BEN PETRUCCI

    

                                     

  BEN PETRUCCI   

             1. Meeting Ben  - In 1973 I was coming out of my economic and spiritual depression.   I had found my teachers, the ones I had come to Boston hoping to find. My back had healed enough that I was mobile again, so I started asking Frosty's friends in Cambridge if they knew of any bands that wanted a keyboardist.

            Most rock musicians loved Frosty.  He had the best and most modern musical equipment, he had a really clean sound and was a solid soloist; he was also a part-time athlete, and his music taste was similar to theirs.  So Frosty got lots of work - within a year of the breakup of Sweet Blindness, Frosty was working the East Coast circuit playing rhythm guitar with some major names. 

              But I was too strange for the regular rock musicians.    It was still very unusual for a musician to be openly gay - I saw several well-known rock musicians in gay lounges, and it was always "I can't tell you my name.   Don't tell anyone you saw me here, alright? Please!"  Add my total lack of interest in televised sports (unlike almost all rock musicians), and that I was still coming out of my autism - my social relationships were pretty minimal.  Only with some of my students, such as Dauntless Anne McCarthy and her friends, could I really relax and socialize.   And of course they also were readers and had intellectual interests (consider Lyle Guyer the poet for example).

            So I had no luck at all in finding work with the rock bands that Frosty could introduce me to.  I was getting increasingly desperate.  With only 3 students and Mike Gullage's wages from working in a take-out store (Chicken Out!), I was once again as broke as I have ever been.   However, one of the musicians I talked to told me about a band leader from a Boston suburb who had a reputation for hiring musicians with different approaches to playing than the average musician, and  who liked to improvise - and were good at it. 

            So I tried the phone number he gave me and reached Ben Petrucci.   After the first gig,  Ben knew I was the type of keyboardist he wanted, and I had finally found a band that played both rock and the jazz and pop standards.    Here at last was my chance to practice my chord extensions, altered scales, and other harmonic complexities that were too sophisticated for the usual rock band.   And Ben’s musicians were usually first rate,  both great readers and great improvisers. And Ben encouraged all of us to experiment, play longer solos, stretch our boundaries.  This was my type of guy!  And Ben loved my playing and ideas.

            2. Ben's band - Ben called the band "The Boston Elevated Railway."   He wanted it to play both "Sinatra and the Beatles", a repertory from swing to rock, to appeal to both sides of the generation gap.  Musically this was great for me, I could keep up my rock chops while learning jazz keyboard skills.     And it meant more work for Ben and the band, appealing to a wider age range. 

            In addition to Ben on multiple horns, and me on keyboard, the other members of this quintet were the singer June Zale, Bill Chamberlin on electric bass, and drummer Al Ortolani.  (By 1975 the personnel changed to Jerry Edwards on acoustic bass and Charley Spooner on drums).

 

 

 

 Ben also liked to use his hiring power to help people in need, a chance to practice his Christian charity. (It’s interesting how often I have been helped by the big hearts and giving hands of religious people, whether Christians, Jews, or other forms of spirituality. And look at the parallel, Dr. Norden and Ben both going out of their way to drive me home back when I couldn't afford a car - both dedicated musicians, each brilliant in their own way, and  each committed to helping people in need.  And then also Charlie Banacos with his vision of the wounded bird on his doorstep (cf. 5 Teachers, Chapter __). Thanks to these three people I am still alive, a successful  local musician, living more than comfortably in the Philippines with my own personal doctor and lover, Dr. Rodel Baldoz ... I should offer prayers for their souls every day. But I digress......)  

              The main thing Ben looked for in musicians were that they be "Cooperative and Creative."   Everything else took a back seat.  Consider my own appearance back then, which kept me from getting work with most bands. Shoulder-length but ungroomed black hair, looking into outer space during my solos, trying my best to fall into unconsciousness and solo in a blackout, and usually succeeding.  Ending my solos with this dazed, 'just came out of a trance,' look on my face. 

