The Musician... see you among the stars

I am now a senior in High School, and I am excited that I have only one year left. I have been playing the guitar now for 2 years and I have progressed very well. I developed a great rhythm. I have also, along the way, began picking up some funky licks from watching other guitarists. I had an intensive learning process and my natural talent had shined through.

My brother is finally coming home from the Army. He is arriving by boat from Europe at the Brooklyn docks. We had a banner in front of our house that typically read: WELCOME HOME THOMAS. We had gone to the Brooklyn docks to pick him up, but there were so many servicemen that we could not pick him out or find him. My family and I returned home and waited for him to arrive on his own. I was sitting in front of my stoop hoping to get the first glance at him as he entered our block, and here he comes. He had turned the corner of 86th Street on to West 7th Street and I had seen a person dressed in uniform carrying a large duffel bag. I knew it was he. I ran to him with all my effort and speed, but to my surprise he said without excitement, “Hey Junior, How ya doing?” I expected him to drop his duffel bag and grab me to give me a big hug, but he did not. He just walked on toward our house. I knew then that he was not the same person. It shocked me and caught me off guard. He didn’t say much. As we arrived closer to our house, my sisters stormed out of the house screaming. They ran up to him, and started kissing and hugging him. I just stood there and watched in confusion and disappointment. They all walked him into the house and I went about my independent usual business as though nothing exciting had happened. Still in shock, I went to Joey’s house and his family asked if my brother had returned home, and I just replied calmly answered... yes, and there was no other talk about it and so I left it at that. After about an hour, I returned home to all of them at the dinner table having coffee and cake chattering. My brother brought home some gifts for everyone. First, he gave this gift to my mother. It was a German Coo-Coo Clock. I began to smile when I saw it, because it was cute, and I liked the little bird that came out of it. We all examined it carefully, and my mother excitedly
hung it up in the dining room. I watched as they spent about an hour opening gifts, but I did not receive any. I again left the house and went on about my business. No problem!

I again returned immediately to Joey’s house for a quick pick-me-up. Joey’s mother was very happy to see me again and made me some lunch. Joey’s sister Gracie is retarded, she is such a wonderful girl, and she loved me very much. We sat around the dinner table drinking coffee as I played around with Gracie. I made faces at her and she made them back. The biggest show on TV at this time was The Soupy Sales Show. Soupy Sales had a dog-called White Fang, and Gracie and I used to make faces at one another using the Soupy Sales/White Fang gimmick. Then Joey arrived home after spending some time with his girlfriend. Joey always had a girlfriend. He was almost never without a girlfriend. How could the girls refuse him? Despite that, Joey was having problems with his girlfriend. I believe she was putting strong demands on him about marriage, and things were beginning to get sour between them. I liked that, because I was afraid he would get too serious with a girl and spend less time playing music. I also wanted to develop a more personal musical relationship with Joey, and his spending so much time with his girlfriend made that difficult. If we were not rehearsing Joey would be with his girlfriend. I wanted so much to jam with him other than rehearsals. This would be more musically productive. Besides, there will be many girls to come if we just had time to practice with one another. However, things are playing out by it self. Joey‘s relationship with this girl is quickly falling apart. With that note, Joey and I started jamming together more often in his room. One day thereafter, Joey’s mother, and sister Gracie where inside the kitchen, and Gracie was playing her little radio that she always carried around the house. This new group, with all this hoopla comes on the radio, and Joey’s mother yelled out to us, “Jooooe...The Beatles are oooonnn.” Joey and I heard her and quickly listened to the sound. Then we went into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table to listen more closely, and the song was great. It was called, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. The guitar style was great and very different. We were all immediately hooked on The Beatles. I could not wait to hear them again.

