[Dixielandjazz] Was Celebrity thread-Now Max Morath

[Don Ingle]

Question: "Say -- who WAS that masked man?"
Answer: The Lone Ranger -- not! It was Max Morath.
Max was a fraternity brother of mine at Colorado College in  Colorado
Springs (his home town). And he did a radio show on a local station where he
played piano, sang, and took phone-in requests. The station manager decided
to do a little promotional deal, and had Max featured as the romantic,
mystery masked musician...This was the time of the Continental and the early
Liberace...and he had these posters of Max in a black tux wearing a black
Lone Ranger type mask on and they were seen everywhere -- on city buses,
store windows, etc., saying "Who is the masked maestro?" Needless to say Max
was not high on the idea and you know he got big time kidding from the t
time I saw him he was doting a date in Sacramento and came in to where I was
working at the El Rancho in Sacro with dad's band (1962) -- and he did a
couple numbers with us -- saying, "Is this the Hagerman Hall flash I see
behind that horn?" That was the dorm I was in when I was there -- long since
torn down, but through no fauilt of mine.
Max has gone on to great things in the world of ragtime and is a master of
the genre for sure. Great Guy, but I suspect he'd just as soon forgot about
the days of the black mask!
Don Ingle
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <DWSI at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 3:18 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Celebrity thread


> Regarding Jimmy Durante. When I was learning to play the Rag, Dill
Pickles, I
> remember reading that this was the one rag (and apparently the only one)
that
> Jimmy Durante could play. (It's fairly simple--key of G). He was also
quoted
> (somewhere) as saying that it always got him a round of applause when he
> started out on Coney Island. Back then, I guess, you had to play an
instrument as
> well as dance and tell jokes to get booked. Later Max Morath, (my great
hero of
> syncopated piano) inserted most of Dill Pickles into his rendition of
Livin A
> Ragtime Life. Absolute great stuff!
>
> Dan (piano fingers) Spink
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