[Dixielandjazz] Buddy Greco R.I.P. - London Guardian - LA Times

Sat Jan 14 12:52:10 EST 2017

Buddy Greco

Singer and pianist who was the consummate club and saloon performer

by Dave Laing

London Guardian, January 13, 2017

Richard Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s 1937 composition The Lady Is a Tramp has been performed by many singers, but the most widely known version is the 1960 recording by Buddy Greco, who has died aged 90. It encapsulated Greco’s jazz-inflected, finger-snapping, wisecracking, dynamic vocal style and went on to sell more than a million copies.

He was born Armando Greco in Philadelphia into a musical Italian-American family. His father was variously a record store owner, a radio show host and an opera critic, and his mother a musician. Armando took up the piano at the age of four in 1930, when he also made his radio debut as a singer. The family could pay for tuition but did not own a piano. He told an interviewer that after each lesson he would “run home and practise on a cut-out of a piano keyboard my father found on the cover of a magazine. I would play this keyboard and actually hear the notes in my head.”

The music heard in the Greco home was classical, but Armando was converted from Enrico Caruso to jazz as soon as he heard a Louis Armstrong record. He turned professional as a teenager and gained a new forename when a bandleader seeking a pianist at the local musicians’ union office asked him: “Buddy, would you like a job?”

By the late 1940s, Greco was leading his own group, the Three Sharps, and in 1948 he had a hit with a recording of Ooh Look-a There, Ain’t She Pretty, a song first recorded by Fats Waller. The next year the bandleader Benny Goodman offered Greco a job with his orchestra. He was in two minds but followed his father’s advice to “go with Mr Goodman and learn your craft”.

In 1951, Greco left the band to embark on a solo career of nightclub shows, recordings and television appearances (introduced as “Mr Excitement of Song”) that would continue throughout his life. He became the consummate example of what American reviewers called the saloon or lounge singer. He would often extemporise lyrics or call out “talk to me, piano” when embarking on a solo. Greco’s early nightclub act was captured on the 1955 LP Buddy Greco at Mr Kelly’s, recorded at a Chicago nightspot and one of the best of his albums, of which there were more than 60.

The zeal with which he ingratiated himself with audiences delighted some critics and alienated others. Some felt he was beyond parody, although the comedian Jerry Lewis got close with his portrayal of the character Buddy Love in the 1963 film The Nutty Professor.

Greco claimed to have played at least twice in every major club, but his most favoured venues were in Las Vegas and in Britain. For many years he was associated with the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, a city where he caroused with the so-called Rat Pack led by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr, who said: “Buddy Greco’s world is a very swinging world.”

He made his first visit to Britain in 1949, performing at the London Palladium with Goodman. He had a home in London for many years and bought a flat in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, telling a Big Issue interviewer in 2010 that Southend was “the greatest little city in the world”.

Among the highlights of his British career were the 1963 Royal Variety Performance headlined by the Beatles, concerts with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, in which he would feature his bravura piano playing on Jimmy Webb’s MacArthur Park.

Greco was renowned for his hot temper. He once pushed a piano off stage towards an audience member who refused to extinguish his cigar, and he squared up to the younger singer Bobby Darin, whom he accused of stealing aspects of his act.

Greco last appeared in Las Vegas in November, when he was inducted into the Las Vegas Entertainment Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his fifth wife, the singer Lezlie Anders, seven children and many grandchildren from his earlier marriages to Sally Baionno, Dani Crayne, Margret Kinley and Jackie Sabatino. All ended in divorce.

[Buddy Greco (Armando Joseph Greco), jazz pianist and singer, born 14 August 1926; died 10 January 2017.]

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Buddy Greco, Who Ran with the Rat Pack and Had a Hit in 'The Lady Is a Tramp,' Dies at 90

by Nardine Saad

Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2017

Buddy Greco, the jazz singer, piano player and long-running Vegas showman whose hits included “The Lady Is a Tramp,” has died.

The musician, who was often associated with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin’s Rat Pack and whose lengthy career spanned eight decades, died Tuesday in Las Vegas, according to his Facebook page. He was 90.

Sam Greco confirmed his father had died, but did not provide details or cause of death.

For decades Greco headlined top nightclubs, cabarets and music rooms around the world. He had such solid-selling singles as “The Lady Is a Tramp,” "I Ran All the Way Home" and "Mr. Lonely" and recorded more than 60 albums.

He also performed with Marilyn Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and once played for Queen Elizabeth II along with The Beatles. 

Though he was never officially a member of the Rat Pack, he shared the stage and hung out with Sinatra, Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

Born Armando Greco in South Philadelphia in 1926, Greco began performing at age 4. He sang on the radio and started playing piano by the time he was 6. When he was 20, he signed with his first record label, MusiCraft, which counted Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme among its artists.

"I knew the minute I was born, I've always known my life was going to be in the music business," Greco said in a 2008 interview with the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

“Oh Look-a-There Ain’t She Pretty” was his first hit, selling over a million copies, according to his website. In 1949, band leader Benny Goodman came into Philadelphia's Club 13, heard Greco and hired him as his keyboardist.

"I always wanted to be my own boss," Greco said in 1991. "I never liked working with anybody. When I first made a couple of records that were little hits, people like Charlie Ventura, Buddy DeFranco and Dizzy [Gillespie] used to mention me for their band. But I never wanted to work with them. The only guy I really wanted to work for was Benny Goodman.

“Luckily, one night he came in and hired me."

Though he was a mainstay in America, two of his career highlights took place in England, where he both lived and toured, Greco said in a 1991 interview with The Times.

In 1960, he recorded what became his favorite album, "From the Wrist Down,” a collection of instrumentals with accompaniment from the London Symphony Orchestra. And in 1964, he played for the queen at Prince of Wales Hall.

"I arrived and there were 10,000 people outside trying to get into 1,200 seats. It turned out the opening act was the Beatles, and it was about six months before they were to become known in the U.S.," Greco recalled. "That was a thrill, an Italian from South Philly performing for the queen.”

In his prime, the headlining Strip performer drew crowds comparable to his pals in the Rat Pack. He made his Las Vegas debut in 1955 at the lounge at the Sands, where he met Sinatra. He also headlined the Desert Inn’s Starlight Room in 1992 -- that’s where he met his wife fifth wife, Lezlie Anders, who had been his opening act.

“I'm basically a jazz piano player who made it as a singer like Nat (King) Cole did -- he started me. He was my best friend. A lot of the stuff I do is stuff he gave me over the years,” Greco said.

In 1991, Greco released his first jazz album, the self-produced "The Magic of It All," which took him back to his musical roots.

"I'm at the point in my life that I don't have anything to prove to anyone," Greco told The Times. "I just want to go out and play and have fun."

The couple, who also toured together, moved to Palm Springs where they opened Buddy Greco’s Dinner Club, where he headlined until it closed in 2009.

In August, Greco celebrated his 90th birthday with tributes and toasts at the Italian American Club in Las Vegas.

“That is what Lezlie wants everyone to remember... The man with the magic fingers and the smooth, sexy voice,” his friend Barb Donahue wrote on Facebook.

Despite ups and downs in his lengthy career, the musician remained gracious.

"I've been lucky.... I always happened to be in the right place at the right time. Through my Benny Goodman days, through the Rat Pack thing, my friendship with Marilyn Monroe -- I've got so many stories."

  Greco is survived by Anders and seven children from previous marriages. 30

Bob Ringwald piano, Solo, Duo, Trio, Quartet, Quintet 
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Just read that 4,153,237 people got married last year... 
I'm not meaning to cause any trouble,
but shouldn't that be an even number?
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