[Dixielandjazz] Billy Catalano Obit

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Wow sad news indeed Steve:

I remember Billy very well since he played many gigs with my band back 
in the late 60,s early 70,s, and he was once married to the female 
singer in our band.  Yes, he was a very good trumpet players and a nice 
guy too.   We played a lot of after hours gigs too, meeting up after 
our regular gigs with separate bands to play from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 
a..m. in places like the 151 Club, and Coffee Don's.     Billy worked 
with us at Bimbo's too when we were the house band there.   Some times 
we worked around the clock on the weekends playing gigs and after hours 
sessions and afternoon sessions from San Francisco to Alameda, to 
Castro Valley to Hayward to San Leandro and back to Alameda to Start 
the circle all over again on Saturday night.


Ahhhh the good old days.   We made a lot of money as musicians then but 
we worked for it too.


     His father Billy Sr. was the guy who conned my first band into 
joining the Local #6 union telling us the the club owner we were 
working for would pay us union scale if we did.    He did not bother to 
tell me that the union scale at the time for the joint was $19.00 a man 
a night and about $24.00 for the Leader.    Yeah right good move, we 
were already making $50.00 a man a night for the same gig.  The outlay 
of $216.00 for each sideman to join and the cut in pay we got by 
surprise at the end of the next pay week was enough to make us quit the 
gig immediately.   The union still wanted their 2% work dues for the 
gig however and when I refused to pay it they fined me $150.00 my first 
month of membership.

We went on to book bigger and better gigs and and I opened a booking 
agency a couple of years later to handle all the gigs I was getting 
that my band could not play because we had so much work.   Billy Jr. 
worked with us for several years and ran a horn section for me whenever 
I needed one and since his father was the Local #6 rep.  he kept him 
off my back for many years, especially when Billy Sr. would call me up 
and want a gig as a drummer.   He always wanted to know why I would not 
book his band for gigs or give him a call as a sideman.

I lost contact with Billy Jr. about 1976 when I retired from playing to 
go in the record business.

He had many good friends and was admired by lots of good players in 
this area.

R.I.P. Billy


Cheers,

Tom Wiggins

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 09:23:12 -0400
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Billy Catalano Obit

   Some of the US Left Coasters may remember Billy Catalano. A Bay area
trumpeter who chose to tour with Stan Kenton over a spot with the San
Francisco Symphony. He backed Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Eartha Kitt et 
al.

He also played at Finocchio's, that famous female impersonator night 
club in
order to make a decent living.

Yep, those Italians surely have soul.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

William 'Billy' Catalano -- S.F. trumpet player, teacher
Steve Rubenstein, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

William "Billy" Catalano, Jr., a lyrical and passionate jazz trumpet 
player
and teacher who performed in scores of San Francisco nightclubs and 
theatres
and instructed thousands of young musicians in a career that spanned six
decades, has died.

Mr. Catalano, 71, died of cancer Friday, July 15, 2005 at his San 
Francisco
home.

"His whole life was the trumpet,'' said his wife, saxophonist Amelia
Catalano. "He was known as a screaming, screeching lead player, but it
wasn't all about loudness. The sound of his trumpet was the most 
gorgeous
thing I ever heard, so full, so sensitive, so fragile.''

Mr. Catalano was equally at home with a Hoagy Carmichael ballad, a 
Broadway
show tune, a Duke Ellington jazz standard or a classical concerto.

He took up the trumpet as a sixth grader at Denman Middle School in San
Francisco, although the band teacher tried to steer him to the trombone
instead and said young Billy could play trumpet only if he supplied one 
of
his own. The boy's father, jazz drummer Bill Catalano, spent that night
playing poker and won a silver trumpet on a turn of a card, which Billy
proudly brought to school the next day.

Mr. Catalano was a graduate of San Francisco State University who, in 
1956,
turned down an offer to play with the San Francisco Symphony in favor of
joining Stan Kenton's big band in 1957. Catalano recorded with Kenton on
RENDEZVOUS WITH KENTON (October, 1957), BACK TO BALBOA (January, 1958),
several singles and unissued sides in 1958, and THE BALLAD STYLE (May,
1958).  Archie Le Coque was one of his roomates on the Kenton band.  He
toured the United States with Kenton for several years before returning 
to
San Francisco to play in such nightclubs as Bimbo's, Finocchio's, the
Barbary Coast and the Cellar. As the musical contractor for countless
touring performers and shows, he was in charge of hiring hundreds of 
local
musicians.

His trumpet backed up such singers as Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, 
Peggy
Lee, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Bette Midler and Marlene Dietrich, and he
appeared with the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, the Joffrey Ballet 
and
the American Ballet Theater. He also performed in the Golden Gate and
Oakland park bands, and at San Francisco 49ers games.

In 1978, he became the band director at his alma mater, Balboa High 
School.
Six years later, he began teaching at Denman as well, reviving a long-
dormant instrumental music program at that school.

Mr. Catalano, a slender man who dressed in black and spoke with blunt 
humor
to his young students, was an inspiring figure at the podium. Rehearsals
would combine music, philosophy, ranting, frantic arm waving and the
occasional well-placed, good-natured insult. When the situation 
warranted,
Mr. Catalano would lay down his baton, grab his own trumpet and play a
tricky passage the way it ought to be played, effectively ending all
discussion.

"You're the one that plays the music,'' he would tell his students. 
"Not the
instrument, the lips, the mouth or the fingers. You."

He retired in 2002 but continued to teach and inspire young musicians,
especially trumpeters. He always seemed to have an old trumpet lying 
around
to give to a promising youngster, along with a word of encouragement 
and a
dog- eared instruction book.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by brothers Thomas Catalano of
Pleasanton, Joseph Catalano of Pacifica and Robert Catalano of Surprise,
Ariz.

A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Valente Marini Perata
Mortuary, 4840 Mission St., San Francisco.





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