November 29, 2023 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, our storyteller's father was more than a virtuoso of the American Songbook. He was a circumspect, gentle, and incredibly generous man.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, but this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to a listeners story from Mark Walter
about his father, whom he knew only a short time
but dedicated his life too. During this piece, she'll be
hearing the music of his father, Cy Walter. Let's get
(00:31):
into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I was eleven years old when my father died of
cancer in nineteen sixty eight, and he was only fifty
two and had had cancer for some fifteen years, but
I wasn't aware of that. I was a child, and
my mother and father made the difficult choice not to
tell we children of his illness. And he worked what
(00:54):
were late night, nocturnal hours, and they decided that it
would be better for him to live separate from us,
and he moved into an apartment on seventy third Street
between Second and third, and this was in Manhattan on
the Upper East Side, and it allowed him to sleep
late because he would be working from six in the
(01:16):
evening until one or two or three or four in
the morning. And it also allowed him the privacy and
ability to deal with being ill. So my relationship with
my father was a very loving parent, while as I
grew older and he lived apart from us, I would
visit him frequently, remember very happy times doing so, getting
(01:40):
my hair cut with him, wandering through the neighborhood where
everyone seemed to know him. He was very much a
beloved figure in that sense, and he was very kind.
And I'll give you a wonderful memory about that. My
mother and father cam and said had a role that
I was not to ride my bike from eighty seventh
Street to seventy third Street. I was about eight years
(02:02):
old at the time, and it was a rational rule
because New York City traffic was dangerous, obviously, but I
was a rebellious kid and one day did exactly that,
but unfortunately got a flat tire just before reaching my
father's apartment. And I was so standing on the streets
(02:22):
staring at my broken bike, wondering what to do, fearful
of my father's reaction, expecting justified and condinne punishment for
breaking his role. And as I was befuddled, there a
young black kid I'd never met came up and generously
offered to help. He and I, my newfound friend, dragged
(02:43):
the bike to my father's doorstep, and when my father
opened the door. I introduced my new friend, and he
never said a word about the bike, never brought it up,
just took it inside, invited us in and explained what
had happened. He turned to my my friend and said, well,
you know, I'd really like to thank you for helping Mark.
(03:04):
And he brought us to the piano, sat us down,
and proceeded to play Somewhere over the Rainbow for us.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Every once in a while there comes along one of
those infuriating melodies which is so beautiful and yet so
perfectly simple that every other tune writer is disgusted with
himself for not having written it, such as Somewhere over
the Rainbow.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It was just a magical gift on a sport that
I remember that moment for the kindness of it. But
he also was very humble and modest, and I knew
(04:18):
he was a pianist, and I knew that he was
a respected pianist. I was not aware, however, as a
child of his stature, he was an acknowledged virtuoso, and
his contemporaries on so many levels revered his talent. My
father was very much a star in his career spanned
(04:43):
well his career spanned what was the halcyon days of
the Great American Songbook too in nineteen sixty eight when
he passed. He knew all the greats, and he knew
all the titans and bold face names of society as well,
because they were his audience. My father kept a mailing list,
I mean just a few of them. Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller,
(05:05):
Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Marlon Brando, Carol Channing,
Judy Holliday, a very dear, dear friend of my mother's.
She actually nursed him, nursed her sadly through her last illness.
A couple of musicians that were really family were Alec
Wilder and Mabel Mercer. Mabel Mercer was a amazing chantouse
(05:31):
who hailed from Britain and came to America in nineteen
thirty eight, and my father was the first pianist to
accompany her. She was also my godmother. And around two
thousand and four, my mother pulled out a Timberland boot
box that I still have that was filled with my
father's published sheet music and unpublished scores that he had written.
(05:55):
She handed this box to me and she said, about
a decade ago, I had a conversation with Michael Fines,
amazing performer and talent who is also passionate about preserving
the American Popular songbook. And as Cam explained to me,
then she had gotten a call from Michael around I
guess nineteen ninety five or so asking her what she
(06:16):
still had of SI's artistic legacy, and when she told
him that she had this sheet music, Michael said, well,
you should get it into the Library of Congress because
if you just keep it in your closet, nobody's benefiting
from it. And she didn't do anything at that point.
