Transcript of interview with Ronald Simone by Claytee White, May 5, 2009

i An Interview with Ronald Simone An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White May 5, 2009 All That Jazz Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©All That Jazz Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2008 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach, Melissa Robinson, Stefani Evans Transcribers: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Project Assistants: Lisa Gioia-Acres and Claytee D. White iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Harold L. Boyer Charitable Foundation. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the All That Jazz Oral History Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada Las Vegas iv Table of Contents Interview with Ronald Simone May 5, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee D. White Preface………………………………………………………………………………………..…..vi Mentions current activity with Walt Boenig orchestra at Reed Whipple Cultural Center. Recalls early life in New Haven, Connecticut; being gifted with perfect pitch; and being exposed through his musician father to Broadway musicals, Yale University, Yankee baseball, and great musical artists and bandleaders of the 1940s and 1950s. Names music teachers Frank Riggio and his wife………………………………………………..…………………………………………….1-5 Talks about advantages of New Haven background and entering musical field as a child in 1943. Introduces sister and brother; recalls playing piano in gin mills and illegal card rooms during high school while playing trumpet in the high school band. Describes how his father guided and pushed his career during and after high school………………………………………………..5-10 Recalls five years at Yale and losing his scholarship; more New Haven musical experiences; joining the Musicians Union at 18; and playing annual Ice Capades shows as a student...….10-16 Mentions sister and brother in law, who arrived in Las Vegas in 1958; summer work at Green Mansions resort in New York; work on cruise ship the SS Independence..……………….…16-22 Describes being classified 4-E by the draft board; visiting sister and brother in law in Las Vegas in 1959; and sister pushing him to transfer his union membership to Las Vegas. Credits sister for his move to Las Vegas at end of 1960 and recalls early Las Vegas gigs………………….…22-26 Explains clubs with mob connections; recalls first meeting with Tony Morelli and relating to Morelli his experience playing piano for 1959 N.Y. Supreme Court case involving Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for The High and the Mighty……………………………………………….26-30 Recollects his and Morelli’s different interpretations of cut time; describes long-term gig at Desert Inn’s Monte Carlo restaurant and working for various performers; recalls experience with Sarah Vaughn and relates tale of Martin Luther King in Las Vegas…………………….…..30-35 Describes effects of 1989 Musicians Union strike; recalls various comedians and describes current freelance activities in semi-retirement. Relates childhood memory seeing Boris Karloff in Frankenstein makeup………………………………..…………………………………….….36-40 v Gives impressions of Barbra Streisand; describes gig as Invizabella at Caesars Magical Empire; philosophizes about benefits and sacrifices of a musical career……………………………41-46 Talks of mob connections at 1970s Tropicana and the ways synthesizers have changed music; reminisces about playing for various performers: Barbra Streisand, Teresa Brewer, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Cher, and Siegfried and Roy…………………………………………….……46-49 Recalls Rhapsody in Blue concert with Tony Morelli and introduces his four children: Veronica, Steve, Karen, and Suzanne. Describes working with Lena Horne, Diana Ross, Pearl Bailey and Jack Benny, Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson, and George Kirby……..………………………49-58 Addendum with list of big band leaders, symphony conductors, singers, comedians, and choreographers with whom Simone worked………………………………………………..60-61 Index……………………………………………………………………………………...…62-64 vi Preface Musician Ronald Simone of Las Vegas credits his father’s guidance and his upbringing in New Haven, Connecticut, for shaping his musical and educational aspirations. Due to its proximity to New York City and the influence of Yale University, New Haven offered its residents the finest in musical entertainment; as a result, many musical greats were from or had lived in New Haven and most Broadway shows opened at New Haven’s Shubert Theater. Born in 1935 with the gift of perfect pitch, Simone began to play the piano at a young age and could play most pieces by ear. He began playing professionally at age eight in 1943 with a weekly stint on a radio show, Kitty's Revue. Still in grade school during World War II he began touring locally with an amateur producer, who formed a show that played military bases and hospitals around Connecticut and into New York and Massachusetts. In high school Simone formed his own trio and a quartet and played piano in gin mills, illegal card rooms, and resorts in upstate New York while playing trumpet in the high school band. He joined the Musicians Union at 18 and continued to play in New York and Connecticut clubs and theaters throughout his five years at Yale. During his second year at Yale the