Music: The 'Sweet to Swing' Story of Dick Oliver & His Orchestra

In eighth grade and high school in North Newark, NJ, my best friend was Richard Crawford Oliver. Music brought Dick and me and many others together in the dance bands Dick formed and fronted. We were paid for gigs at USO (World War II military service personnel) and local dances. I started on violin, but at Barringer High School involuntarily switched to double bass.

_____________________________________

A Little-Big Band of the Forties

The 'Sweet to Swing' Story of Dick Oliver & His Orchestra

By Fradley Garner and Donald Robertson

Back in the hi-dee-ho days of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie —we're talking the early 1940s — there was this teenager dance band in the Forest Hill section of Newark that not many heard of then, and fewer remember today.

We remember that band pretty well. We played in the rhythm section. In fact, we were the rhythm section.

"Bill" is what his family and friends called Don Robertson in those days. His uncle thought baby Donald looked like the popular cartoon kid "Mister Bill" and it stuck. He drove the band on his raggle-taggle collection of second-hand drums and cymbals. World War II and Bill's drumming started at about the same time, and at least for civilians, no new drums would be made for the duration. Bill had a shielded "BR" painted on his bass drum (a la his idol Gene Krupa).

Our leader advised Fradley Garner to switch from violin to bass if he wanted to stay in the band and play for a USO dance a week away. So Frad raised huge fingertip blisters at the gig, plucking a borrowed Kay bass without being able to read a note on the chart.

Our best friend, the leader of the band, played piano. His name was Richard Crawford Oliver. The band's name, fittingly, was "Dick Oliver and His Orchestra." Even as a youngster, Dick was thoroughly grounded in music, which formed the basis of his too-brief professional career. We decorated sea-blue cardboard folding music stands with "DO" and a music lyre cut out of paper and pasted them respectively at the top and bottom corners.

Dick's father, Paul Oliver, was director of music for Newark Public Schools. In his youth Mr. Oliver had played saxophone professionally in a Vincent Lopez orchestra and was most supportive of our efforts. We benefitted from the lagniappe of Mr. Oliver's position: free music arrangements. Bands like ours were a popular entertainment medium back then, and music publishers mass-produced "stock arrangements" of popular songs for sale alongside the sheet music in music stores. We got to know arrangers Jack Mason, Van Alexander and Jimmy Mundy, who churned them out in the publishers' arrangement factories.

Bill, Frad and Dick met in eighth grade, at North Newark's Ridge Street School. We and our tenor saxophonist, Bill Smith, of 501 Highland Avenue, went to Barringer High School. There we played under music teacher Bill Weiss in the string orchestra and marching band, Bill Robertson on snare drum, Frad beating time on the big bass drum, Smitty on sax or clarinet, and Dick on flute or piccolo. Dick also played piano in the school dance band, the Blue Jackets, joined by Bill Smith in his senior year. While most of us had some formal training on our instruments, the grand total of Bill Robertson's basic drum instruction — the rudiments, rolls, flams, paradiddles, ratamacues, etc. — came from a kid a year older, Harold Rosenbloom, using the concrete steps of the old high school's annex building as a practice pad.

Our little orchestra never had more than 10 players — usually three saxes, two or three brass and three rhythm — and part of Dick's genius was in tailoring the stock arrangements to our more limited instrumentation. We usually rehearsed on Saturday afternoons in the Oliver basement at 567 Ridge Street, or occasionally at someone else's house, although gas rationing put a crimp on Bill's drum schlepping. He remembers that rehearsals were suspended during football season.

Personnel Changes

Over the years, the band went through several personnel changes. A precursor group from eighth grade at Ridge Street School had two violins, with Lois Kristeller, a neighborhood lass, playing one

of them and Frad the other. Another local young lady, Mary Ranger, played trumpet. Mary was the daughter of Richard H. Ranger, a Newark electronics designer who, in 1924, invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today's fax machines. Capt. Ranger was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997. Our tenor man, Bill Smith, dated Mary and remembers her as "cheerful and warm. I still have a soft spot in my heart for her."

Dick finally settled on Bill Robertson, Smitty and Frad, plus saxophonists Geofge Monda and Lou Rossi, trumpeter Larry Tain (pronounced Tah-EEN), and one other brass player. All sooner or later went to Barringer High. Larry was the youngest, and still in Elliot Street School. But what a trumpeter he was! His father, who taught him well, played the trumpet professionally and led one of Newark's first and finest Latin bands.

Oh yes, and we had a "chick singer." Marjorie Wyre, a lovely brunette student at Barringer, was also Dick's girlfriend. ("The leader's got a girlfriend who's a singer," as the gag goes.) Actually, Margie did have real vocal talent — she sang in the 1943 All State Chorus — and was an asset to the band. (Don't read anything crude in that.) Watching her eye our 16-year-old leader while crooning "You Made Me Love You" wiped all doubts from our minds.