            Ben's bands were usually putting out some of the best and most original versions of old and new pop hits.  I loved playing his gigs.    I could play all styles, use all chord possibilities, do any solo my mind could dream up - and my fellow musicians would always be able to support me. From the first gigs I was in heaven playing with Ben. And I could put to use all of the new concepts and techniques that my teachers had taught  me.­

            Ben  has a great ear for new sounds and a very big heart for talented musicians with problems,  and a mind steeped in  music studies and willing to explore the most unusual ideas.   And for Ben, as for me, 1973 was a breakthrough year.   Ben's Elevated Railway was his first attempt to really break into the casuals market, and led to openings in the casuals market, and also in arranging gigs for show biz and band personalities from Las Vegas and L.A. to his home territory in New England.   His arranging style was changed when he saw the movie Lost Horizon: its soundtrack, by Burt Bacharach, became an ideal for him.  (it’s a floating, peaceful song hovering between E minor and E Phrygian; complexity producing simplicity, and a strong melodic line).  The same year he became a Born-Again Christian, which led to his current Sunday music service as part of the 'worship team' of an African Evangelical church.

            And as for me, I was now making enough money that I could eat in restaurants again, see movies, and buy all the second-hand books I wanted.   Yes, at last I had left Purgatory behind me, and for the first time since Frosty's band broke up, I was in musician’s heaven. 

            3. The Casuals Circuit;  Ben's Gigs - Yes, if you weren't going to be famous, the best way to make the most money on gigs was playing casuals. 

            And what is a 'casual'?  It's playing a one-time event which is also a major event for the family or club hiring you - a wedding, an anniversary, a birthday, an inauguration of  new officials, and so on.  Since it's a one-time event the family or society hiring you can pay much more than a lounge or bar which has to pay the band three to six times a week every week. And paying the band a lot helps mark the special event as truly special. Who wants to remember their child's birthday or confirmation or bar mitzvah as a cheap date?

            So the casual is top dollar for a musician, other than being a superstar.  Here is an example of both instances: one of the top casuals band on the whole East coast, from Chicago to Maine, was a large jazz-rock orchestra called 'the Mob” from Chicago.  They played everywhere on the East coast circuit - maybe even more - and got paid a whole lot more than the average casuals band.  I was talking with the leader of the Mob during an intermission, while some ceremony was being performed, or some guest was giving a speech - in any case, we were off for half an hour.  I was complimenting him on the huge success of his band, but he just sighed, gulped down his drink, and told me his sad story.

            Originally the band was called The Big Thing, and included, over thirty musicians, so they could play several different casuals on the same night.  But one day, in the late 60s, half of the band wanted to try for 'the gold ring', play all originals on the rock/pop originals circuit, and make millions with hit records.   But the other half of the Big Thing said 'You're crazy. We're making a good dollar right now - if we take a gamble and lose, we will have lost our casuals gigs and be left broke.  Why take that chance?" 

                        Well, as you might have guessed, that other half of the Big Thing that went for originals became the superstar group Chicago - while the rest became the Mob and   kept playing the casuals circuit, and suffering from acid stomach every time they heard Chicago on the radio or watched them get another award.

                        The main venue for casuals in Boston and its suburbs was a chain called the Chateau de Ville. There were several spread around the suburban outskirts of the big city. They were large buildings, each with a huge main floor for 'the event', with a giant glass chandelier hanging in the middle of each main floor.   The floors, walls, tables - everything was spic and span, gleaming with cleanliness and polish.

                        Other venues were usually community locations; VFW or American Legion halls, event rooms for one-day rentals, occasionally even a larger cocktail room.

                        And Ben was a master of the art of casuals.  His humble persona, willingness to play any request (if the whole band didn’t know it, usually one guy did, and they could do a solo or a capella version), and his occasional clowning, all made the hosting party feel relaxed, even superior to the musicians joking it up for them on stage.  Ben was a master at finding out what type of music they wanted, and who were the right musicians in his combo to solo on it.   He had one act himself:  he would make seagull noises on his tenor sax, while holding his arms to his sides and then flapping his elbows while cawing away on his horn. 

                        Yes, Ben was a master of casuals.  He gave the music choices for the event, who to solo when, when to take a break for announcements, when to time the playing so the break would usually come after a long stretch of music but before the speeches.   "There's nothing casual about a casual," he liked to say. 

