Allegro
Requiem
Volume CII, No. 9September, 2002
Sandra Appleman – Cello
William H. Bodkin – Piano
Richard J. Brady – Trombone
Alfred C. Cobbs – Trombone/Arranger
Tony Corsello – Bass
Matt Dennis – Piano/Vocalist/Composer
Cal Gilford – Violin
Harold Goldberg – Drums
Norman Greenberg – Conductor/Arranger
Richard S. Greenwald – Drums
Janet Lyman Hill – Viola
Henry Katz – Violin
Fred E. Klein – French Horn
Stanley Krell – Drums
Marvin W. Lewis – Bass
John (Jack) Lopez – Guitar
Nicholas J. Martone – Violin
Mack Mason – Trumpet
Jimmy Maxwell – Trumpet
Melvin Moore – Drums
Jack L. Myers – Piano
Charles L. Paashaus – Clarinet
Marvin E. Paymer – Piano
Harold (Hal) Polakoff – Trumpet
Joseph Sellitti – Violin
Alan Shulman – Cello/Composer/Arranger
Leonard B. Smith – Trumpet/Bandleader
Vernon L. Smith – Trumpet
Carolyn M. Snell – Vocalist
David Stuart – Drums
Idrees Sulieman – Trumpet/Alto Saxophone
Miran Viher – Violin
Sandra Appleman
Sandra Appleman, 65, a cellist and an 802 member since 1967, died on July 20 at her home in Teaneck, N.J.
Born in Paterson, N.J., she attended the Eastman School of Music where she studied with George Miquelle and Ronald Leonard and obtained a Bachelor of Music degree in 1959. Other teachers included David Soyer and Gabor Rejto.
Ms. Appleman’s professional career spanned four decades, beginning with the Halifax Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Akron Symphony and, in later years, as a core member of Musica Sacra and the New York Symphonic Ensemble, with whom she extensively toured Japan and Southeast Asia. She felt particularly privileged to have subbed with the New York Philharmonic, taking part in the concert Leonard Bernstein conducted at the Berlin Wall in 1989. Her husband Gerald, also an 802 member, served as assistant principal cellist of the Philharmonic for over 30 years. She was also engaged in chamber music and teaching.
Ms. Appleman was actively involved in the national cancer support group SHARE. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, which was followed by a long remission, she courageously fought an advanced recurrence of the disease in the last two years of her life.
She is survived by her husband, daughter Jessica, son and daughter-in-law Leonard and Jodi, father Mark, and grandson Mark.
Richard J. Brady
Dick Brady, 71, a trombone player and an 802 member since 1955, died of renal cancer on June 29.
Born in Pittston, Pa., Mr. Brady was a 1954 graduate of Penn State University. He began his professional career at age 14 with the Lee Vincent Orchestra, and got his first job in New York at the age of 17 with Phil Napoleon. Over the years he played and recorded with a wide variety of bands, including Ralph Marterie, Les Elgart, George Shearing, Benny Goodman, the Village Stompers, Jimmy McPartland, Wild Bill Davison and Sam Ulano. He had retired from the Lester Lanin Orchestra last year.
Mr. Brady is survived by his sister Elizabeth, brothers Donald and Thomas, nieces and nephews, and by his former wife, Mary Lou Brady Cary.
Matt Dennis
Matt Dennis, 89, a singer, pianist and composer and a 60-year member of Local 802, died on June 2 in Riverside, Calif., where he resided.
Born in Seattle, Mr. Dennis joined the Horace Heidt Orchestra in San Francisco in 1933 and sang with singer Alice King. Later he formed his own band with Dick Haymes as vocalist, and was an arranger and accompanist for Martha Tilton, Margaret Whiting and the Stafford Sisters.
