The downside to all of this is that I tend to lose them entirely too soon, and last week's passing of Marty Harris has saddened me beyond words. I can't remember when I first met Marty; he was just always around, backing up wonderful singers and playing with the best groups in town. I ran into him everywhere, and I ended up playing with him at Micelli's, The Money Tree, Monteleone's, Barone's, private parties, casuals, etc. He was so opinionated about singers, I considered it a huge honor that he would want to play with me. We never used charts, never had to. Charts got in the way, and for the kind of music we were doing, we all knew the basic roadmap anyway, and every night was magical.
Marty could play anything. Anything. He had played with Anita O'Day (my hero! He loved telling stories about Anita O'Day), Woody Herman, Clark Terry, Diana Ross and Tom Jones. He could make anyone sound good, even me when I completely lost my voice before a show last year. He didn't feel well and he was in pain, but he played like the monster he was, making up for my deficiencies that night.
One thing about Marty - To play with Marty, you had to have ears. And you'd better know what you're doing. The women in the two stories below shall remain nameless.
A few years ago, I was asked to sing at a birthday party for an actress' mother, and I called Marty for the job. It was just the two of us. This particular celebrity wanted me to sing "Stardust", and she wanted to dedicate it to her mother. I'm sure she wanted a lovely ballad. I had written up a chart (which of course Marty ignored). After I sang the verse rubato, Marty broke into a wonderful swinging stride which brought the tune to life, and everyone started dancing. A few songs and a couple of glasses of wine later, our celebrity host wanted to sing a song (a standard) to her mother. She wasn't a singer, per se, and she had probably learned the tune listening to someone's recording of it. When she stood up in front of Marty, she became completely thrown by his chord changes and inversions, and it was pretty disastrous. Not used to being caught with her pants down, she blamed it on Marty. He wasn't "playing it right". (You gotta love it when singers blame the musicians. It gives the rest of us "chick singers" a bad name.)
Another time, I walked into Micelli's, where Marty was playing with a flamboyant French diva. It was the same thing. This poor woman clearly wasn't used to singing with a pianist of Marty's caliber. She came in at the wrong places, forgot where she was, and hit some very questionable notes. Marty trudged on, playing through it, trying to help her find her place.
"Terrible!" she furiously whispered to me during the break. "I have NEVER had such a night! This pianist does not know what he is doing!" " She retreated to the bar.
"Terrible!!" an exhasperated Marty said. "This woman's got no idea what she's doing! Hey, you want to get up and sing a song?"
A few times during our shows, after I finished singing, he'd say, "You know, Laura, a better ending would be this...." and he'd play it for me. He was always right. I hope I still remember those endings.
Right up until the very end, Marty played with a full heart. He looked great and never lost his chops. He was truly one-of-a-kind, and there will never be another Marty. We're all getting older, and I'm no spring chicken any more. I know, it's life. But it's just getting harder and harder to lose my friends.
