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President's Letter |
 On touring with Frank Sinatra Jr. By: Harry Dempsey
In the ninth grade I decided to join my high school's marching band for much the same time-honored reason that I believe led Beethoven to compose his Ninth Symphony: I had broken my hand playing football. The director of our band (the Cleveland St. Joseph's 160 piece Viking Lonely Hearts Club Marching Band) determined that with my knowledge, training and background I would make a good tuba player ("hmm. you look about the right size, go over and try on that sousaphone"). Later that year he decided that I should also take up string bass with the jazz ensemble and share with the world my transcendental ability to perform "Louie, Louie" in all the keys of the circle of fifths. This led to one of the great revelations of my 14-year-old suburban Cleveland youth: There were actually people in the world who were willing to pay perfectly good money to hear me thump out low, indistinguishable bass lines. I played bass in folk singing groups, Polka bands (noting important stylistic differences between German, Czech and Polish styles) and jazz big bands. It wasn't long before I discovered that while my friends were flipping burgers to make money, I could take home a seemingly spectacular amount of greenbacks if I turned to the dark side: so I bought a bass guitar and started playing rock and roll. I was soon immersed in groups with names like "The Malibus," "The 12X5," "Life," "The Uninvited," "Season's Blues" and (believe me I couldn't make this up) "Rocky Reef and the Corals." Majoring in music in college, I was torn between education and performance. I had professors who would have swallowed their metronomes and gone to Graceland had they known where I was performing four nights a week. After college I continued my Jekyll and Haydn musical existence variously working as a high school band director, smoky-lounge bass player, university graduate teaching assistant and willing participant in loud progressive jazz-R&B-pop-surreal-psychedelic-power-rock-bossa-nova bands, while getting my master's degree. I was at my apartment in Kent, Ohio, late one night when I got the call from Tino Barzie (real name: Caesar Tino Barzatini) who offered me the opportunity to go on the road playing bass for Frank Sinatra Jr. I remember playfully responding "If I say no, will I find a horse's head in my bed?" and the painfully long silence and deep panic that followed. Anyway I jumped at the opportunity. Tino sent me a set of luggage and a plane ticket to New York. He had been a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and believed in a team
Once in uniform (various tuxedos and 70s-ish three piece suits) at our gigs, we were not permitted to stand or walk with a drink in our hands, although we could get absolutely shnockered while seated at the bar. Drugs (the black hole for many road musicians) were absolutely verboten. I caught up with the band in New York City where in a rented studio we had a rehearsal at which I attempted to appear absolutely relaxed and cool. The next day we were off to Trenton, New Jersey, a place where the name Sinatra attracts an extraordinarily large number of very serious-looking people whose names end in vowels. Before I could play my first gig with Frank there was a fire at the hotel where we were booked, and I remember wondering if it was just an accident. My concerns were soon put to rest by road manager Ritchie Lisella in words that were at once reassuring, astute and un-mistakable: "fah-gid-a-boud-it." The band itself was a truly outstanding octet of extraordinary (and romantically disingenuous) professional musicians (four rhythm and four winds) directed by Larry O'Brien, a talented health-food trombonist who currently fronts the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Everything we did was scripted. We would start the show with a hot instrumental or two (polite "Cool, but I don't understand jazz" applause) and then Frank would come out (big-time applause), sing a couple of songs and talk to the audience for a few minutes. We'd play four or five more selections and then Frank would introduce the band, do a longer feature selection, an up-tempo closer, curtain call music, one encore selection (don't ask for two, we're in a hurry) and exit music. After that we'd call it good and head for the lounge (loud band applause). At first I didn't know what sort of entertainer Frank would be and was surprised by how well he sang. Before long I realized that his name was both his blessing and his curse. The inevitable comparisons to his father were an ever-present measuring stick and electric prod: how he sings, how he lives, how he walks, how he talks, his understanding of Einstein's theories, etc. Frank Jr. is a good guy, smart and loyal. Unlike his street-wise father however, Frank Jr. was raised in wealth. His personality is Beverly Hills Stoic, inspired not by Plato, but by Mr. Spock. He was single at the time (with a flock of girls rotating in and out in a continuous holding pattern) and above all he DID NOT DRINK. This was not a source of parental pride for his father who, on one occasion at a post-concert gathering, told Junior that he couldn't sit with us unless he got something to drink that had actual alcohol in it. Frank Jr. got a glass of cognac. What he really enjoyed was Dr. Pepper and Star Trek and had props from the original studio set in his living room (I even recall seeing Gene Roddenberry at one of our gigs). He also loved older music and movies (he traveled with a projector, screen and library of films). We often watched movies in his suite after performances and would give odds on which band member would nod-off first. Frank Jr.'s name opened doors but also led to unusual expectations. His uncanny resemblance to his dad carried the baggage of both praise and criticism. Frank