He scored some of his biggest hits as a songwriter in the early 1940s, while he was a staff arranger and composer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. In collaboration with lyricist Tom Adair, he wrote “Everything Happens to Me,” “Violets For Your Furs” and “Free For All,” all of which were recorded by Frank Sinatra, then a vocalist for Dorsey. The two also wrote “Will You Be Mine?” sung by Connie Haines, and “Let’s Get Away From It All.” Stafford and the Dorsey band also performed his “Little Man with a Candy Cigar” (with lyrics by Frank Kilduff). In the late 1940s, Mr. Dennis was signed by Capitol Records to record several singles backed by the Paul Weston Orchestra.
During World War II he was a singer-vocalist and arranger for the U.S. Army Air Forces’ Radio Production Unit and played with the Glenn Miller Air Force Band after it returned from Europe.
A popular singer and jazz pianist in Los Angeles area clubs and restaurants in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, he had his own local TV shows in the early 1950s and in the summer of 1955 replaced Eddie Fisher on NBC-TV with The Matt Dennis Show.
He is survived by his wife, vocalist Ginny Maxey, children David, Julie and Matthew, and four grandchildren.
John (Jack) Lopez
John (Jack) Lopez, 91, a guitarist and an 802 member since 1938, died on Feb. 10 in Jacksonville, Fla.
Mr. Lopez began his performing career as a 10-year-old, singing in the streets. Later, he formed the ABC Trio, played at Radio City Music Hall, and also performed with Red Nichols’ 5 Pennies. During the late 1940s and early ’50s, he formed a big band which performed Latin music. They performed at the Palladium Ballroom, on Broadway and at many New York night spots. Mr. Lopez then moved to Miami Beach, where he played most of the hotels for 15 years. He moved back to Sunnyside, Queens, in 1965, and played in local clubs before retiring and moving to Jacksonville, where he continued to give music lessons.
He is survived by his wife Lisa, son Richard, sister Virginia, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Jimmy Maxwell
Jimmy Maxwell, 85, who played lead trumpet in the bands of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Woody Herman and others and was also a mainstay of the radio and television studios, died on July 20. He had been an 802 member for almost 60 years.
Born in Stockton, Calif., he began teaching himself music when he was four and joined a local band led by the pianist and arranger Gil Evans while still in high school. He later worked with Jimmy Dorsey, Maxine Sullivan and, from 1939 to 1943, with Benny Goodman. In 1962 he took part in the Goodman band’s six-week tour of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Maxwell joined the CBS staff orchestra in 1943 and stayed there for two years. He moved to The Perry Como Show in 1945 and played in its band for 20 years. He also worked in the NBC Symphony Orchestra and made innumerable recordings. Among the big bands he worked in were those led by Quincy Jones, Gerry Mulligan, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Oliver Nelson.
He subbed for one of Duke Ellington’s trumpeters during the famous 1956 Newport Festival performance and in 1961 replaced Cat Anderson in the Ellington band for three weeks. After Ellington died, Maxwell played regularly in the “ghost” band led by Mercer Ellington. He was also one of the distinguished trumpeters who toured with the New York Jazz Repertory Company and its Louis Armstrong Tribute Band in 1975.
Amid all this he became a mainstay at the NBC studios for 14 years, beginning in 1960. While working at NBC he heard a bagpipe band in Madison Square Garden and was moved to tears. His wife bought him some pipes and he took lessons. He was in each St Patrick’s Day parade for the next six years. Mr. Maxwell began teaching during the late ’70s, lectured on trumpet playing and wrote a trumpet manual. He played solo trumpet on the soundtrack of the 1972 film The Godfather and made many film appearances with the various bands in which he worked.
He stopped performing several years ago because of health problems, but practiced and continued to teach until about a year ago. He is survived by his daughter Anne, son David and four grandsons.
Harold Polakoff
Harold Polakoff, aka Hal Parker, 81, a trumpet player and a lifetime member of Local 802, which he joined in 1940, died on July 15.
Born in New Jersey, he was the son of trumpeter Max Polakoff. He graduated from NYU and during World War II was band leader of the 63rd Army Division, playing USO shows that included such celebrities as Bob Hope and Marlene Dietrich.
