September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle - Softcover

Levinson, Peter J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1589791630 ISBN 13: 9781589791633

Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

Known for single-handedly saving Frank Sinatra's career in the mid-1950s with his stunning orchestral arrangements, Riddle's "intelligent, seductive style" also attracted such singers as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Johnny Mathis, and Linda Ronstadt. Peter Levinson, a friend of Riddle's, presents the musical side of Riddle as well as the private, including details of his marriage-ending affair with Rosemary Clooney.

About this title

About the Author

Peter J. Levinson began his involvement with American popular music in the late 1950s as a freelance writer in New York City. He then began work as a publicist for record companies in New York and Los Angeles. He lives in Malibu, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

September in the Rain

The Life of Nelson RiddleBy Peter J. Levinson

Taylor Trade Publishing

Copyright © 2005 Peter J. Levinson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781589791633

Chapter One

The Jersey Years

"Ya know, all those years I never saw Nelson smile or laugh," remarkedEmil Richards, a vibraharpist and percussionist who recorded frequently under Nelson'sleadership for two decades. "He just seemed to be an unhappy kind of guy." Richardswas not alone in feeling this way; his sentiment is shared by many others who recall thegloom and unhappiness that characterized Nelson Riddle's life.

    Nelson's somber outlook flew in the face of the fact that he had established animpeccable reputation for the consistency of the sophisticated and impressionistic musicalarrangements he wrote for the foremost pop and jazz singers of the twentieth century?FrankSinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat "King" Cole?during his almost fifty-yearcareer. He maintained his negative attitude despite the fact that he had written brilliantarrangements for over two dozen other important vocalists, including Judy Garland,Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Lawrence, rock star LindaRonstadt, and opera star Kiri Te Kanawa. (With his help, Ronstadt and Te Kanawa successfullycrossed over into classic popular music.) This was even stranger given theOscar he received in 1975 for The Great Gatsby (a gold album), his four other AcademyAward nominations (for Li'l Abner, Can-Can, Robin and the Seven Hoods, and Paint YourWagon?also a gold album), and the total of forty films he scored overall. AmongNelson's other achievements were two hit instrumental records of his own, "LisbonAntigua" (#1 on the Billboard pop chart and a gold record) and "Route 66," the theme ofone of several television series he scored, beginning with Naked City, including TheSmothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Julie Andrews Hour, and ending with the thirdBob Newhart show. This was in addition to his seven Emmy Award nominations,which included one for his score for the first miniseries, The Blue Knight starringWilliam Holden. And it was notwithstanding the three Grammys that Nelson won (outof eleven nominations) for his composition Cross Country Suite, written for clarinetistBuddy DeFranco in 1958, and his arrangements for What's New (1983) and Lush Life(1985) for Linda Ronstadt. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on HollywoodBoulevard symbolizes Nelson Riddle's career?one of both achievement and substance.

* * *

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr., was born on June 21, 1921, in the small town of Oradell,New Jersey, a bedroom community across the Hudson River and ten miles west of NewYork City. He was baptized at the Dutch Reform Church in Oradell. Smock was an oldDutch family name.

    Nelson's outgoing, fun-loving father, for whom he was named, was of bothEnglish-Irish and Dutch parentage. Fundamentally a sign painter, a craftsman, a sometimecommercial artist, and an amateur cartoonist who enjoyed creating new characters,unfortunately he seemed to have very little interest in making a profit for hisefforts. Nelson, Sr., also had a love of popular music; he played trombone and ragtimepiano, the latter an instrument which his son adopted at the age of eight.

    Nelson's mother, Marie Albertine Riddle, passed on to her son a deep and abidingappreciation of classical music. He remembered her singing French folk songs to himwhen he was a little boy, one of which, "Frère Jacques," was later adapted and becamethe basis for his swinging arrangement of "Brother John." Marie Albertine, betterknown simply as Albertine, was a small woman?five foot three or four?ratherdwarfed by her husband, who was slightly over six feet tall. She was born in 1888 inMulhouse, France, a town in Alsace-Lorraine, a province near the German border thathad been a subject of bitter contention between the two countries on and off for hundredsof years. It was the West Bank of that time. Her father was Spanish and of noblelineage; he claimed that his family had been part of the Spanish monarchy that hadonce ruled Holland. As a child, Albertine was raised in a convent.

