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North Shore Towers Courier n August 2016 13 son for $15. But Silver didn’t immediately take to it. “Playing scales and classical music bored me,” he explained Still, Silver toiled through week after week of lessons, seemingly to no avail, his passion for the instrument waning. Fortunately, fate intervened, albeit through the misfortune of Silver’s piano teacher, who was severely beaten during a mugging and forced out of action while she convalesced, giving the fledgling pianist a respite from the drudgery of his classical studies. Meanwhile, Silver’s father was moonlighting as a guard at the Mohegan Country Club in Lake Mohegan, a suburb of Peekskill. The band in the casino was led by Eddie McGinnis and Gege Renza and featured a pianist, Larry Burns, who Silver describes as “an unbelievably talented guy who unfortunately never made it.” The casino combo, specifically Burns, mesmerized young Silver. The band’s repertoire, featuring the music of the great American Standard songbook— Berlin, Kern, and of course Gershwin, et al.—reignited the boy’s love of the instrument and drive to master it. Silver’s rapt attention did not go unnoticed by his father, who approached Burns during a break to see if he would be willing to take over Silver’s instruction. According to Silver, under his new teacher’s tutelage, he “took to the piano, like a duck to water.” Within a few years, while still taking lessons, Silver formed his own band. Gathering seven of his musical buddies, the 14-year-old formed the “7 Flats.” “And we were,” Silver said with a laugh! The septet played proms and roadhouses until Silver left for college, but not before he and his group experienced a brush with stardom. It was Senior year and the band—now called “Marty Silver and the Silvertones”—were performing one night at The Vagabond House, when the trumpet player noticed a powder-blue Cadillac in the parking lot. In sauntered “The Great One,” Jackie Gleason with his girlfriend. “It was the most fun I had as a teenager,” Silver admitted of the days with his eponymous band. Silver continued his musical teachings at the prestigious Ivy League school, Columbia University, where he majored in musicology, the history of music before and after the Renaissance. “It didn’t hold my interest” Silver said. “I wanted to learn how to arrange and compose.” He joined the Columbia Kingsmen, the school’s a cappella group, for which he sang Second Tenor and became music manager and arranger. The Kingsmen was voted one of the Top 10 acappella groups in the nation and appeared at Carnegie Hall (Art Garfunkel later would become a member). Silver continued his singing career at Columbia by starring in the renowned Columbia Varsity Shows for three straight years. While in school he me his future wife, Judy. Born in Montreal, Canada, Judy lost her dad at a young age, when he was only 29 years-old. Judy’s mom remarried another Canadian man and they settled in The Bronx, and later to Kew Garden Hills, New York. Judy, along with two other friends, crashed a party at Columbia’s Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, of which Silver was a member. “The moment I saw her, that was it,” Silver said. While in school, Silver would return to Peekskill during breaks and on weekends to perform, taking over the piano-playing duties from his mentor, Larry Burns, who had left the Eddy McGinnis-Gege Renza Band. “We played a lot of weddings,” Silver said. “Very few Jewish!” In Silver’s senior year year at Columbia, he and Judy got engaged. After a brief stint in the U.S. Army Reserves, the couple wed in June 1959. They moved to Briarwood. Two daughters—Laura and Kathy—and seven years thereafter, the couple moved to Fresh Meadows, where they lived for twenty-five years before settling at North Shore Towers. June 7th would have marked their 57th Anniversary had Judy not passed away in 2015. After graduating from Columbia, Silver now found himself in New York City without a car and was forced to find work in the Big Apple. “I couldn’t very well schlep to Peekskill every weekend,” he explained. He got a job with renowned MCA Talent Agency in the mailroom and became a member of the Local 802 Musicians Union (He was already a member of the Westchester Local). Not making any real money at MCA, he needed to supplement his income by doing band work in NYC. At the time, there were basically two types of distinct bands in the city. The “Society” orchestras considered themselves elite. Then, there were the ethnic orchestras, which catered to the Jews, Italians, Greeks, etc. “Because of my knowledge of tunes, I attempted to get in with the “Society” end. It was better work, as was the quality of musicianship,” Silver explained. He met a contractor at the Union hiring hall, who represented the better society bands. This particular contractor gave him his first “high-end” gig, performing for a wealthy Park Avenue couple at their huge apartment. The well-to-do New Yorkers had a piano, but didn’t let Silver play it. They had requested an accordion player, not a pianist. “I’d brought an accordion with me,” Silver said, “but I didn’t know how to play it, never mastering the buttons played with the left hand. I was terrible; I was terrible,” Silver confided, repeating himself as if to signify he was twice as bad as any accordion player who was merely just “terrible.” Silver played the entire gala quite literally singlehandedly for such luminaries as actor Ray Bolger, best known for his portrayal of The Scarecrow in MGM’s 1939 screen classic, “The Wizard of Oz, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Edward and Wallis Simpson. At one point, Silver was asked to accompany Ray Bolger in singing, “Once in Love with Amy,” an American Standard by Frank Loesser from the 1948 hit Broadway musical, Where’s Charley,” in which Bolger starred. The hostess then insisted that Bolger perform a tango with Wallis Simpson, accompanied by Silver, the one-handed accordion player. The review of Silver’s performance delivered to the agency the following day read, “He was a nice boy, but he was a little timid.” “Timid?!” Silver said. “I was scared to death!” Silver left MCA after one year and got a job with Capital Records. “It wasn’t a well paying job and certainly wasn’t glamorous but I enjoyed it,” he said. “My job was to book Capitol’s Recording Studio With new singing partner, Dominic “Uncle Junior” Chianese, and company at the Friars Club


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