After the war ended he became a music teacher at Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, where he conducted the orchestra and marching band until his retirement in 1976. He continued playing club dates and was associated with the Herb Sherry Orchestras, spending many summers in the Catskills as an entertainer, mentor and teacher to many.
Mr. Polakoff is survived by his wife Irene, son Donald, daughter Susan and their families.
Alan Shulman
Alan Shulman, 87, a composer, cellist and arranger, died on July 10. He had been a member of Local 802 for more than 70 years.
Born in Baltimore, Mr. Shulman’s early studies were at the Peabody Conservatory. He received a New York Philharmonic Scholarship in 1929 and studied harmony with Winthrop Sargeant. At Juilliard, he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar and cello with Felix Salmond.
In 1937 Mr. Shulman became a founding member of Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony, and performed with it until 1942, when he joined the United States Maritime Service, which provided training for the merchant marine. He returned to the NBC Symphony in 1948 and performed with it and its successor, the Symphony of the Air, until 1957.
He also performed with several chamber ensembles, including the Stuyvesant String Quartet, which he formed in 1938 with his brother, violinist Sylvan Shulman, who was also an 802 member. The ensemble performed until 1954, and was known for its performances and recordings of contemporary works. The Shulman brothers also founded The New Friends of Rhythm, a swing septet which featured Alan’s arrangements and original compositions on a series of recordings for Victor and International Records.
In the 1940s, Mr. Shulman emerged as a new voice among younger American composers. His Theme and Variations for Viola and Orchestra was premiered in 1941 by Emanuel Vardi with the NBC Symphony. Pastorale and Dance (1944) was premiered over ABC by Sylvan Shulman, and Jascha Heifetz performed (and later recorded) “Cod Liver Ile” from the Suite Based on American Folk Songs. Rendezvous for Clarinet and Strings (1946) was written for Benny Goodman and recorded by Artie Shaw. During the 1940s he arranged for Risë Stevens, Irra Petina, Robert Weede, and Marjorie Lawrence for Columbia Records, and was principal arranger for Wilfred Pelletier’s Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air.
During the 1950s and 1960s Mr. Shulman composed works for radio and television, solo instruments, educational music for piano and cello, and made numerous original works and transcriptions for cello ensemble. He arranged for conductors Skitch Henderson, Raoul Poliakin and Felix Slatkin, and for folksinger-songwriter Cris Williamson. A busy studio player, he toured with Frank Sinatra and played in the NBC television orchestras for Steve Allen, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Nat “King” Cole, Hullabaloo, Kraft Music Hall and Bell Telephone Hour.
He was a founder of the Violoncello Society, and the society’s president from 1967-72. In the 1980s Mr. Shulman returned to writing for orchestra, before illness curtailed his activity in 1987.
He is survived by sons Jay, a cellist, and Marc, a guitarist, both 802 members, and two daughters: Laurie, a musicologist and program annotator for the Dallas Symphony, and Lisa.
Idrees Sulieman
Idrees Sulieman, 79, a trumpet and alto sax player who joined Local 802 in 1944, died in St. Petersburg, Fla., on July 26.
Born in St. Petersburg, he studied at Boston Conservatory and gained early experience playing with the Carolina Cotton Pickers and the wartime Earl Hines Orchestra (1943-1944). Mr. Sulieman was closely associated with Mary Lou Williams for a time; he also worked with Thelonious Monk in 1947, and was the trumpet on Monk’s first recordings as a leader. He had stints with Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. Mr. Sulieman recorded with Coleman Hawkins in 1957 and played with Randy Weston from 1958-1959, in addition to working with many other groups.
In 1961 he went to Europe to tour with Oscar Dennard, and then settled in Stockholm, moving to Copenhagen in 1964. A major soloist with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland big band from the mid-1960s through 1973, Mr. Sulieman frequently worked with radio orchestras. His recordings as a leader have been for Swedish Columbia (1964) and SteepleChase (1976 and 1985). His playing is heard on many recordings, with such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Clifford Brown, Gene Ammons, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Thad Jones, Lester Young, Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Donald Byrd, Max Roach and Eric Dolphy.