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 Sunny and mild first Monday of Springtime in New York
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West 11th and Bleeker. 9:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
Yesterday was the 80th birthday of piano virtuoso Byron Janis, born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in the heart of Greater Pittsburgh to Russian-Polish Jewish parents in 1928. They spotted the boy’s talents early: at age 7, he was taken to New York study with Adele Marcus, a famous teacher of piano at Juilliard. He made his professional debut at age 10 playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in New York.
At 16, he played the same concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony (conducted by the 15-year-old Loren Maazel) when Vladimir Horowitz heard him and invited the young man to work with him. Mr. Janis studied with Horowitz for four years. He remained a close friend and was one of only three students Horowitz ever acknowledged teaching. (The other two: Gary Graffman and Ronald Turini.) |
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Good Morning Buenos Aires: Last Friday at Swifty's we met four friends (readers of the NYSD) from Buenos Aires: Dimity Giles de Milberg, Alejandro Cordero, Bruce Levingston, and Horacio Milberg. |
Last night he was feted at a private reception for about 200 at the French Consulate on 934 Fifth Avenue. One of the speakers, Bill vanden Heuvel, said that Byron had “been discovered by (Arturo) Toscanini, taught by Horowitz and lived as a young man with the (Jascha) Heifetz family” – three of the greatest names in classical music of the 20th century.
The man’s brilliant career was interrupted after the first twenty-five years when in 1973 he became afflicted with arthritis of the hand and wrist. An intrepid personality, the pianist pushed forward. When he was honored in 1984 by President and Mrs. Reagan at a State Dinner at the White House, he revealed the affliction and how eventually it required surgery on his hands. However, he recovered sufficiently to continue playing and record, and still continues.
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Byron at the podium. |
Last night when he took the podium and very briefly recalled his career, he mentioned how forty-two years ago in Paris, he met a beautiful young woman, Maria Cooper (the daughter of screen legend Gary Cooper), whom he married. It was also in Paris in 1967 he made what some consider “the most dramatic musical discovery” of modern times – two previously unknown manuscripts of Chopin waltzes.
The beautiful Mrs. Janis was there last night at her husband’s side. Indeed, she is one of those women who works supportively behind the scenes to organize tributes to her husband’s great talent. In 1960 he was chosen to be the first American to be sent to the Soviet Union. Those were very testy times in Russian-American relations. In fact, the pianist arrived at the time American pilot had been shot down in a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, his concert was an enormous success, leaving good impressions of an American with the Russian people. |
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The crowd celebrating Byron Janis' 80th birthday at the French Consulate. |
Among the many friends attending last night was lyricist Skip Unger who first knew Byron Janis when they were 11-year-old boys attending Columbia Prep here in Manhattan. In his tribute, Mr. Unger read a poem to his friend’s evening:
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Verse:
Many people were invited
And we’re so delighted
That all of you could attend.
Many others couldn’t make it,
Had a date and couldn’t break it
Who, to, called Byron their friend.
Chorus:
Julius Caesar’s out of town
Wagner’s Duesenberg broke down
Cleo tore her evening gown
Or They’d Be Here with Byron.
Damon cracked his collar bone
Pythias won’t come alone
No one answered Sousa’s phone
Or they’d be here too.
Mammy Yokum couldn’t leave her Pappy
Josephine was busy with her Nappy
George the Third has just become too balmy
Arnie said he couldn’t leave his army.
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Borgia had a belly-ache
Walter Scott fell in a lake
Joan of Arc did not want steak
Or They’d Be Here Tonight.
Rip Van Winkle fell asleep
No one asked Uriah Heep
Scrooge was simply too damned cheap
Or They’d Be Here Tonight.
Louis Pasteur had the flu
Mulligan was in a stew
Hugo Black was feeling blue
Or They’d Be Here Tonight.
Hirohito’s stuck in Yokohama
Sigmund Freud just wouldn’t leave his mama
Man O’War was chasing after fillies
“I just hurt my heel” exclaimed Achilles.
Oscar Wilde again was jailed
Noah’s Ark already sailed
Bach explained his organ failed
Or They’d Be Here Tonight .... |
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Skip Unger, reading his poem to his friend of 70 years
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Byron Janis and Skip Unger |
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Maria Cooper Janis and Byron Janis |
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Bill and Melinda vanden Heuvel
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Mr. Edelman and Liz Fondaras |
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Dotson Rader and Father Daniel Morrissey |
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| Last Monday night in New York over at Lincoln Center in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Byron Janis performed a concert “An Evening of Song with Pianist as Composer, With a Touch of Chopin” featuring special guests Robert Cuccioli, Shuler Hensley, Karen Mason, Sami Gayle, Maya Days, and Joanne Lessner. Mr. Janis’ repertoire included his own works and a few selections by Chopin. |
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| Celeste Holm, Byron Janis, and Marion Javits |
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| Pia Lindstrom, Byron Janis, and Maria Cooper Janis |
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| Actress, Laila Robbins with Broadway Performer, Robert Cuccioli |
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| Songwriter Paul Rolnick, with wife Karen Mason, Broadway performer |
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| Young Frankenstein co-stars, Fred Applegate and Tony winner, Shuler Hensley |
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| Maya Days, Maria Cooper Janis, Alan Pally of the NYPL, and Byron Janis |
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| Patricia Neal and Maya Days |
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Also on today’s Diary: The Telegraph of London carried an obituary of Neil Aspinall, a name unknown to me and probably to millions of Beatles fans. Mr. Aspinall, who died in hospital here in New York was privately known by some as “The Fifth Beatle.” He had been with the group from the earliest days and remained close to all members of the group, exercising great influence and both creative and business input in the group’s business.