            4. Ben Himself: Avant-garde Musician, Born-Again Christian - Ben had a lot in common with my theory teacher Dr. Norden.   Both were devout Christians, and showed it by their repeated acts of charity: for example, their willingness to offer rides to students or band members who didn’t have wheels, even if it was miles out of their way.  Sometimes Ben's little Chevy Vega would be crammed to the gills: me, the bass player, both of our amps, my keyboard, Ben's panoply of wind instruments, and the 'girl singer' on numerous trips from Boston all the way down to Hyannis. when we played the American Legion hall gig.  (That was a great gig, lasting six months or more, paying top dollar, and those Legionnaires and their wives were a wild bunch indeed!  An inspiringly live audience, frequently dancing up close to the bandstand.  Once, after one of my more trancey solos on 'Aquarius', I came out of my trance and there was this old cat applauding by clacking his dentures over his head like they were castanets!) 

                        After a couple of years, most of Ben's band had their own rides, and so me and Ben would be alone in the car for intense discussions on music theory, our teachers, our music goals, what top musicians we admired at the time, and so on - each drive home was like a music seminar."You encouraged me MUSICALLY GREATLY,"  Ben emailed me recently, "with Our Talks, "planning the Next MUSICAL PROJECT while driving you home to Allston."  

                        And of course, Ben's wife Elena often came up with some amazing Italian cookery for take-out on the gigs.  "You just want our Italian cookies," Ben liked to joke to the band. (For another example of the hospitality Italian-American families would show to the band their husband or son was in, check out what Duke Ellington had to say about Louis Bellson's family in Duke's autobiography (Music is My Mistress, pp. 225-6).  

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            5) Ben’s musical life – Ben’s father, Benny Petrucci, was a well-known teacher in Boston.  He even has a plaque dormitory room at the Berklee School of Music named after him:  The “Benny Petrucci Room.”  Benny was Ben’s first teacher, starting when Ben was 8.   He was also a model of how to teach:  always respect the student was the key to his approach.  Benny’s chief instrument was the accordion.  He often played accordion for local political rallies, as well as on the commuter train from Boston to New York City in the 1940s and 50s. 

              

Ben’s later teachers included several famous Boston musicians and theoreticians (Joseph Viola, James Forte, and Robert Chesnut). 

1950s-60s – Ben started performing professionally in 1957.  He played in bands backing up local appearances by such famous performers as Frankie Lyman, the Shirelles, and the Isley Brothers, among others.   Ben also played in pit orchestras forBoston productions of Broadway shows. 

  

 

Ben’s ‘Nazarene Nose’  – Because he had a big nose (Italians call it a ‘Nazarene Nose’ as a reference to Jesus’s birthplace) some Jewish contractors thought he was Jewish.  As Ben tells it, “My NOSE, IS NOT AN ITALIAN NOSE !  IT IS A NOSE OF A JEW !  Called a NAZARENE NOSE !  Possibly, JESUS HAS THE SAME NOSE, Because HE Came from, NAZARETH ! Worked for JEWISH ✡CONTRACTORS, Such as : The Jack & Jerry Davis Orchestras & The Bo Winiker Orchestras.  To be hired by them, I had to Learn All The TRADITIONAL HEBREW 🎵 SONGS ! For : Bar Mitzvahs & Bat Mitzvahs in The TEMPLE & SYNAGOGUE !  Those Wonderful People thought I was a JEW !   I Worked with ✡ JEWISH MUSICIANS !  I Even provided Music for some Wedding Ceremonies, Too !   They Treated Me like a Fellow Country Man !  I Ate with the Parties like a JEW !  I FELT THEIR LOVE !  All This Happened because of My NAZARENE NOSE !  IT TURNED OUT A GREAT BLESSING FOR ME !  "    Ben even had a Jewish name,  'Ben Siegel. 

  

Ben was really in awe of his theory and arranging teacher, Jim Forte.