gallantly learned to live with both. Several years before I joined the band, he had been kidnapped from the Thunderbird Hotel in Lake Tahoe (an incident that was the basis of the film Stealing Sinatra). Although he was returned days later unharmed, the media attention, concern and cynicism that the event generated contributed to Frank's view of life and how our security was handled. I never worried about safety issues because I knew that no one with an IQ greater than that of a mature cucumber would ever again attempt to kidnap him. A byproduct of Frank's sheltered upbringing was that he viewed the band as his extended family. We were trusted, welcomed and treated very well. Frank not only was happy to spend time with us, but wanted to be included as one of us. We ate Christmas dinner at his home in Beverly Hills and spent Christmas Eve at his mom's house in Bellaire. I met his sister Nancy there as his mom served us turkey and Junior played Gershwin on the piano. I fought back the urge to ask Nancy if she was wearing her "boots," because after all, this was family time, and we were being welcomed like relatives. Also, I didn't want to get my thumbs broken. Some memories of that time are still as vivid and lively as a Dolly Parton wardrobe malfunction. In August of 1976 we were performing at idyllic Lake Tahoe. We had the night off from our gig in the Harrah's Casino Cabaret Room, and Frank Jr. had arranged to have us attend his father's performance a few hundred slot-machines away in Harrah's Headliner Room. We were musicians with a great gig, sitting at a stage-front table in our finest 70s polyester leisure suit attire waiting to hear, for the first time in our lives, The Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes, Frank Sr. Mr. Sinatra. The performance was impeccable; the musicianship, superb; the entertainment unsurpassable. After the encores, when the last song was sung and the last tone no longer hung in the air, Frank Jr. took us back stage to meet his dad. When someone lives as large as Frank Sinatra, you don't know exactly what to expect. Backstage, Frank Sr. listened attentively as Jr. introduced each of us and told him where we were from. The Chairman shook our hands, said he was glad to meet us, and he looked each of us in the eyes like he meant it. Afterward, we were invited to join the two of them in the penthouse lounge for an informal post-concert gathering. Upstairs we sat at a long table talking and laughing, listening and imbibing in food and drink. The Chairman of the Board was a gracious host. After all the stories I had heard and read growing up, I was surprised at how approachable and affable Old Blue Eyes really was. He was a man's man, hard-drinking and straightforward. His conversation offered a glimpse into a testosterone-oriented view of the world full of unapologetic opinions, jokes, reminiscences, discussions of friendships and fundamental values offered to a soundtrack of heartfelt laughter. Over time I got used to Frank Sr.'s overwhelming presence. He would sometimes surface at our performances and at informal gatherings. As the months passed, I came to realize that he had come from a more elegant time a time when, as a vocalist, you relied upon your musicians and they relied upon you. Subtlety was more perceptible in performance and pop music had more than one emotional coloration and volume. These were musical values that he had passed on to his son. The longer I traveled with Frank Jr.'s band, the more I appreciated those qualities and the more evident it became why we had become, if you'll pardon the expression, a sort of family. It would be virtually impossible in just a paragraph to describe the time I spent on the road with Frank Jr. but I'll try, nevertheless. We crisscrossed the U.S. playing a variety of one-nighters and week-long location gigs. We played indoors and outdoors, venues large and small, traveled in trains, planes and automobiles. At times it seemed like we were getting paid for being on a perpetual vacation. We played one set, sometimes two per night, six days a week. This modus operandi gave us lots of free time to explore our indigenous surroundings during the day, leaving me with a Technicolor patchwork of memories. We spent a week during the nation's bicentennial celebration playing at the Sheraton Patriot in colonial Williamsburg. We spent a month at spring break in various venues in Florida (where Tino could visit baseball spring training camps). We were sunning on the west coast during the bitter chill of the Midwest winter. I learned to ski at Heavenly Valley while performing in Lake Tahoe and later, du ring the summer season there, how to raft the Truckee River. I acquired a vast repertoire of stories, many of which can actually be told in mixed company. We were spoiled by roadies who moved our equipment, audiences that applauded a little too much and a cast of surrounding characters who were perhaps a little too attentive. After a while road life evolved into a surreal cacophony of interchangeable hotel rooms, transient friendships, superficial conversations and track-meet departure schedules. Not that it wasn't fun. Leaving the show was difficult. Tino was trying to lure me into staying by emphasizing an upcoming and very tempting month-long booking in Bermuda. I knew that if I stayed for that gig I would get a great tan, but not a college teaching position for the following fall and therefore would have to remain with the band for at least another year. I opted to leave and played my last gig with Frank in Philadelphia. A few short weeks later I was back at my apartment in Ohio when I read about a teaching opening at an innovative Michigan college named for its dynamic founder. I think you know the place. Associate professor of Music Harry Dempsey still plays electric bass professionally. |
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