Meanwhile, Aldo was failing to get us any decent gigs. He had got us two gigs back to back playing for some Italian dances. Joey and I hated these Italian dances. The people were very un-hip, and they mostly didn’t speak English. I finally pressured Aldo. I told him that we would refuse to play any more of the dances where people do not speak English. After all, Joey and I were still in school, and I was getting ready to graduate. We felt that while we were still attending school, we really did not want to partake in any gigs that we did not enjoy. I told Aldo that he’d better get something decent happening soon or I will find an agent to book us instead.

This Beatle group thing is skyrocketing fast. They are playing their song every 20 minutes, and everyone is talking about them everywhere we go. Joey’s sister Gracie quickly bought
The Beatle album. Joey and I listened to it, and it was fucking great! We had never heard anything like it, and we started learning their songs immediately.

Aldo kept trying to find us a descent gig. Joey and I were quickly loosing faith in him. My family knew nothing about business. My father was a barber, and my mother was a seamstress. Joey’s family also knew nothing about business. Our families were all workers. However, Aldo’s family had a business and Aldo knew something about business. This is why Joey and I agreed to have Aldo the businessman of the band. Aldo contacted us and told us he got us a gig at the Menorah Temple in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Joey and I immediately thought, “We told Aldo no more Italian dances and what he does, he gets us Jewish dances.” We had no idea what this gig entailed. BoroPark Brooklyn is a Hassidic Jewish neighborhood. Joey and I were wondering when Aldo drove to the area, “What the neck kind of gig did he get us?” It turned out to be a very nice dance. Something different! The main group was Latin and we were the fill-in group when the Latin group was on their break. I had never seen so many well to do people in one place. Everyone was dressed beautifully. The women were gorgeous! The Latin band did their first set and they were fantastic. They were a big band,
Eddie Palmieri and Orchestra. They contained about 20 pieces with horns. The crowd was dancing with tremendous energy. After about an hour set, we got up on stage for our turn. We tried to maintain the energy even though we were only three-players, and the crowd loved us. The promoter of the dance thought we were perfect that he gave us the steady gig every week playing behind these famous Latin groups. We enjoyed working along side these Latin groups.

The next week we received our first billing in the newspaper and we were all very excited. It was a small billing, but hey, better than nothing. Joey mother cut out the ad of our billing, and Gracie was put it in her scrapbook. It was great! Then Aldo asked us to meet him down in the Village at his father’s store around 4:00pm. He wanted to take us clothes shopping. Joey and I hopped on the train, we got off at West 8th Street in the village, and we walked around a bit looking at the clothes at the massive amount of stores in the area. We arrived at Aldo’s father’s business, Jumbo Food Shop, and Aldo was working behind the counter preparing and serving people food. Aldo gave Joey and I some food to eat while he finished his chores. After about an hour, Aldo guided Joey and I to a warehouse where there were hundreds of theatrical clothing. Joey and I flipped out when we saw the clothes. We were like two kids in a candy store. Aldo began laughing at us. We then all began fooling around making up skits with the style of clothing we were trying on. They even had replicas of the jackets that The Beatles wore. I said fooling around, “Hey, we could make believe we are The Beatles, and get all the publicity. All we need is to buy those Beatle wigs” Aldo and Joey were laughing. Joey said, “Hey, that’s a good idea.” I said, “Yeah lets do a take off of them at the Menorah Temple this weekend, we’ll freak them out.” Aldo was for it. Everyone agreed and we bought a set of the jackets. We also bought some beautiful dark navy blue sparkle jackets that we all looked great in and that was going to be our new band image. The next day we went to Aldo’s house to take some pictures of us with the new navy blue sparkle jackets. We took the pictures, and developed them quickly, and they came out pretty good. We blew one of them up and made it our publicity photo. It appears that Aldo was worried that Joey and I were losing faith in him so he put his efforts into high gear. Aldo paid for the clothes, which he will eventually deduct from our pay.