Like Dr. Norden, and also like Charley and Curtis at CAI, and indeed all of my African-American teachers, Jim Forte loved to give general moral and artistic principles even more than specific points of theory;  the latter would come when discussing a new composition or style of the student, but coming from the teacher's side it was always that general principle (such as Dr. Norden's "the best melody wins" or Charles Holly's "don’t just play lots of notes; talk on your instrument").  The one from Ben's teacher that I still remember fifty years later was "don't go down the dark path: it doesn't lead anywhere, it’s just a dead end." 

 

         5.   Two funny tales - There were many amusing and amazing events at Ben's gigs, but after fifty years, there are only two that I remember.  And both were quite memorable indeed.
                           The first:   We were playing with a small group in a Boston tavern  when the owner came up and said, "Look, you guys are playing all these jazz stuff, and the customers want pop, so I'm paying you only half of what we agreed on,"
       "Oh, I see", says humble little Ben.   Then Ben ends the set right away, and runs over to the club pay phone, has a fast and furious three minute talk, then comes back to the bandstand.  "Come on, boys, let’s play some more."  And five minutes later the door to the lounge is flung open as around 10 young men all in black leather jackets come charging in.  They start going up to each customer; ""Hey, do you like jazz?  We LOVE jazz! It’s the best - right?"
      And in seconds, seconds, the club owner comes tremblingly up to Ben, and hands Ben a set of keys.  "Oh, oh, I have to go home early.   Can you lock up for me?  And just pay yourselves out of the cash register, whatever is right!  Okay?" ""Well, thank you, you are very kind"," says humble little Ben P.    ""Okay, boys, you want to try some Coltrane?" 

                           The second: : Once Ben got a gig for a trio in a very dangerous South Boston neighborhood where non-Irish rarely made it out alive, to play a going away party for a local teen hood who was given a choice between jailtime and joining the US Army  by the judge he was appearing before.   Ben had a trio for this: himself, Charley Spooner the wild Celtic drummer, and me the stoned Jewish hippy on piano ... except the piano was in terrible shape with only 20 working keys out of the 88, and most were at the very top or very bottom of the keyboard:  the keys most used, in the middle, were almost completely gone. 
                 So I suggested to Ben let’s just play everything first as close as was possible to the basic chords and melody, and then in a sort of abstract, 12-tone, free jazz style and if they get upset, explain why the piano forced us too.    So, we did a half-hour jam out on Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4”, to end the set - each member of the trio taking a long, long solo: first playing it sort of straight and then going as far out as we could. Each solo lasted over ten minutes, and the whole number lasted around half an hour.  
                  As soon as we started packing up, two frighteningly hard-looking Boston Irish young men came up to us and grabbed Ben: "Hey, you know that last number you played?  Well, the guest of honor drank too much, see. so he was out back getting sick and missed the whole thing!  So you guys have play it all over again - just like you did before, not like the record."   "Certainly," said  Ben. and so we did.   
                  That's the first and only time in my life that I got threatened with physical violence if I DIDN'T play more avant-garde free jazz. But then again, Charley and Ben
played fantastic and superb solos.   Ben and his bands are such an amazing treasure trove of music and stories

