12 North Shore Towers Courier n August 2016 The Entertainer The musical career of Marty Silver BY STEPHEN VRATTOS “Mom, we’ve got to get a piano.” “Why?” “I want to play ‘Rhapsody in Blue’… I want to play Gershwin.” Thus was the conversation a ten-year-old Marty Silver remembers having with his Mom after seeing the biopic, “Rhapsody in Blue” in 1946. The film starred Robert Alda— father of “M*A*S*H” star, Alan Alda—as the legendary American composer, George Gershwin, who wrote such iconic pieces as “Someone to Watch over Me,” “The Man I Love,” “An American in Paris,” “Porgy and Bess” and the movie’s titular composition, arguably the greatest America song ever written, before dying tragically at the young age of 39 from a brain tumor. Reviews of the movie were mixed at best, but to the influential ears of young Silver it was transcendent. Longtime residents of North Shore Towers may remember Silver playing in a small combo by the pool with the late Marty Fladell, a New York catering entrepreneur and former resident who played the trumpet. Fladell loved to sit-in with Silver’s orchestra when he played at the Great Neck Synagogue where Fladell was the caterer. When Fladell retired from the catering business, he devoted his time playing trumpet at NST. Though not a professional musician, he joined the North Shore Towers orchestra, which at the time, was led by the late Jerry Shain. Fladell later inherited the NST aggregation. He broached the idea of a small group to Silver and they put together a small quintet to play in their bathing suits at the pool for a few hours, just for fun. Others may know the versatile singer/vocalist/ pianist from his work at the yearly Yom Ha’Shoah Memorial, UJA Celebration and Hadassah events. But Silver’s rich career spans more than fifty years with more than enough stories to fill a year’s worth of Life magazine. Born Marty Silverstein, Marty Silver grew up with his older brother, Don, in Peekskill, New York, like his father before him. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Hungary in the 1880s. Peekskill was a factory town where the main industry was Fleischmann’s Yeast, later to become Standard Brands. Almost all the factory workers were Christian with the exception of a handful of Jews, one of which was Silver’s dad. The majority of the retail businesses in town were Jewish establishments. “My dad’s mantra was, ‘if you don’t work, you’re a bum,” Silver said. “He had only one sick day in fifty years.” Silver’s dad held down four jobs simultaneously to provide for his family.” His Mom was a homemaker, involving herself in various organizations while raising the boys. Young Marty belting out “’A’ You’re Adorable” at Lake Mohegan UJA show, circa 1947 But was it a musical household? Yes and no. “My Dad played a lot of instruments, none of them well,” Silver confessed, mentioning the saxophone, fife and ocarina. “He didn’t have a great ear, but he loved music, especially martial music. He loved the Sousa marches. At the time, every kid had to play an instrument and my brother, Don, was chosen to play the saxophone and the violin.” Silver attempted to play the violin. “I was dreadful,” he said. I tried, but just couldn’t play it. It wasn’t as if Silver were bereft of musical talent altogether. He was known primarily as a singer in elementary school, being compared to a young Frank Sinatra by his teachers. “I had never heard of Frank Sinatra,” Silver recalled, “but I was honored to be compared to him.” Silver’s parents hadn’t even heard of George Gershwin at the time of their son’s historic viewing of the biopic, and despite a household filled with various other musical instruments, they secured an old secondhand upright piano for their Photos by Stephen Vrattos and courtesy of Marty Silver
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