty much closed it out.

Back in the 1990’s when I had the dough and room, I finally bought myself a real drum kit and a better record player.

Then I found an old copy of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in an antique mall. My parents’ record was long ago lost.

What a thrill to be able to finally do Mr. Bennett’s music justice. Well, if you’ve heard me play, you might think his survivors would have a case for musical malpractice. But it’s just nice to be able to pay tribute in some little way…even if it does disturb the neighbors.

In fact, I’m thinking of placing the needle in the grooves right now, and playing along, to “Once Upon a Time,” because now that Tony’s gone, that time has now passed.