You know, other pressures of life interceded, I'm sure, but
she did pull it out in two thousand and four
(06:37):
and asked me to do it. My jaw dropped because
I didn't even know at that point that SI was
a composer. I had no idea of my father's stature.
I was a rock and roll kid growing up during
the seventies, and my mother really didn't proselytize the music.
So I decided to take an early retirement which would
allow me to do that. But it all goes back
(06:59):
to the fact that my mother God bless her out
of love for my father and out of love for
his or Street retained everything.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And you're listening to Mark Walter tell the story of
his father's PSI. Father was only fifty two when he died,
a world class musician, a first rate talent. When we
come back more of Mark Walter's story, the story of
his father THI here on our American Stories. This is
Lee Habib, host of our American Stories, the show where
(07:29):
America is the star and the American people, and we
do it all from the heart of the South, Oxford, Mississippi.
But we truly can't do this show without you. Our
shows will always be free to listen to, that they're
not free to make. If you love what you hear,
consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Go to our American Stories dot com. Give a little,
(07:51):
give a lot. That's our American Stories dot com. And
we're back with our American Stories. In Mark Walter's story
(08:12):
about his father's SI. When we last left off, Mark
was telling us about how he knew that his father
was a pianist, but didn't know that he was a
virtuoso of the American songbook. Let's continue with the story.
Here again is Mark Walter.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
SI had a god given talent. There's just no way
around it. He was his own unique style and there's
never been anyone like him, and never since or before.
He grew up in Minneapolis and his parents were both musicians.
(09:02):
Raymond was a talented tenor highly respected in the Twin Cities,
and Flossi, as she was nicknamed Florence Flossi, was a
very well respected and very long standing piano teacher in Minneapolis.
SI was unquestionably her most successful student. He acknowledged that
(09:23):
he learned everything. Everything he learned about piano, knew about
piano came from her. But they weren't wealthy. It was
a very sort of middle class existence. I'm sure well
in terms of size learning how to play piano. I
had always thought, until a few years back, that he
(09:43):
took up the piano after initially learning how to play
the cello of the bass because of the liner notes
that he wrote to one of his albums, A Dry
Martini Please. He wrote there that he took up the
piano because it had become clear to him that it
was so difficult to transport the cello on the Minneapolis
bus system. I remember thinking, well, you know, it's probably
(10:06):
harder to transport a piano. But however, and this is
sort of a story that reflects the amazing journey I
have had. My discovery of my father's music has altered
my life in a way that is wonderful. I'm blessed
with friends I never would have met, And a perfect
example of that is a fello named Bob Wood Junior,
(10:27):
who had found the sy Walter website I guess about
four or five years ago, called me up out of
the blue lives on the West coast to tell me
that his father, Bob Wood Senior, was a dear friend
of my father's. They knew each other in Minneapolis. They
grew up together. Bob Wood Senior was perhaps six years
older than Si and had his own orchestra at the time,
and at age nineteen or so, he was an orchestra leader.
(10:52):
He was approached by Si, who was then about thirteen,
wanting to join the orchestra, and Bob Wood Senior said
to Sia, I'm sorry, so I don't really need a
string instrument. We've got plenty of cellice. But you know
your mother is a wonderful piano teacher. Why don't you
go to her? And ask her to teach you the piano.
And if you when you learn the piano, you can
(11:15):
be part of my orchestra. And so I said, okay, deal.
When he was ready, he came back and said I'm ready.
And Bob Woodr. Wrote in his memoirs he was already
playing like a virtuosa at that point, and it was
only three months. He had learned how to play the
piano in three months, I now understand why people marveled
(11:43):
at his abilities. Clearly he had the perfect environment to
do it, but he also just had an amazing God
given talent. At one point, I'd found a list of
pithy quotes by different musicians over the centuries. One of
them was attributed to Art Tatum. I shared it with
my mother and when she read it, she read it aloud.