    Albertine had been married once previously, and her divorce led her to leave theCatholic church. Because of her alleged upper-class European heritage, she always projectedan aristocratic demeanor which gave her an air of superiority. When she marriedNelson, Sr., she believed she had married beneath her and never hesitated to make itclear to her second husband that he should, indeed, feel fortunate to have a wife fromsuch a noble background. The fact that her husband was a weak and unambitious man,as well as a poor businessman who constantly struggled to make a living, was the sourceof ongoing problems between them. Without question, Albertine was the dominantforce in the Riddle household.

    A few years before Nelson, Jr., was born, Albertine had given birth to a stillbornson. In all, she withstood six miscarriages during her life, and these losses added a furtherundercurrent of grief to her already troubled marriage. Bob Runyon, Nelson's firstcousin, who had firsthand access to the inner workings of the Riddle household,observed, "I believe that the death of the first child was a major step in the evolution ofAlbertine's self-perception as some kind of a martyr and victim in a life which failedher expectations. I also think it's likely that Albertine's loss occurred at a time whenfrustrations, and perhaps some regrets, were starting to have a negative impact on herlife. This tragedy significantly added to her developing attitude toward Nelson, Sr., andlater Nelson, Jr., and what she saw as her life going sour. It's also possible that, in timesof conflict and stress, Albertine would reflect back on the death of her infant son andsomehow transfer all or most of the blame onto Nelson, Sr., for allowing it to happen,and retroactively justify her negative perceptions as his fault and not hers."

    Nelson often referred to the "strait-laced and stodgy" environment in which he grewup. This went along with the obvious coldness and the lack of a nurturing atmosphere inthe household. Albertine exerted a fierce control over her only child from the beginning.

    Still, she doted over her young son and took pride in the crocheted knit caps shemade for him. As he grew up, she could often be very loving toward him. The sentimentexpressed in Gil Scott-Heron's piercing song "Home Is Where the Hatred Is"seems to clearly describe the climate in the Riddle household. These factors were centralto the aura of sadness that surrounded Nelson later in life.

    Albertine was a housewife at a time when most married women were housewives,but it was a role that she felt was not very fulfilling. In the United States of the 1930s,only one mother in ten worked outside the home. As Nelson pointed out, his mother"had many other interests" (which may have been conscious or unconscious efforts toavoid housewifery): "She was very bright, having studied at Columbia. One of her passionswas dietetics. She was one of the very early protagonists of healthful eating. [It] gotto the point that she would only bake bread and cakes made up of whole wheat flour."

    An important aspect of young Nelson's home life was his father's principal hobby?music.There were weekly rehearsals with his four- or five-piece band in the front roomof the house. Nelson, Sr., could play "Maple Leaf Rag" on the piano exclusively on theblack keys?no mean feat. According to Nelson, during these rehearsals there was usuallya trombone?an instrument his father also played?placed on top of the piano.

    Nelson began taking piano lessons at the age of eight and studied with three differentteachers, hoping to emulate his father's talent on the instrument. Although he neverbecame adept as a piano soloist, learning to play the piano helped instill in him the rudimentsof harmony. The piano later became the instrument he played while composingand writing arrangements.

    Beginning in the seventh grade, Dick Leonard was Nelson's closest friend atBenjamin Franklin Junior High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. At that point,Nelson was playing piano and Leonard was struggling to learn the violin. "He used towalk by our house on the way to school. He lived out quite a ways, but he walkedevery day, usually leaving about the same time as I did. We were in the same historyclass. I thought he was an impressive guy?he had a deep voice. We had a goodteacher, Mary Egan, who used to like to dramatize the news. You might rememberthe ?Time Marches On? short subjects on radio and in movie theaters. She neededsomebody with a deep voice to say, ?Time marches on,? so she picked Nelson. Shewould say, ?Okay, Nelson, speak deeper!? And Nelson would say, ?I'm speaking asdeep as I can, and stop bellowing at me.? ... I remember that so well. That distinguishedNelson as someone who would tell the teacher to stop bellowing?not everybodywould do that."

    Ridgewood is another of the upper-middle-class bedroom communities of NewYork. The west side of the tracks, up on the hill, was where the money was. You couldsee the Empire State Building from there. Nelson and Leonard lived on the east side oftown. They both became interested in journalism, and Nelson began seriously thinkingof making a career of it. Dick Leonard eventually became the editor-in-chief of theMilwaukee Journal. During the period when Leonard ran the newspaper, from 1967until 1985, it was considered one of the foremost dailies in the country.