The weekend arrived and we were about to play along side,
“Tito Puente and his Orchestra.” Very Exciting! We received a big billing in the newspaper, and again, Joey’s mother and sister cutout the billing and put it in Gracie’s scrapbook. We arrived at the Menorah Temple on Friday night and the place was packed with people. There were all kinds of limousines all around the Temple. We quickly brought in our instruments and Tito’s band was large, about 25 pieces. Tito’s band was already set-up, but there wasn’t a spot left to place our instruments. We needed to make room in the front of the stage so that the people will receive our Beatle act closely. This was the night that we were going to imitate The Beatles. We had practiced three of their songs. It would be a total surprise to everyone, and we would need space right in front of the stage. There were no members of Tito’s band available to talk with. So I went over to Tito Puente’s drums and moved them to the right so we could bring our instruments on the stage. Aldo quickly set up his drums, and Joey and I are setting up and placing our amps. Tito Puente himself comes running over to the stage and begins cursing at me for moving his equipment. I replied to him, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re not the only band playing tonight.” An argument began over territory. The Promoter came running over in between us and I told the Promoter that Tito was hogging the stage and we are performing here also. He wants us to move in the back and we need the front. The promoter liked us a lot and did not want to lose us because we were very neat looking clean guys, and we were also very good musicians. He also billed us in the newspaper as “The Van-dells Society Orchestra” because he wanted that clean look to capture the Society People, i.e. the rich Jews. The promoter and Tito went into a heated conference. When they returned, Tito said that after he breaks he would have his roadies move his instruments to the side of the stage so that we may perform up front, and we agreed.

Tito performed and tore the house down, as the expression is. He braked and we got up and started jamming out. The crowd went nuts, and they really loved us. Tito Puente came up to the side of the staged and he waved at me and gave me the OK sign. I personally don’t care who these stars are. I don’t take any shit from anybody.

We were supposed to only play a half hour set, but Tito asked us to play for 45 minutes. I think Tito really liked me/us. Then Tito played his second set and it was a monster. He took a 20-minute solo with musical horn arrangements slapping on every predetermined beat. People kept pilling in front of the stage to watch him closely. When his song and solo ended, the people responded with ovation. This was our perfect opportunity to do our Beatle spoof. The day before, Joey bought the Beatle wigs so that we could look authentic. We asked the promoter to introduce us as The Beatles. The promoter became shocked. He had no idea what we were doing. We got ready and the Promoter yelled out on the mike, “Now here tonight. Direct from England...Live here tonight.... The Beatles. We ran out into the crowd and we had or faces turned down and the people went nuts. We got up on the stage and Tito Puente even looked with surprise and confusion and we picked up our instruments and started playing,
“I Wanna Hold Your Hand. “ We sounded just liked them and we were imitating their actions to the tee. It took people about ten minutes for them to catch on, and then the crowd began laughing. Then once they knew that we were mimicking The Beatles the crowd went crazy. The Promoter could not believe it, but he loved every minute of it and we had the whole place in ore. We played the three songs of the Beatles and quickly exited the stage and the crowd gave us a standing ovation with yells, screams, and whistles. Then we went to the dressing room and took off the wigs, we were laughing, and the crowd was calling us back for more. Tito Puente gave a fantastic performance, but we then came back to top his previous solo performance. We got a greater reaction than he had. There was nothing he could do except come back with performing another great set, which he did! We were very unique that night, but Tito gave it his all and he went into one of his great long drum solos and the people went crazy all over again. The night ended and Tito personally came up to me and told me that he enjoyed playing with us very much and that we were able t0o be recieved by the crowd as much as he, and that pushed him harder and he wanted to personally thank me for this night. The Promoter also thanked us for putting on a fantastic performance and show. It was certainly a night to remember.

We continued to perform every week at the Menorah with all the great Latin groups. We made many friends with the Latin musicians and performers. The Promoter made a great deal of money, and the Menorah Temple dances stopped for about six weeks until someone else would come along and start it again. The success of the Menorah Temple triggered Latin nights all over the city. We were now known in the industry as the band that played and competed with all the great top Latin groups.