(12:05):
Art was attributed as saying to another pianist, listen, you
come in here tomorrow night, and anything you play with
your right hand, I'll play with my left hand better.
And the left hand's considered this a missive. The right
hand the dominant hand in piano playing. So that was
quite a statement. And my mother, after reading that, looked
up with pride in her face and said and art
(12:27):
always acknowledged that Cy had a better left hand than
he did. But he went from Minneapolis to New York
in part because of his having a sort of mentorship
with American songbook great fellow nam Johnny Green, who composed
the Beautiful Standard, Body and Soul. Johnny Green was performing
(12:48):
in Minneapolis, so I wiggled his way into the performance
backstage and introduced himself. And when he came to Manhattan
to New York in nineteen thirty four, Johnny Green took
him under wing and essentially got him a job coaching
some aspiring singers initially and helped him meet many of
(13:09):
the then stars of the Great American Songbook Firmament, people
like George and Ira Gershwhen he came to o Vernon Duke,
he came to know Richard Rodgers and as he started
playing in different venues, people got to know him. Fred
Astaire and he had been friends, and when a Stare
decided to basically sort of retire from the film industry
(13:32):
in nineteen forty seven, he decided to open up his
own dance studio. To do that, he created a swing
trot dance that he called the Astaire that he purposely
designed to be accessible to a new dancing student, and
he turned aside to create a song to celebrate and
publicize the dance and his launch of his new dance studios,
(13:53):
and Sigh composed what was also called the Estaire the
Drake Room. He didn't own it in a literal sense.
It was part of the Hotel Drake, which was torn down,
oh I guess about a decade ago now by a
(14:14):
developer that built this monstrosity four point thirty two Park
Avenue in one of the Billionaire skyscrapers. But the Drake
Hotel was one of the apartment hotels that was built
during the early twentieth century, and it was an extraordinarily elegant,
classy place that catered to its guests in a way
(14:35):
that was truly special. And I'll give you an example
of that. Famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein lived there and he
wanted his own personal grand piano logically in his apartment,
and as it turned out, it was too large to
fit in the Drake Hotels elevator. The Frey elevator just
(14:56):
wouldn't accommodate it. And in a classic example of going
the extra mile, Stanley Turkle and his talented staff arranged
for the city had closed down Park Avenue and for
crane to lift Arthur Rubinstein's piano up through the window
of the twentieth story or something wherever it was. It
(15:17):
was that kind of elegant hotel. The Drake Room was
opened in nineteen forty five by Walter Riddell, who was
a man about town and owned the hotel at that time,
and he immediately hired. It was opened essentially for Cy
because and he were friends, and Si was then and
(15:39):
remained the highest paid pianist popular pianist in New York
because he was so beloved by his audiences. By others,
he was famed for his memory. Somebody could come into
the Drake Room that hadn't been there in years, a
patron that had made a request in past years for
Sid to play a particular song when that patron came
(16:01):
back in maybe five years later, so I would immediately
recognize the person and remember that song and start playing it.
He was a marvelous entertainer. I told you the catalyzing event.