    Nelson brought attention to Leonard with an article entitled "Assembly Review"that he wrote for The Key, the Benjamin Franklin Junior High School paper: "It hasbeen my duty during the past year to report on assembly programs.... A few of thosewhich to my mind were outstanding were: Room 317's presentation, written and directedby Dick Leonard. Though the play itself was worthy of favorable comment, Dick'spinch-hitting [sic] when the play was found to be too short was the incident that?immortalized? the show."

    He continued, "I believe that the assembly schedule could be improved by havingmore lectures and less plays, but, of course, this would mean considerable extra expenditureand would cut down the amount of student talent utilized." This pronouncementwould seem to be still another example of Nelson's serious demeanor, even at this age.

    Leonard's friendship with Nelson continued at Ridgewood High School. Nelsonwas the piano player in the Willow Club, a dance band composed of about a dozen studentmusicians from the high school orchestra that would play for concerts in the townand occasional dance jobs.

    Nelson began taking trombone lessons in Paterson, New Jersey, at age fourteen.After only eight visits, however, the lessons came to an abrupt end; the music teachertold Nelson not to return because he had not been paid his fee of one dollar per lesson.Looking back on this incident years later, Nelson said, "Anybody worth his salt wouldhave gone out and sold some papers. I don't know why that didn't occur to me. I guess Iwas a spoiled brat." For the next several years Nelson learned to play the instrumentthrough the combination of studious practicing and rehearsing with various bands.

    The non-payment of the miniscule cost of Nelson's music lessons was indicative ofthe nature of the Riddles' blue-collar existence in 1935?the middle of the GreatDepression. Nelson remembered, "We didn't feel the Depression at all. My father madehis own Depression. It was all the same to us because we were already in a depressedstate by the time the Depression got there." Despite Nelson's assertion, the hoveringbleakness of this period obviously made an indelible impression on him.

    Dick Leonard remembered one particular Christmas when the Riddle family wasbroke. Nelson was unhappy because there wasn't any Christmas for him. Leonardrecalled, "The next time I saw him he was all smiles, and I asked, ?What happened??He said, ?I went out and bought myself two suits for Christmas.? That raised his morale.They weren't expensive suits, but they were a change and that brightened his picture."

    Things were so desperate that the family moved to wherever his father's company,Ridgewood Signs, could find work. Despite Nelson, Sr.'s talents as an artist, signpainters were in little demand at a time when most businesses were struggling merelyto keep themselves solvent.

    For a while, Albertine departed from her role as a housewife to take care of herhusband's business. Dick Leonard remembered, "They had a studio upstairs on one ofthe main streets of Ridgewood. She wore a smock, and she was up there doing art workand that type of stuff. They were partners in the studio. They would do signs or billboard-typethings or illustrations.

    "His mother was terse and business-like. I would describe her as sarcastic and nottoo affectionate. She would be smiling at times, or even laughing, but it was not a warmlaugh! More like ?I'm [smiling] because it's the thing to do.? His father, on the otherhand, was a warm, easygoing, and friendly guy."

    Leonard remembered the time that he and Nelson were in a writing contest andwere the two finalists. Leonard ended up winning the contest. The prize was a book,and Albertine was given the assignment of illustrating the dedication by hand on thefront page. "She embellished it quite a bit," said Leonard. "Nelson was a little bit disturbedabout that?his mother having to do the book which I had ?taken away? fromhim. It wasn't jealousy. He was kind of amused by it?the irony of it got to him."

    One night, Leonard and Nelson were sitting on the front steps of the Leonardhome. Leonard informed his friend that he had been accepted at the University ofWisconsin, which prompted Nelson to express concern about what was going to happento him because he didn't have enough money to go to college.

    In these terrible times, Nelson, Sr., would often work for barter. For instance, inMetuchen, New Jersey, where the Riddles lived for a time, he worked for a Mr. Meyersat his tavern. In exchange, the tavern owner would invite the Riddles and their youngson over for a meal.

    The Riddle family learned that renting a new place often meant that the firstmonth's rent was free. If Nelson, Sr., couldn't find a way to make the second month'srent, they would simply move.

* * *

Bob Runyon recalls Nelson, Sr., as being "a kook?and I use that in a nice way ... hewas a character, but very affable, a lot more happy-go-lucky than Nelson, Jr." Heremembered the two Riddle men playing trombone duets on tunes like "HarborLights" and "Red Sails in the Sunset," which led to sing-alongs during the four or fivetimes the two families got together each year.

