I had Vinnie Falcone as my guest this afternoon on my weekly radio show, The Sunday Music Festa. The show can be heard on the web stream at our station's website at www.jazz901.org
Falcone was pianist and then Musical Director for Frank Sinatra for about 8-10 years between 1973 and 1986. He's a fabulous musician and a truly nice man. He's worked with Tony Bennett, Joe Williams, Jack Jones, Rosemary Clooney, Julius La Rosa, Andy Williams, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and the list goes on and on. He also wrote a very interesting book about a year ago entitled "Frankly, Just Between Us: My Life Conducting Frank Sinatra's Music," with a journalist named Bob Popyk.
Vinnie told me today that when Sinatra was getting older he planned to spend the last years of his life traveling around to music schools passing on what he knew of the music he loved, namely The Great American Songbook, to young people and young music students. Unfortunately, he never got that chance as his mental faculties began to fail him in his declining years. Vinnie says he's been doing that whenever he gets the chance in recent years and the response from the young students is always very positive. He's a very articulate and intelligent guy and you couldn't find a better promoter for America's greatest music. He's quite a passionate and intelligent guy and I feel fortunate to call him a friend. It's because of Vinnie that I got to meet Sinatra many years ago but I'll save that story for another day.
When I spoke with him this afternoon he was in Florida working with Joe Piscopo. They were doing a concert tonight in Tampa. I don't even want to speculate about Piscopo as a singer. I know Vinnie met him years ago and they became friendly. What I found more interesting was that they did a show last night with Piscopo, Victoria Jackson, and Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci. I always thought Father Guido was one of the funniest characters/bits EVER to come out of Saturday Night Live. Truth be told, apparently Novello was doing this character long before Saturday Night Live and David Steinberg saw him and hired him as a comedy writer. He went on to work for the Smothers Brothers and then Lorne Michaels tapped him for Saturday Night Live sometime around 1978. I'm happy to hear that Father Guido is still active and sharing his special brand of wisdom with the world.
Finally a message for my friend the Ol' Philosopher - not Eddie Lawrence but Timmy Madigan.
To blog is not an easy task
especially with all the questions you ask
you rant and rave and always pester
you fancy yourself an old court jester
but with all the trivial miles you log
you yourself should write a blog.
Good night for now and remember, as Frank Sinatra used to say that Joe E. Lewis used to say, "A friend in need is a pest."