And that afternoon when I was visiting my mother out
(16:25):
in Long Island where she lived, and she pulled out
my father's sheet music and told me about her conversation
with Michael. At that time, I really did not know
much about the Great American Songbook or the musical genre
that it encompasses. You know, if you had talked to
(16:47):
me about Cole Porter, or George Gershwin or Richard Rodgers
or I would have looked at you largely blankly. So
it was for me a an enlightenment that again is
a gift from my parents. As I went through all
these materials and I read the articles about my father,
(17:08):
I came to realize that he really was at the
heart of a musical era that was very, very.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Special and a special thanks to Mark Walter for sharing
his story of his father, who is the pre eminent
piano accompanist and piano player in New York City at
a time when New York City was the center of
everything in American music. And also what a love story
of a son pursuing the story of his father all
(17:39):
the way down. The story of cy Walter is told
by his son Mark here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, but this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to a listeners story from Mark Walter
about his father, whom he knew only a short time
but dedicated his life too. During this piece, she'll be
hearing the music of his father, Cy Walter. Let's get
(00:31):
into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I was eleven years old when my father died of
cancer in nineteen sixty eight, and he was only fifty
two and had had cancer for some fifteen years, but
I wasn't aware of that. I was a child, and
my mother and father made the difficult choice not to
tell we children of his illness. And he worked what
(00:54):
were late night, nocturnal hours, and they decided that it
would be better for him to live separate from us,
and he moved into an apartment on seventy third Street
between Second and third, and this was in Manhattan on
the Upper East Side, and it allowed him to sleep
late because he would be working from six in the
(01:16):
evening until one or two or three or four in
the morning. And it also allowed him the privacy and
ability to deal with being ill. So my relationship with
my father was a very loving parent, while as I
grew older and he lived apart from us, I would
visit him frequently, remember very happy times doing so, getting
(01:40):
my hair cut with him, wandering through the neighborhood where
everyone seemed to know him. He was very much a
beloved figure in that sense, and he was very kind.
And I'll give you a wonderful memory about that. My
mother and father cam and said had a role that
I was not to ride my bike from eighty seventh
Street to seventy third Street. I was about eight years
(02:02):
old at the time, and it was a rational rule
because New York City traffic was dangerous, obviously, but I
was a rebellious kid and one day did exactly that,
but unfortunately got a flat tire just before reaching my
father's apartment. And I was so standing on the streets
(02:22):
staring at my broken bike, wondering what to do, fearful
of my father's reaction, expecting justified and condinne punishment for
breaking his role. And as I was befuddled, there a
young black kid I'd never met came up and generously
offered to help. He and I, my newfound friend, dragged
(02:43):
the bike to my father's doorstep, and when my father
opened the door. I introduced my new friend, and he
never said a word about the bike, never brought it up,
just took it inside, invited us in and explained what
had happened. He turned to my my friend and said, well,
you know, I'd really like to thank you for helping Mark.
(03:04):
And he brought us to the piano, sat us down,
and proceeded to play Somewhere over the Rainbow for us.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Every once in a while there comes along one of
those infuriating melodies which is so beautiful and yet so
perfectly simple that every other tune writer is disgusted with
himself for not having written it, such as Somewhere over
the Rainbow.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It was just a magical gift on a sport that
I remember that moment for the kindness of it. But
he also was very humble and modest, and I knew
(04:18):
he was a pianist, and I knew that he was
a respected pianist. I was not aware, however, as a
child of his stature, he was an acknowledged virtuoso, and
his contemporaries on so many levels revered his talent. My
father was very much a star in his career spanned
(04:43):
well his career spanned what was the halcyon days of
the Great American Songbook too in nineteen sixty eight when
he passed. He knew all the greats, and he knew
all the titans and bold face names of society as well,
because they were his audience. My father kept a mailing list,
I mean just a few of them. Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller,
(05:05):
Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Marlon Brando, Carol Channing,
Judy Holliday, a very dear, dear friend of my mother's.
She actually nursed him, nursed her sadly through her last illness.
A couple of musicians that were really family were Alec
Wilder and Mabel Mercer. Mabel Mercer was a amazing chantouse
(05:31):
who hailed from Britain and came to America in nineteen
thirty eight, and my father was the first pianist to
accompany her. She was also my godmother. And around two
thousand and four, my mother pulled out a Timberland boot
box that I still have that was filled with my
father's published sheet music and unpublished scores that he had written.
(05:55):
She handed this box to me and she said, about
a decade ago, I had a conversation with Michael Fines,
amazing performer and talent who is also passionate about preserving
the American Popular songbook. And as Cam explained to me,
then she had gotten a call from Michael around I
guess nineteen ninety five or so asking her what she
(06:16):
still had of SI's artistic legacy, and when she told
him that she had this sheet music, Michael said, well,
you should get it into the Library of Congress because
if you just keep it in your closet, nobody's benefiting
from it. And she didn't do anything at that point.