    Bob and Nelson were related on his mother's side; he was one of Nelson's fivecousins who also lived in Metuchen. "Nelson had a good rapport with his father,"Runyon added, "but I thought Albertine was terribly spoiled.... At family gatheringsall the women helped prepare the meals?except Albertine. [By her actions] she gavethe impression ?I'm above this?they are my servants.? She would sit in a chair and holdcourt. She was always well dressed, very neat?a French kind of chic. She had thickgray hair and was always well coifed, wore glasses, and had a very determined stride asshe walked. When she spoke, she had an accent and was snippy, with no sense ofhumor and very little warmth. She expected both Nelsons?and everybody else, too, forthat matter?to cater to her. Uncle Nel was doing the ?Yes, dear? bit. If they had a littletiff going, he would fade away. He'd retreat.

    "As I recall, they did not get along very well.... They'd live apart for a period oftime, then they'd get back together. As a boy, Nelson watched his father get swattedlike a fly. It was a hopeless situation."

    Dick Leonard vividly recalled one night when he and Nelson were double-dating.Since neither of them could drive yet, one of their parents had to drive them around."On this night, Nelson said to his father, ?How are you feeling, Pop?? Nelson's fathersaid, ?Like I've been goosed with a pineapple!? which was his way of describing lifewith Albertine."

    It's the contention of "Skip" Riddle?actually Nelson Smock Riddle III, the oldestof Nelson, Jr.'s six children and the older of his two sons?that "[Nelson's] relationshipwith his mother was horrible, and he got no support from his father. His father was alovely man, but he was not available either. He didn't make a connection with my dad.They had this triangle situation going on and everybody was competing with everyoneelse. Everyone became quite manipulative in order to get what they wanted in order tokeep the peace."

* * *

Leonard remarked, "My mental picture of Nelson is he's walking past the house withhis trombone ... with a slouch, looking a bit out of this world. It wasn't so much dour.It was more dreamy."

    He feels that Donald Cook, the director of the Ridgewood High School Orchestraand the school's music teacher, was important in Nelson's musical education: "Wheneversomebody screwed up, like in the violin section, he'd stop the music and come over andhave a conference about what you did wrong. But you could always hear Nelson theminute this happened. He was at the piano, and you could always hear the piano starttinkling. He had his own little world over there. He didn't need anybody else.

    "I used to sit near him in both history and mechanical drawing. We were supposedto be sketching things, like you do in mechanical drawing, but he'd be drawing somethingfar away thinking about a musical arrangement or something."

    At Ridgewood High School, Nelson couldn't get along with another studentnamed Stewart Moore. Moore used to ridicule Nelson for playing music; he thought itwasn't a worthy occupation. Dick Leonard recalled that they even threw a couple ofpunches on one occasion. "One of the things that Nelson would bring up [years later],and he did it more than once, ?God, he's sneering at me for becoming a musician, andwhat did he do later on? He became the head of a playing card company!?"

    Nelson and Donald Quimby, a classmate of his at Ridgewood High and a memberof the high school band in which Nelson played first trombone, got a chance to hearRavel's famous Boléro at a Carnegie Hall concert with Serge Koussevitzky conductingthe Boston Symphony Orchestra. Nelson said, "I've never forgotten it. It's almost as ifthe orchestra leaped from the stage and smacked you in the face.... The only thingwrong with the ?Boléro? was that it was overplayed. [Even so] it's the most absolutelytantalizing slow addition of instruments to this long, long crescendo, which is really themessage of the ?Boléro.? ...'"

    Quimby also recalled attending a performance of the Brahms Second Symphonywith Nelson and two other schoolmates at Newark's Mosque Theater. On a third occasion,they attended a performance of one of the three segments of Wagner's Ring cycle atthe Metropolitan Opera in New York. Nelson realized that listening to classical musicon records and on the radio was simply not the same as witnessing live performances ofsuch important works. These performances made an indelible impression on him.

    By his teenage years, Nelson had grown to almost his full height. He was six foottwo and slim, with dark, curly hair he combed straight back; all of this gave him animposing and handsome presence. He was a good student with a reported IQ of 138,but due to his family's financial situation, there was never any thought of his attendingcollege when he graduated from high school in June 1939.

    He was dead set on becoming a professional musician. In those years, most youngmusicians joined dance bands rather than going to college to pursue their careers. AsNelson recalled, "I wanted to be a jazz trombone player, but I didn't have the coordination.I only had the ideas."