School of Music became a graduate school, from which Ron graduated in 1958. Ron’s sister Louise married one of his Yale classmates, a drummer, and the couple moved to Las Vegas. Ron visited his sister in 1959, loved the musical opportunities he saw, transferred his Musicians Union membership, and moved to Las Vegas with his friend, violinist Joe Mack, in September 1960. After sub work and playing a lounge show at the Riviera, he spent five and a half years in the Riviera showroom, moving in 1966 to the Desert Inn, where he played piano in the exclusive Monte Carlo Room for five years for the likes of Dean Martin, Sandy Koufax, Sammy Davis Jr., and Kirk Kerkorian. From there Simone went to the Dunes, where he remained for the next nineteen years working with choreographer Ronnie Lewis and rehearsing and playing all the Casino de Paris shows, line numbers, and production numbers. In July 1989, Musicians Local 369 went on strike. Because Simone was playing the Follies Bergere at the Tropicana—the first house band to strike—he was among the first musicians to walk out. Musicians at all but three Strip hotels (Circus Circus, Riviera, and the Stardust) followed. While the musicians strike lasted nearly eight months, Simone was recruited for sanctioned sub work for the duration at the Lido de Paris show at the Stardust. After the strike ended he worked with Johnny Haig's relief band playing six nights a week at various hotels. vii viii 1 This is Claytee White. It is May 5th, 2009. And I'm with Ron Simone in his home in Las Vegas. And his first name is Ronald, R-O-N-A-L-D. Last name is S-I-M-O-N-E. So how are you doing today? How am I doing today? Yes. I'm doing pretty well. Well, good. For an old guy, you know. Ron is still completing his forms. And he will be ready to talk in just a second. For my wife I'm writing her occupation—she's a housewife now, but my wife was a professional nurse. Oh, okay. Date and place of marriage. Now, this can be touchy. As you know some people are married more than once. That's true. So can I just refer to my marriage with Madeline? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Got to get all those little goodies straight. Let's see. We've been married— Are we going to have to call her? No, no, no, no. I got it. March 18th, here in Las Vegas. Oh, so you just celebrated an anniversary not long ago. 1988. Yeah. We just celebrated 21 years. Wow. Las Vegas. Current occupation, I'm still a musician. Current community activities, what can I say? Current community activities is, I do work—well, we're doing a concert this coming Sunday, a Mother's Day concert with Walt Boenig's big orchestra at the Reed Whipple [Cultural] Center. Oh, yes. Just put public concerts. Okay. So now I have filled this out. Okay. And now I want you to start by telling me a little about your early life, where you 2 grew up, how many people were in the family, what your parents did for a living, those kinds of things. All right. I was very fortunate to come from where I was born, which was New Haven, Connecticut, because it's a very cultural city. You know, we're just 60-odd miles out of New York City. And because of the presence of Yale University, the culture was and is similar to what you have in New York City. And being a real old Yankee city there were all strata of [people] living there. Well, it was one of the wealthiest states in the country—especially as you got closer to New York City—like Greenwich and New Canaan. And half the people that were the big names in New York lived in Connecticut. But I was fortunate in that my dad was a musician. My dad was a bass player. And he was also the principal bass player in the New Haven Symphony, which was a major symphony. All the famous artists came through and appeared with the symphony. And, of course, they played concerts at Yale. So with that culture as a little child I was exposed to all of these great artists like Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz. They all came through New Haven. So in that sense I was fortunate. And I was fortunate in that I was a precocious little boy, but I had a divine gift. God gave me a natural perfect pitch. And one of the reasons I think I believe in reincarnation is because I did nothing to deserve that. I think I just brought it with me like a suitcase from another lifetime because I was doing things when I was four and five years old that amazed my father. Dad was traveling quite a bit those days. He was playing all kinds of work. He was traveling with dance bands and he was playing with the symphony. But one of the most important jobs that my dad had was being the house bass player in the New Haven Shubert Theater. Now, New Haven Shubert Theater was famous. That's where many Broadway shows opened up. So when I think about it, I was so fortunate in that my dad opened up—I’ll give you an example: he opened up Oklahoma, which was originally called Away We Go. The name was later changed to Oklahoma. It opened in New Haven. Dad was the first one that played it. Then he opened Carousel. Among other shows that he opened up were South Pacific [and] My Fair Lady. Also Damn Yankees [and] The King and I. He did most of Richard Rodgers's shows that opened there and some Cole Porter shows, Cole Porter being an ex-Yale man. It was always a big deal when he 3 came