You know, other pressures of life interceded, I'm sure, but
she did pull it out in two thousand and four
(06:37):
and asked me to do it. My jaw dropped because
I didn't even know at that point that SI was
a composer. I had no idea of my father's stature.
I was a rock and roll kid growing up during
the seventies, and my mother really didn't proselytize the music.
So I decided to take an early retirement which would
allow me to do that. But it all goes back
(06:59):
to the fact that my mother God bless her out
of love for my father and out of love for
his or Street retained everything.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And you're listening to Mark Walter tell the story of
his father's PSI. Father was only fifty two when he died,
a world class musician, a first rate talent. When we
come back more of Mark Walter's story, the story of
his father THI here on our American Stories. This is
Lee Habib, host of our American Stories, the show where
(07:29):
America is the star and the American people, and we
do it all from the heart of the South, Oxford, Mississippi.
But we truly can't do this show without you. Our
shows will always be free to listen to, that they're
not free to make. If you love what you hear,
consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Go to our American Stories dot com. Give a little,
(07:51):
give a lot. That's our American Stories dot com. And
we're back with our American Stories. In Mark Walter's story
(08:12):
about his father's SI. When we last left off, Mark
was telling us about how he knew that his father
was a pianist, but didn't know that he was a
virtuoso of the American songbook. Let's continue with the story.
Here again is Mark Walter.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
SI had a god given talent. There's just no way
around it. He was his own unique style and there's
never been anyone like him, and never since or before.
He grew up in Minneapolis and his parents were both musicians.
(09:02):
Raymond was a talented tenor highly respected in the Twin Cities,
and Flossi, as she was nicknamed Florence Flossi, was a
very well respected and very long standing piano teacher in Minneapolis.
SI was unquestionably her most successful student. He acknowledged that
(09:23):
he learned everything. Everything he learned about piano, knew about
piano came from her. But they weren't wealthy. It was
a very sort of middle class existence. I'm sure well
in terms of size learning how to play piano. I
had always thought, until a few years back, that he
(09:43):
took up the piano after initially learning how to play
the cello of the bass because of the liner notes
that he wrote to one of his albums, A Dry
Martini Please. He wrote there that he took up the
piano because it had become clear to him that it
was so difficult to transport the cello on the Minneapolis
bus system. I remember thinking, well, you know, it's probably
(10:06):
harder to transport a piano. But however, and this is
sort of a story that reflects the amazing journey I
have had. My discovery of my father's music has altered
my life in a way that is wonderful. I'm blessed
with friends I never would have met, And a perfect
example of that is a fello named Bob Wood Junior,
(10:27):
who had found the sy Walter website I guess about
four or five years ago, called me up out of
the blue lives on the West coast to tell me
that his father, Bob Wood Senior, was a dear friend
of my father's. They knew each other in Minneapolis. They
grew up together. Bob Wood Senior was perhaps six years
older than Si and had his own orchestra at the time,
and at age nineteen or so, he was an orchestra leader.
(10:52):
He was approached by Si, who was then about thirteen,
wanting to join the orchestra, and Bob Wood Senior said
to Sia, I'm sorry, so I don't really need a
string instrument. We've got plenty of cellice. But you know
your mother is a wonderful piano teacher. Why don't you
go to her? And ask her to teach you the piano.
And if you when you learn the piano, you can
(11:15):
be part of my orchestra. And so I said, okay, deal.
When he was ready, he came back and said I'm ready.
And Bob Woodr. Wrote in his memoirs he was already
playing like a virtuosa at that point, and it was
only three months. He had learned how to play the
piano in three months, I now understand why people marveled
(11:43):
at his abilities. Clearly he had the perfect environment to
do it, but he also just had an amazing God
given talent. At one point, I'd found a list of
pithy quotes by different musicians over the centuries. One of
them was attributed to Art Tatum. I shared it with
my mother and when she read it, she read it aloud.
