[Dixielandjazz] Re: Max Morath

[G. William Oakley]

Hi Don:
Also at that time Max was appearing on Channel 11 in Colorado Springs doing
a fifteen minute TV show with his soon to be wife Norma.  Their theme song
was "Oh, We Ain't Got a Barrel of Money."  In 1956 I auditioned for my first
professional theater and Max was the piano player at the Imperial Hotel in
Cripple Creek, a spot he held for a number of years.  He taught me my
audition song, "I'd Rather Be a Gentleman's Gentleman Than a Gentleman On My
Own."
He is indeed a fine gentleman and in later years we both had apartments in
the same building in NYC and got to know each other.
Best,
Bill
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Ingle" <dingle at baldwin-net.com>
To: <DWSI at aol.com>; <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 4:55 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Was Celebrity thread-Now Max Morath


> 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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>
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