The Telegraph obituary:
Neil Aspinall, who has died aged 66, was the Beatles' original road manager and went on to run the group's business empire for 40 years; he became their chief confidant and, although not the only contender for the title of the fifth Beatle, perhaps deserved the accolade more than most.
For some 20 years following the break-up of the group in 1970, Aspinall applied his astute business acumen to fighting lawsuits on their behalf and unravelling the tangled skein of their financial affairs. His flair for figures helped to transform them into the wealthiest entertainers in the world, with a estimated combined fortune of £2 billion.
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Neil and Paul McCartney in 1969. |
A notoriously reclusive accountant, Aspinall made a rare public appearance last year in the course of a lengthy legal dispute involving Apple Corps, the Beatles' business organisation, which he joined during its chaotic launch in the late 1960s.
But a matter of weeks after settling the row with the Apple computer firm over the use of a trademark, Aspinall abruptly resigned as chief executive, reportedly frustrated that the band's musical legacy was being compromised in the quest for profits.
One of his last tasks as their eminence grise had been to remaster the group's back catalogue for legal downloading on the internet. Aspinall's involvement with the Beatles dated from 1960 when the group's original drummer, Pete Best, asked him to become their driver.
Although he protested when Best (his best friend) was replaced by Ringo Starr, he remained with the band, and when a brawny Cavern Club bouncer called Mal Evans was taken on in 1963 to hump their instruments in and out of their battered Commer van, Aspinall found himself in the role of personal assistant.
As such, he became the Beatles' gatekeeper, guardian of their privacy, security, secrets, and eventually the group's fortunes, over which, as managing director of Apple from January 1968, he exercised a shrewd stewardship. A quietly-spoken but tough negotiator, he was credited with having - single-handedly - turned the Beatles into the world's highest-earning band and, by extension, one of its biggest brands.
In the mid-1960s, at the height of Beatlemania, Aspinall's responsibilities as the group's road manager extended far beyond checking their equipment, stage costumes, meals, venues and accommodation: with Mal Evans, he judiciously vetted the groupies, and saw to the day-to-day needs of the Beatles themselves as they were shuttled from plane to limousine to hotel. "It was an unattractive life," he admitted, "and it went on for years. But at least I could go out. They were trapped." He even stood in for George Harrison, when the guitarist was ill, at a camera rehearsal for the band's first appearance on American television.
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| Mal Evans and Neil |
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Aspinall's role changed dramatically with the death of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, in August 1967, and he effectively took the group over, although he apparently turned down a formal offer of the job from John Lennon. According to one account, the Beatles' musical guru George Martin was unhappy at the idea of Aspinall replacing the public-school-educated Epstein because he lacked the social qualifications needed to speak to the executives at their recording company EMI.
As the group disintegrated, and the members eventually went their separate ways, Aspinall remained a trusted father figure to the famous foursome. Even when they were not speaking to each other he - as the honest broker - remained on good terms with all four.
His role post-Beatles became increasingly entrepreneurial: in 1995 he persuaded Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to collaborate on three Anthology albums and the accompanying television documentary, which took him five years to compile. It was Aspinall's concept that led to the release in 2000 of the Beatles' greatest hits album, Beatles 1, which has since sold 30 million copies.
Neil Stanley Aspinall was born on October 10 1941 at Prestatyn, the seaside town in north Wales to which his mother had been evacuated at the height of the Liverpool Blitz during the Second World War.
When the bombing raids ceased, he was taken back to Merseyside and at the Liverpool Institute was McCartney's classmate in English and art lessons, and - behind the school's air-raid shelters - shared furtive Woodbines with Harrison.
When Aspinall left in 1959 with eight O-levels, he studied with a firm of Liverpool accountants for two years, and lodged at the home of Pete Best, then drumming for the Silver Beetles (the precursor of the Beatles).
Best's mother Mona, estranged from her husband, ran a beat club called the Casbah in her basement. The two young men became friends, and Best persuaded Aspinall to combine his day job as a trainee accountant (for which he was paid £2.50 a week) with driving the group's dilapidated van at night for 10 shillings [50p] a week. Aspinall later cut a deal with the band by which he charged each of them five shillings [25p] per concert.
It was Aspinall who drove the group from Liverpool to London on New Year's Eve 1961 for their audition with the Decca record company. Aspinall lost his way, the trip took 10 hours, and Decca turned them down. When Best was fired as the Beatles' drummer in August 1962, a furious Aspinall offered to quit as well, but Best persuaded him to remain with the band.
At the other end of the group's career, Aspinall came up with the notion of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for their 1967 album, and tracked down the photographs of the Beatles' heroes that were used in Peter Blake's album sleeve.
He certainly made minor musical contributions to several Beatles' tracks, contributing to the backing vocals on Yellow Submarine and playing a tamboura on George Harrison's Within You, Without You, harmonica on Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite and miscellaneous percussion on Magical Mystery Tour.
The Beatles' publicist Derek Taylor once characterised the link between the group and Aspinall as "a complementary relationship. They had no O-levels, he had lots. They had big egos, he had none."
In 1995 Aspinall was revealed as having fathered a son in 1962 with the mother of Pete Best, 20 years his senior. He died in hospital in New York, where he had reportedly been receiving treatment for lung cancer.
Neil Aspinall married, in 1968, Suzy Ornstein, daughter of a United Artists executive who oversaw the Beatles' feature films A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965).
She and their five children survive him. |
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