On this date in 1921, legendary jazz pianist Marty Napoleon was born in Brooklyn to Sicilian immigrant parents. A gifted musician, Marty replaced pianist Earl Hines in Louis Armstrong’s All Stars Band in 1952—and they toured the world. He played with many jazz greats over the years and appeared in such diverse films as The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and The French Connection (1971). He died at the age of 93 on April 27, 2015.
Marty and my brother, jazz guitarist Carl Barry, had a regular jazz gig at the Hors d’Oeuverie of Windows on the World in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. They were dear friends, and I was lucky enough to see them perform many times as a trio, along with bassist Bucky Calabrese. I took a few dates up to that lovely restaurant in the sky and the setting couldn’t have been more romantic. After all, the music was great (I knew the band). And with Lady Liberty flickering down below in New York harbor and the shimmering lights of the city reflected in our eyes, there was simply no better place to fall in love.
Years later, Carl recalled that the trio played in front of many notable personalities of the day—Imelda Marcos, Van Cliburn, Mayor Ed Koch, and Frank Perdue, among them. Nevertheless, the guys were never too crazy about the height of the building, which swayed in the wind. On Friday, February 20, 1981—my mother’s birthday no less—Carl swore he saw the face of a pilot of a plane that flew mighty close to the WTC. “We could have shaken hands,” he joked. The news later reported that an Aerolineas Argentinas plane was on a collision course with the television mast atop the North Tower—and it was, indeed, a near miss. And then there was the event of September 9, 1981, when lower Manhattan experienced a blackout due to a Con Ed generator explosion, and everybody took a long trek down a generator-powered elevator. Carl said it felt like the elevator was being lowered by hand.
My memories of the music and the restaurant were recently sparked when I re-read a January 1981 New York Post review of Marty and Carl’s WTC gig by the great jazz critic George Simon. Now more than forty years later, Simon’s review—aptly titled “Napoleon flying high”—has a certain poignancy. It’s worth quoting in full as a tribute not only to the musicians, but to the setting in which they appeared:
Marty Napoleon is about as high as any musician can get these nights. For there he sits in front of his piano, 107 stories nearer the stars, right atop the World Trade Center in its delightful Hors D’Oeuvrerie at Windows on the World, leading one of the jumpingest trios in town.
Napoleon has always been a swinger. His romping beat and infectious enthusiasm, as well as his innate good musicianship, have made him one of the pianists jazz musicians liked most to play with.
He has served and supplied time for the likes of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnet, Gene Krupa, Boyd Raeburn, Coleman Hawkins, Joe Venuti, Jimmy McPartland, Benny Goodman and at least 20 or so more name leaders that began exactly 40 years ago. And is he tired of playing all that time?
You bet he isn’t! These nights his love of what he’s doing is so obvious in every move he makes that one enthralled listener and watcher the other evening suddenly blurted, “You know, he’s really a jazz version of Hubert Humphrey!”
And Marty, who learned jazz early on from his famous uncle, legendary trumpeter Phil Napoleon, has plenty to be joyous about these evenings. For he has himself not only one fine trio but also the unbridled musical support of jazz-loving Alan Lewis, the director of Windows on the World, who, says Napoleon, exhorts his musicians to play as much jazz as possible, or at least as practicable.
Which is pretty much what they do. With a wide repertoire of jazz standards, show tunes, sambas and ballads-turned-to-swing, the trio features Marty at the piano, along with Bucky Calabrese, he of the warm, gentle, swinging and — glory be! — unamplified string bass, and an absolutely spectacular but unheralded guitarist, Carl Barry, as fleet of finger as any man around, who, however, never allows stupendous technique to interfere one iota with his swinging ways.
His solos are often breathtaking in their virtuosity as he shifts easily from single-string to full-chordal confrontations, or from the fleet runs of a John McLaughlin to the utter funkiness of a B. B. King.
And the way he and his leader blend the sounds of piano and guitar and play off one another reflects not only their musical but also their residential affinities — they’ve been Brooklyn neighbors for many years.
The trio’s straight-ahead, high swinging jazz can be heard at Windows on the World every Tuesday through Saturday night at 7:30.
What a wonderful review of a terrific trio providing music in a magnificent setting. Many years later, when I visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and saw the entrance sign to Windows on the World on display there, it brought back a flood of sweet memories and tears to my eyes
Unfortunately, I don’t have any recordings of Marty and Carl from that wonderful setting. But I did find an audio cassette recording of their joint appearance at the Summer Concert Series in Averill Park, New York on July 13, 1978, as part of “The Jazz Supreme”—a group that also featured vocalist Stella Marrs, French tenor saxophonist Gérard Badini, bassist Bill Pemberton, and drummer Joe Coleman. (When folks used to ask Joe why he had such a big drum set, he’d jest: “I figure with that many drums, I’m bound to hit one of them!”)
In tribute to Marty and the musical legacy he left behind, I’ve digitized this selection, the jazz standard, “On Green Dolphin Street” (music by Bronsilaw Kaper, lyrics by Ned Washington), and uploaded it to YouTube. Marty’s wonderful solo on electric piano follows my brother’s ‘fleet of finger’ guitar solo. Enjoy!
Notablog 