back there. When I was a child my dad used to take the lead sheets from the piano player and he would bring them home to me. And here I was eight, nine years old. And he'd be playing for me on the piano, like, "If I Loved You" from Carousel. So, consequently, I was one of the first people who ever played that song other than the man who wrote it, Richard Rodgers. So if you're immersed in this kind of background where dad always had musicians over [to] the house—and when I was 12 or so he would take me, then, to the—there was a time there when the Shubert Theater, say, for instance, they were running vaudeville shows. And what that meant—it was like the Paramount Theatre in New York. You'd have a big band. First you'd have a vaudeville act, two or three acts. Then you'd have the singer and then you'd have the big band and then a movie. Right? So on Sundays my dad used to work those shows when they didn't have the musicals at the Shubert. And so what would happen is my mother used to send me with my dad. I'd sit there for like four shows. And it was most amazing because here I'd be watching Gene Krupa, all the top bands, Duke Ellington, etc., all the top bands that would come in there. I used to watch Gene Krupa during rehearsals. And he'd be playing the drums. Let's face it, I was extremely lucky where I was, you know. Now, my musical education was such that my dad took me to Yale when I was five, and he had me play for the dean of the School of Music, Bruce Simonds. And he [Simonds] gave me a full test. He had me play things in different keys. And he told my dad, he said, “We can take over his musical career.” In other words, Yale would have taken me and they would have been my mentor, so to speak, as far as the education and everything else. And, of course, my dad turned him down. Why did he take you there? Well, he knew all the people at Yale because Dad played many concerts there. See, Yale at the time had one of the greatest composers in the world. Paul Hindemith was the composition teacher at Yale. And my dad played all his concerts with the great Yale Symphonette. And he figured, why shouldn't he take me there; let's see what they'd advise me. They were going to—it was their suggestion to raise me like as a child prodigy in a real long-hair fashion. But my dad wanted me to be an all-around person because even as a child where we lived, you know, there were a lot of 4 sports where we were from. Those days football and basketball were not as popular as they are today. Where we lived in Connecticut you were a New York Yankee fan and that was it. Okay? We were dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fans and especially my father. You know, Joe DiMaggio was his boy. But Dad wanted me to be a normal child and play ball with the kids, which is what I did. So I went to public school. And Dad brought me to Frank Riggio and his wife. He was the opera conductor in New Haven. He had studied with Puccini. But he had a marvelous—he was a terrific conductor. And so they became my teachers until I was 15, 16 years old. Yeah. I started when I was about seven. So tell me what working with them was like for a young child. Well, you see, I took advantage of my good ear. In other words, my sister, who also played the piano, I'd hear her play my lessons and I would memorize them. And I would go in there and I'd blow them out playing it. Then they finally realized I couldn't read. I mean, I was doing everything by ear. I was cheating. So they had to break me down. Then they said, “You've got to learn to and do these things on your own.” And then when I started to learn to read music as a child, I learned the best system you can. It's what you call solfeg—solfeggio, which is the Italian version of rhythmical articulation, which they have over in Europe. You speak the music and you beat it. But you come across every rhythm that you're ever going to run into. I was fortunate I had solfeggio for, like, maybe nine or ten years. Could you spell that word? S-O-L-F-E-G-G-I-O, Solfeggio. Okay, good. And with that, that became one of the best things that ever happened to me, as far as reading music is concerned. So, in other words, I had that advantage. I'll tell you a little sidelight. During the war, World War II, my brother, sister, and I would go take our piano lessons every Saturday morning. Now, we'd take the trolley car to go downtown New Haven. And as we got downtown every Saturday morning Glenn Miller and his band—Glenn Miller, when he went into the [U.S.] Air Force, right, they sent him to Yale for nine months to develop and get an orchestra together of all service people before they were going to send him to Europe. So he was stationed at Yale and he lived in a downtown hotel. 