(12:05):
Art was attributed as saying to another pianist, listen, you
come in here tomorrow night, and anything you play with
your right hand, I'll play with my left hand better.
And the left hand's considered this a missive. The right
hand the dominant hand in piano playing. So that was
quite a statement. And my mother, after reading that, looked
up with pride in her face and said and art
(12:27):
always acknowledged that Cy had a better left hand than
he did. But he went from Minneapolis to New York
in part because of his having a sort of mentorship
with American songbook great fellow nam Johnny Green, who composed
the Beautiful Standard, Body and Soul. Johnny Green was performing
(12:48):
in Minneapolis, so I wiggled his way into the performance
backstage and introduced himself. And when he came to Manhattan
to New York in nineteen thirty four, Johnny Green took
him under wing and essentially got him a job coaching
some aspiring singers initially and helped him meet many of
(13:09):
the then stars of the Great American Songbook Firmament, people
like George and Ira Gershwhen he came to o Vernon Duke,
he came to know Richard Rodgers and as he started
playing in different venues, people got to know him. Fred
Astaire and he had been friends, and when a Stare
decided to basically sort of retire from the film industry
(13:32):
in nineteen forty seven, he decided to open up his
own dance studio. To do that, he created a swing
trot dance that he called the Astaire that he purposely
designed to be accessible to a new dancing student, and
he turned aside to create a song to celebrate and
publicize the dance and his launch of his new dance studios,
(13:53):
and Sigh composed what was also called the Estaire the
Drake Room. He didn't own it in a literal sense.
It was part of the Hotel Drake, which was torn down,
oh I guess about a decade ago now by a
(14:14):
developer that built this monstrosity four point thirty two Park
Avenue in one of the Billionaire skyscrapers. But the Drake
Hotel was one of the apartment hotels that was built
during the early twentieth century, and it was an extraordinarily elegant,
classy place that catered to its guests in a way
(14:35):
that was truly special. And I'll give you an example
of that. Famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein lived there and he
wanted his own personal grand piano logically in his apartment,
and as it turned out, it was too large to
fit in the Drake Hotels elevator. The Frey elevator just
(14:56):
wouldn't accommodate it. And in a classic example of going
the extra mile, Stanley Turkle and his talented staff arranged
for the city had closed down Park Avenue and for
crane to lift Arthur Rubinstein's piano up through the window
of the twentieth story or something wherever it was. It
(15:17):
was that kind of elegant hotel. The Drake Room was
opened in nineteen forty five by Walter Riddell, who was
a man about town and owned the hotel at that time,
and he immediately hired. It was opened essentially for Cy
because and he were friends, and Si was then and
(15:39):
remained the highest paid pianist popular pianist in New York
because he was so beloved by his audiences. By others,
he was famed for his memory. Somebody could come into
the Drake Room that hadn't been there in years, a
patron that had made a request in past years for
Sid to play a particular song when that patron came
(16:01):
back in maybe five years later, so I would immediately
recognize the person and remember that song and start playing it.
He was a marvelous entertainer. I told you the catalyzing event.
And that afternoon when I was visiting my mother out
(16:25):
in Long Island where she lived, and she pulled out
my father's sheet music and told me about her conversation
with Michael. At that time, I really did not know
much about the Great American Songbook or the musical genre
that it encompasses. You know, if you had talked to
(16:47):
me about Cole Porter, or George Gershwin or Richard Rodgers
or I would have looked at you largely blankly. So
it was for me a an enlightenment that again is
a gift from my parents. As I went through all
these materials and I read the articles about my father,
(17:08):
I came to realize that he really was at the
heart of a musical era that was very, very.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Special and a special thanks to Mark Walter for sharing
his story of his father, who is the pre eminent
piano accompanist and piano player in New York City at
a time when New York City was the center of
everything in American music. And also what a love story
of a son pursuing the story of his father all
(17:39):
the way down. The story of cy Walter is told
by his son Mark here on our American Stories
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