Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Mario Lanza, Tony and Revia

Sammy Cahn was one cool dude.

I rip myself away from CD mania in The Big Ride (every once in a while) to listen to NPR. Always interesting stuff. Heard a thing celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sammy Cahn's birth.

Sammy Cahn was a lyricist, songwriter and musician. As a kid, Cahn learned to play the violin. He played in a lot of Bar Mitzvah bands and then, while still in his teens, played the violin in pit bands of burlesque houses. I have never associated the violin with stripping; apparently I must once again broaden my horizons.

Cahn hooked up with Saul Chaplin, who was doing the burlesque thing with him, and they began writing songs together. At first they wrote specialty numbers for vaudeville acts, but they did score a couple of hits with the Jimmy Lunceford band.

In 1940 Cahn went to Hollywood and began writing with Jules Styne. They wrote songs for 19 films.

Frank Sinatra was a friend of Cahn's. Sinatra introduced him to Jimmy Van Heusen, who became Cahn's last great writing partner. They wrote a bunch of songs for Sinatra movies and albums. Old Blue Eyes ended up recording 89 of Cahn's songs.

Sammy Cahn became a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.

I give you that brief history to provide a feel for the depth of this man's talents.

Sammy Cahn was a character. When he wrote a song, he insisted on performing it for the recording artist so he could get across exactly what he was feeling. He did this repeatedly with Sinatra.

Imagine the balls.

In fact, in the NPR interview he offers a quick reference to illustrate what chutzpah (balls, for those of you with no ethnic frame of reference) is. Which goes: "A guy kills his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan."

I love that. I absolutely love that.

All of that is background for this story of Cahn's association with Mario Lanza. Mario Lanza was an Italian crooner who Cahn describes in this way: "Now Lanza, who had a voice that you could not believe unless you heard it in person - no mechanical reproduction of this voice does it any gestures. In a room with him, it was a staggering experience."

Cahn wrote "Be My Love" for Lanza and, in his way, sang it to Lanza to give him a feel for it. This is how Sammy describes Mario's reaction: "So Mario looked at me after I talk-sang "Be My Love" for the first time, he took the lyric out of my hand as contemptuously as you can take a lyric out of someone's hand, and he sang "Be My Love" back at me. And I tell you, that was an experience."

Now here is the thread that ties all this rambling together. When I was a kid, my parents had many Mario Lanza albums. And Sergio Franchi. And Enzo Stuarti. Italian crooners all.

Bet you don't have any of them on your iPod.

I hated that music.

Towards the end of the interview, NPR played a clip of Mario Lanza singing "Be My Love" and I was blown away.

I actually got goosebumps. This guy had a powerful voice and he sang magnificently.

My mind is a slow learning thing. Had I been more open minded as a kid I might have enjoyed that music with them. Instead I wasted a shot at getting closer to Tony and Revia, the couple that, for better or for worse, brought me into this world.

But that is how life works. You are supposed to rebel against your parents and every thing they stand for and everything they love.

Unfortunately we do it blindly. At that precise time in my life, I was discovering that music was enormously important to me. It remains so to this day.

But I limited my enjoyment by automatically shunning what my parents loved. It is kind of sad for me, at the age of 59, to realize that this Lanza guy had a hell of a voice.

Might have been kind of cool to sit on the green couch in the living room in the company of Tony and Revia and rock out to Mario Lanza. Share a few smiles.

Just a thought.

You never know where an NPR piece will lead you.

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