5 Now, Glenn Miller every Saturday morning would take his band from the Yale campus and they'd march to the New Haven Green. And when they’d get right to the corner of Church [Street] and Chapel [Street], the band would set up and they'd do a band concert. So as a child—here I'm eight or nine years old—I would go there. And I was just blown out listening to the Glenn Miller band. He was there sometimes and sometimes he wasn't. Except what blew me out the most was the terrific drumming. I used to watch the drummer, Ray McKinley, who later on was a big-time big band drummer and band leader. So there's another indication of just the kind of culture that was there. And then Glenn Miller and his band did some concerts at Yale Bowl, which the whole family went to. So, I mean, I have a vivid recollection of him and his orchestra before he went overseas. And I was only a child. Speaking of my childhood, I’d like to mention that we moved from New Haven when I was around four or five years old. We moved to a kind of nice rural area where we knew every one of our neighbors. Our house was in the middle of this wide street and was the central place of activities for the neighborhood. Mom was a gourmet cook and helped and taught many of the ladies Italian specialties. We lived on the second floor and had a crippled man and his mother living on the first floor. He loved kids and organized all sorts of sports activities as well as games and musical shows for the neighborhood. The country was still in the depression, and we had the only telephone on our side of the street. You can imagine the traffic around our house. The closeness of all of us was something not seen today. The world was a lot less complicated those days. We kids had a wonderful childhood. World War II put everybody to work who didn’t go in the service. That’s really what took the U.S. out of the Depression. My mother sent my brother and I to boys’ camp every summer—eight, nine, and ten years old. What a great experience for kids. I used to win all the talent contests and our cabin would win the pie. New Haven had been the birthplace for many famous musicians during the big band era. Artie Shaw moved to New Haven when he was two years old and left when he was 16. Charley Spivak was from New Haven], as was Buddy Morrow, Les Elgart, Sonny Berman, etc. Tony 6 Pastor was from nearby Middletown. These were famous names, but there were also many musicians whose names weren’t known to the general public that were well known in the music field. Into this great big band era little Ronnie’s ears were taking it all in. The gradual decline of the big band era started in the late forties and other types of music started making the scene, like the be-bop era. Like a sponge, I was absorbing it all. So I started to play in amateur shows. I was on a radio show, Kitty's Revue, for, like, a year. And from there, being the fact that it was, like, 1943 or so, this amateur producer, he formed a show that traveled to play the military bases and hospitals. And I became part of that show. At what age? Eight, nine. Yeah. And I traveled—I was the youngest one. But we traveled [to] all the hospitals all around Connecticut, into New York, sometimes Massachusetts, right below Hartford, Springfield. So that was another good education for me, too, doing all of that. So I mean, I was—as I say, I was so fortunate where I was born. And I had to have a musician here many years later in Las Vegas, Don Hannah, who's a great arranger who recently passed away. Don said to me, “Ron, you don't know how lucky you are,” he said, “where you were born.” He says, “I was born in Iowa.” And he says, “We were like on a farm like 90 miles from—.” And he said what he had to go through. And I said to him, “My god, that's all we had to do is go downtown and we had everything right there.” We were so fortunate. Now, did your brother and sister take advantage of all that music as well? My sister was a very good piano player. But she was also an academic. She was a brain, the smartest one. So when she went to college, she had a double major, Spanish and piano. But then she just majored in Spanish. See, we used to play duets together. We used to present little concerts around our area, yeah, different places. Sometimes she would get a little nervous and she would forget, you know, when we were on stage. And then I would fake her part and I would take her back into it. And so she said, “No, I want to stick to being a Spanish teacher.” But she could read music as well as any guy. My brother became a bass player. And then he became an accountant and he went to work for the New Haven Railroad. The railroad was big then. And he just did music as a sideline. I was the only one who went into it full time. But I started playing with bands. God, at 7 about ten or 11, when I was still in grammar school, sixth grade, they had me playing with the high school dance band, which was a great experience. We had a good high school, a very good musical director. And we would present all kinds of shows there and everything else. And so that also became a tremendous musical experience for me. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it was a great education. When you would go to take your lessons, what kind of practicing did they have you doing and what kind of pieces were you playing when you were young? Classical, strictly classic. Oh, yeah. And then, of course, he [Frank Riggio] would get excited when I would sometimes add a few notes here or there, you know. He said I took years off his life. He was a real character, Frank Riggio. He was really something, you know. But they were marvelous teachers. I practiced but also was a regular kid—sports, etc. But then when I got into high school—I think when I was a freshman in high school—I got a call to go play at this nightclub. And I was 14 at the time. And I went into the Club Knickerbocker, which was kind of a gin mill. My father knew about the place, but my mother didn't. But I was working with a quartet four nights a week from nine to one. And you were in high school. Yeah, I was going to high school. How did you do your homework? It was tough. But I was playing in this nightclub. And I was there on and off for like almost three years because it was a jazz club and all the be-boppers used to come there and sit in. Let's face it there were all kinds of weird characters in there. There were pimps. There were hookers. You know. And because the [U.S.] Navy base was in New London, on the weekends all the sailors would come in and they would go to the hot club. Fights going on and cops. You know, I went through that whole nine yards. And your mother never knew what it was like. My dad kind of, like, cooled it. He didn't let her know it was quite that bad. But, you know, I was so exposed to that. I had an uncle—this is a funny thing—my mother's brother, he was one of these guys that 8 never got married. And he was right out of Damon Runyon. You know what I mean? I mean that type of guy. And he was one of the boys on the avenue. Everybody loved the man. Nothing but friends. But he was known to occasionally bet on a horse or a card game or whatever. So when I was a little kid, he used to take me into the Astor restaurant. When you walk in there's a nice restaurant. In the back room, you go back there and there are all kinds of bets going on. And he'd have me play the piano for all these wise guys, you know. It was pretty funny now that I think about it. Here I was meeting all of these characters. And years and years later I played a show, Guys and Dolls, here in town. And I could swear to you I said, “Hell, I know all those people,” I said. “I grew up with those guys.” How did you transition so easily from the classical to the jazz? And how did you know how to do it as a freshman in high school? I would hear something on the radio. As soon as I heard it, I could sit down and play it. I'd go to a movie. I saw the movie Laura when I was a kid, right? I came home and played the song, great tune. And then I started even experimenting with the harmonies and chords and stuff. But then when I was—how old?—15 or 16, Louis Armstrong came into town. He was the main act at the New Haven Arena with his band. But the opening act was The Art Tatum Trio. I never in my life saw or heard anything like this man. I was sitting right in front. And he opened up with “just one of those things” at a blazing tempo. I never heard such piano playing before or since. I remember at the end I stood up and applauded. And as I was applauding my friend Mickey said to me, he said, “Ron, I had tears coming down my eyes.” That's what he did to me. I have never—if you go upstairs there's only one picture I have and that's of Art Tatum. He was my idol as far as playing the piano. And he was not only my idol, but I think most piano players that I've ever met feel the same. I think he was the all-time king at playing the piano. And Vladimir Horowitz said the same thing. I mean, he used to play in jazz nightclubs on 52nd Street in New York and he would get—like all these classical cats would come and hear him, like Horowitz and Rubinstein. They'd sit there and flip out what this guy was playing. There was nobody like him, ever. And then, of course, I love Duke Ellington and Count Basie. My uncle used to bring me all these jazz records. And I picked up the trumpet. I started playing trumpet and before you know it I started playing trumpet in the high school band. 9 While I enjoyed playing the trumpet, the piano was always my first love. I believe I should mention, however, the great pianists that influenced me in my career. Of course, Art Tatum was my favorite. But you needed three hands to play like him. But I would say that George Shearing, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, and later, Bill Evans were big influences in my career. I adored Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and also Fats Waller. One of my earliest influences was Carmen Cavallaro. He was not a jazz pianist but a great pop and Latin player. He was classically schooled and had a dazzling technique. He greatly influenced my commercial playing. I learned much from all of them. Back to high school—I’ll give you an example of how my father kind of guided and pushed me. Here I was playing in this nightclub. And I was just finishing my freshman year of high school going into my sophomore year. And it was the summertime. I was out playing ball. It was the month of June 1951. My father had a visitor come to the house, a great jazz trumpet player who was from Yale. And he said he needed a piano player immediately to go up to Lake Placid, New York to play. And he said, “George, I can't find anybody. Do you think your kid could come with me for the summer?” And my dad said, “Sure.” And I came home and he said to me, he said, “You've got to pack.” He said. “You're leaving in two days. You're going to go to Lake Placid for the summer with a New York trio.” I said, “Hey, good. But I'm playing a nightclub here.” And he said, “No, you could do it.” He said, “You'll get a lot from it.” So that's what happened. Next thing I know I'm on a train and I'm getting off at 125th Street and I meet these two guys