6.   Ben and the start of Creation City - After Kelly St.John broke up, I got Ben to hire Jack Jarnis on guitar for a gig, and from then until Jack left Boston, he did a lot of gigs with Ben.   Jack was in awe of Ben; he said that Ben knew more about music than all of us, that Ben was a genius!  Alas, I missed those gigs, since I was working with another band, Smoke, at the time (more about Smoke coming up right after the Ben chapter).  
         Meanwhile, Ben and I started a recording band for originals and jams, which I called "Creation City".   We wanted our sound to have both clean, tight arrangements and also completely ad lib group improvisations.  Jack joined with his distinctive wah-wah guitar sound; there was a great drummer – high energy Charley Spooner (one of my 8 favorite drummers of my playing career),  Jerry Edwards on stand-up bass for "Cranberry Jam", alternating with Lance Furbart from Bermuda on "Spring Will Come".  And on this foundation the horns: Claudio Roditi on trumpet, who was to become famous in Dizzy Gillespie's big band, then a student at Berklee; and a high-school student of Ben's, Cory Nisson on trombone, who had learned to play the typical original and melodic ‘Ben Petrucci sound.’
         We made an abortive try at disco, which mercifully soon fell victim to terminal tape rot ("White and Tan," about swimsuit tan lines); a complex mini-suite, “Spring Will Come”, and a very free group improvisation, “Cranberry Jam”.   Thankfully the tapes of these two have lasted with almost no damage for 46 years!   And while "Spring" was recorded in a studio (recorded and mixed by Sherry at Hub Studios), "Cranberry" was recorded on a cheap portable casette.  And even more amazing, the thick texture made by multiple simultaneous improvising instruments still comes through loud and clear on "Cranberry".
         "Spring" is a little masterpiece showing off Ben's arranging talent.  It is a mini-suite in 5 parts: 1) a Sondheim style vocal melody sung by Jack; 2) Claudio's fusion jazz style solo on a two-chord vamp; 3) a Tonic-Dominant country folk dance, with only guitar, bass and clarinet playing; 4) my piano solo in an old-fashioned Latin style, backed by a repeating riff played by the horns on the second chorus; and ending with 5) a vamp based on the chords of the first part, with Jack singing a very avant-garde wordless melody.  All tucked into a five minute piece.
         "Cranberry" was improvised on the spot - no rehearsal, no charts, no instructions other than it would start on E minor as the tonic. Jack had us seated in a half-circle, and solos went around the circle alternating with full-band improvisations.  I am so glad that the recording quality was so unexpectedly superb, so I can still enjoy the whole thing.
         Here are the links: 
           Spring Will Come - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Vb3Ab-wQ0
          Cranberry Dreams - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAC6WtYx6s
 

   7. Ben in later years - After I moved to LA, we stayed in touch.   Ben had a major breakthrough in arranging.   While still writing charts for local bands, he started writing for more famous bands, often playing at Las Vegas.   He wrote arrangements for Henny Youngman (for Henny’s performance on the Jerry Lewis Telethon of 1996)  and for Gina Lombard, opening for Liberace in Las Vegas, and for other Las Vegas acts, while still living in Boston.  He also was the clarinet soloist with the Gene Krupa Orchestra in 1990 (led then by Ben Anthony), and played in some ‘50s rock and roll revival bands in the New England area.               

  As a sax soloist, he made several clips that are on YouTube, for a local show The Jazz Room, created and produced by Joan Watson Jones. Possibly the best is Ben’s arrangement of ‘Rosetta’, for his trio with Larry Roland on bass, and Bob ‘Sticks’ Taylor on drums.  (You can find it on YouTube by searching for “Rosetta Ben Petrucci” on your browser). He also got even more religious than he had been before.  For the last seven years he has played in the worship team of an African church, the Highest Praise International Church –Pentecostal. (Before that, from 1979 to 1983, Ben was the music director for three churches – Pentecostal (1979-83), Baptist (1984-99), and Assembly of G-d  (2000-2004). 

        Ben wrote me in an email that 1973 was his breakthrough year - he loved the personnel of the Boston Elevated Railway, loved the music we were playing. "In 1973 Jesus changed my life into a BLESSING to be a BLESSING TO ALL PEOPLE!  YOU came along In Need, I saw in YOU a WORLD OF MUSIC & LOVE FOR ALL PEOPLE!" And Ben says he was really motivated by "with Our Talks, Planning The Next MUSICAL PROJECT, while driving you home to Allston, Mass ... THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"

What a lot of energy and optimism for a man well into his Seventies!  I think it’s a combination of his relentless practicing, his deep religious faith, and his family which supplies his energy. I mean, check out  ‘Rosetta’ from the Acton Jazz Café performance. What a powerful horn!  (I hear a lot of Coltrane in him).   Where does all that wind and power come from, in such a thin and aging body? (Ben credits his religious faith for this). 

 

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSpqWNH8JcQ   

 

         Adonai's blessings on you, Ben and your family!  Hey, you not only rescued me financially back in 1973, you introduced me to some of the most fun drummers and bassists I have ever worked with - not to mention your own solos and band conducting.  Now I am going to sit back and listen to this clip one more time… 

 

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSpqWNH8JcQ