    In 1938, his last year in high school, Nelson persuaded his parents to allow him tomove to Rumson, then a small village on the North Jersey shore of the ShrewsburyRiver, but today a prosperous small town that is home to many Wall Street executives.The Riddle family had previously rented rooms there during the summer.

    The purpose of his yearlong stay in Rumson was to allow Nelson to work withvarious "kid bands" composed of fellow high school students. These bands had plentyof opportunities to play for dances throughout the area, thus allowing Nelson to expandhis experience as a working musician and also enabling him to help out his familyfinancially. Albertine rented rooms for herself and her son in a tiny old house that hadgas but no electricity in neighboring Fair Haven. Nelson, Sr., came down from his studioin Ridgewood on weekends.

    Nelson wanted Dick Leonard to come down and spend the summer of 1938 withhim. He had plans for the two of them to build a sailboat together?pursuing histhoughts of becoming a marine architect?but Leonard had no interest in boats. Withhis new friend from Rumson, Sven Rolfsen, Nelson wound up building a fourteen-footsailboat that could cut through the ice for use in the winter. He often went kayakingduring the summer.

    Bob Runyon recalled that one afternoon, when he and Nelson were sailing inNelson's boat on the Shrewsbury, they were caught in the wake of a speeding motorboat,which threatened to engulf them. In an attempt to alleviate their panic, Nelsonasked his cousin, "What are the important bands up in North Jersey?"

    It was during that summer that trumpeter Charlie Briggs, who led a quintet at aroadhouse called the Log Cabin in neighboring Highlands, met the fledgling trombonist.Briggs's band was called the Briggadiers. "We had only ten tunes that we could play.They were stock arrangements," he recalled.

    "I still remember it as though it happened yesterday. One day there was a knock onthe door. Whoever it was kept knocking. It was an incessant knock. I stopped the band,and said, ?Okay, fellas, take a couple of minutes, and I'll answer the door....? Thisyoung man with a trombone in his hand comes in. I shook his hand, and he says, ?Myname is Nelson Riddle, and I want to play in your band.? That's exactly how it happened.I said, ?Well, we don't need anybody now, and I don't think we've got any secondtrombone parts.? And so he walked in the house, and he said, ?Well, I'll transposeone of the sax parts.? I said, ?That can't be done.? He said, ?Well, let's give it a chance.? Isaid, ?Okay, but we've got to get on with the rehearsal....?

    "On that particular day we were playing ?September in the Rain.? [The arranger]Bill Finegan had put this together, little parts of it, and Nelson said ?Can I take it?? Isaid, ?Go ahead. Let's try it with the band,? fairly certain that we were not going to doanything."

    The "September in the Rain" chart had originally been written by Finegan forGlenn Miller, who was then struggling with his first band and soon would be openingat the Paradise Restaurant in New York. Briggs said to Finegan, "How did you thinkof something so beautiful?" The accomplished arranger replied, "Well, it was raining. Istayed up 'til four o'clock in the morning. I cranked out most of it that night."

    Just before the band started playing Finegan's arrangement, Charlie Briggs introducedNelson by saying, "Nelson would like to play some trombone for us.""Everybody was kind of frown-faced," Briggs recalled, "'cause in those days four buckswas what they paid a man in the band and, for high school kids, that was big dollars,and they didn't want to have to share it."

    Discussing when the Briggadiers tried out the chart with the transposed part writtenby their new second trombonist, Charlie Briggs recalled, "I don't know to this daywhat he really transposed or played, but we went from a 60-percent band to a 100-percentband with just his insertion into the brass section. I think Nelson came in as a fairlyfundamentally trained young trombone player because to do something like that indicatedhe knew more than a lot of guys did. We knew we sounded better so we wantedto take him into the band. After that Nelson started writing some things.

    "We didn't have enough money. Everybody pitched in and said, ?Look, we'll takehalf a buck off every one of us.? Nelson's first gig with the Briggadiers was at theGarfield Grant Hotel in Long Branch. Then we got to playing more local dance datesand proms."

    As a result of the Briggadiers' sudden gain in popularity, more money was available,and Charlie was soon able to pay Nelson his four bucks.

Continues...

Excerpted from September in the Rainby Peter J. Levinson Copyright © 2005 by Peter J. Levinson. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1589791630
• ISBN 13: 9781589791633
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320