and I go up to Lake Placid. And you traveled alone? Well, I was with these two guys, this trio. That's what I mean. Yes. I was 16. I had just turned 16. And how did your mom feel about this? She was a little nervous. My dad was great. He was like, “Go. Do it,” you know. Oh, this is fantastic. Yeah. But when I got there the unfortunate thing—the trumpet player is one of the best in New York, Johnny Glasel. Great trumpet player, but he was a great pot smoker as well. Now, the 10 drummer was a terrific drummer, Eddie Fife. Didn't so much like pot, but he was a boozer. So after four weeks we get fired. All right? So we get fired because they went out on a break and never came back. It's pretty tough to be 16 and you're around that atmosphere. So the next thing you know we got booked in Loon Lake, New York. The club was called Loon Lake Colony. The same three of you? The same three of us. Jeff Stoughton got us another gig down in Loon Lake, New York. And the thing that I'll never forget about that—it was a nice club in Loon Lake. We're playing in this club and Cab Calloway's band bus was driving back from Canada. This was on Route 9, New York. What happens is the band bus broke down right in front of our place. So Cab Calloway's band comes in and we had a jam session all afternoon. But then the very next—we had all these Hollywood people coming into this club. And I'm saying, “What's going on with all these Hollywood people?” They said, “Well, they're making a movie. They're making a movie called A Place in the Sun with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters. And then they said tomorrow they're doing the scene where he drowns her in a boat in Loon Lake. So we actually saw that whole thing being filmed, just watching all that. Anyway, we got fired from that gig. Same reason? Yeah. Yeah. They found a supplier and that was it. So now I'm stranded. I'm 300 miles from home. But I talked my way into a gig at the Lake Placid Inn, which was a cocktail lounge. I told the guy, “Let me play here. I'll play for nothing; just let me hustle tips.” And the guy said, “Fine.” So I slept in a room at the St. Moritz with the band there. They had an extra cot. And the rest of the summer for the last three or four weeks I played cocktail piano every afternoon and I would hustle money on the bar, but I supported myself. And then I talked a friend of mine from New Haven into coming up there for a vacation and I drove back to Connecticut with him. But the boss in the original club where we got fired must have liked me, because he called me up to come play there for the Christmas-New Year season three months later, you know. So I went back up to Lake Placid. In the Club Birches is where I played, between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. 11 But by yourself, not with -- No. With a trio, my own trio. Oh, you put one together. Oh, yeah, my own trio, sure. Yeah. And then we went up there. It was 26-below. You know, you go to Lake Placid that time of the year. Then he booked us for the next summer. So that my next summer—I’m still in high school—I took my own trio back to Lake Placid for the summer of 1952 and I brought my trio there. How did you not get involved with the drugs and the alcohol? You know, it's funny because I'm Italian. We were raised from when we were little kids to always have wine on the table. And I was drinking wine from a little kid. And I knew if you drank too much you get stoned. But I guess I just had too much upbringing and I also saw what it did to these guys. In a way it was a wonderful lesson to me. And it didn't affect me quite as much as it did them. I mean, I tried it, you know. You've got to see what's going on. But then I said to myself, “I don't get the buzz that they [do].” So, fortunately, I was able to keep it straight. Do you think it's a good idea that our children learn to drink wine responsibly in the home? Uh-huh, I do. Yeah, because we were brought up not to say it's a bad thing. And, you know, that's the way we were brought up and I never had a problem with that. Well, there was a time there when I was doing a little too much drinking. But at that time—this is another time when I was in college, I was doing—I was on what you call the “kishka circuit,” which means I was doing nothing at that time but playing Jewish weddings and bar mitzvahs with the same caterer who took care of the band, almost too well, you know. But getting back to the summer after my junior year of high school, I went back to Lake Placid with my own trio. And then after my senior year—let's see. Oh, when I was graduating from high school my senior year, I graduated on a Friday night and we open up Saturday night in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. This is your trio? No. I was with another quartet, another quartet. I was 18. I had just turned 18. Now we're in Martha's Vineyard for that whole summer, a beautiful place, Martha's Vineyard. You know, I had to deal with all the Boston people coming there. And there's a lot of swells, you know, Martha's 12 Vineyard. But we were at Munro’s Boston House. And we used to play all-night jam sessions at the Cape Verdean Hall with Phil Edmund, who was a great trumpet player. So I mean, I had great times there at Martha's Vineyard. Then I had auditioned to go to Yale School of Mus