The wartime '40s pop tunes were made for dancing cheek-to-cheek. Our book included "My Ideal," "Be Careful, It's My Heart," "My Devotion," and other sweet dance tunes, and Latin numbers like "Besame Mucho" and "Speak Low." For the jitterbugs, we featured a stock chart of Count Basie's "920 Special" and Glenn Miller's "String of Pearls." Our limited instrument lineup ruled out "In The Mood," for which some of us sidemen were grateful.

None of us today remember how we landed our gigs. Could the fine hand of Mr. Oliver have been operating on our behalf? Most were dances at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, now The Newark Christian Fellowship building, and downtown Newark at USO (United Service Organization) Sunday afternoon dances for servicemen at the YMCA on Halsey Street. There were also wedding receptions in Newark's First Ward. That largely Italian neighborhood was sadly sacrificed during Newark's postwar "urban renewal" and construction of Interstate 280.

Later in the orchestra's evolution came a memor-able gig at the Stage Door Canteen, in an industrial building basement on Washington Street. Top big bands of the day played the "Canteen" circuit in seven big cities. Would you believe that at the spacious Newark room, in 1943, the Dick Oliver Orchestra was the warm-up band for Harry James and His Orchestra? That's right.

Miss La Joy's Dancing Class

Frad recalls at least one dance at Prospect Hill Country Day School where he and Dick, both in tuxedos, had also attended Miss La Joy's ballroom dancing class. There we learned the foxtrot and "conversation step," rhumba and tango. The school occupied the old Clark estate on Treadwell Street, today serving as The North Ward Center for day care.

The First Ward wedding gigs introduced our WASP sidemen to southern Italian cuisine, although the deep-dish pizza never satisfied our Italian-American band mates. ("Not as good as my grandmother's!" they bellyached.) One afternoon, instead of sprinkling the customary powdered resin on the dance floor, somebody spread soap powder. (Maybe the spreader really believed the slogan "Duz does everything"?) This worked fine for a tune or two. But soon the dancers' shoes had granulated the soap into a fine powder that permeated the atmosphere, stinging everyone's eyes and causing coughing fits. The room had to be evacuated and aired out. By then, particles had settled on the buffet table. Don't ask how Grandma's pizza compared that afternoon!

How much did we earn on jobs? Again, memories are blurred. Bill Smith recalls, "It was small. I played for the fun of it — and to be with you guys. Weren't the USO gigs freebies?" Drummer Bill remembers $5, which would amount to over $50 in 2013 dollars. His memory may be playing paradiddles. Whatever, our drummer reports that his take eventually paid for every piece of his drum kit, from bass drum to cowbell. Tolerant as they were, his parents were not happy about his instrument choice after a year of failed piano lessons. Even today, when packing up the drums after a gig, he can hear his mother's voice: "You're going to be sorry you quit your piano lessons!" To which he could only whisper, "Yes, Mother."

Bill Smith played second tenor, "not lead, which only required that I be able to read music quickly (which I could), stay with the beat and stay in tune. I was at Barringer, in the band and orchestra, 1942 to 1945, where I met all you real musicians. In 1941, my freshman year, I was at Webster Street School, the Barringer 'annex,' due to overfull conditions at Barringer. No memory of you all there." Frad was there at the same time. So was Carmen Cicero, who played "Flight of the Bumblebee" on clarinet at assembly, and grew up to lead his own bands and paint professionally. Carmen's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and 25 other museums.

Smitty continued in an email, "So it was Bill Weiss's music program that got us together, as well as walking to Barringer via Highland Avenue and picking up Frad a few blocks away (and maybe swinging over to Parker Street to pick Bill up). I don't remember Dick ever joining us in the walk — don't know how he got to school. And I sort of wondered why Dick asked me to join his band, since I never was a serious musician. Maybe because he needed a tenor sax and clarinet player, and all the good sax players had altos. I sold both instruments to a music store in 1948, for peanuts. Didn't use them any more and wanted cash."

The band's connection with Mr. Oliver took on added dimension when the Griffith Piano Company in Newark presented a 1942 concert series at the Mosque Theatre (now Symphony Hall), on lower Broad Street, and needed ushers, for which they came to him, and he to us. The job was easy: wear a tuxedo, guide the people to the right seats and stay through intermission. Except when the matinee idol Nelson Eddy was featured. Then it was "Katie, bar the door!" as mobs of middle-aged women stormed the stage at the finale, and we were ordered to hold them off with locked arms.

Frank Dailey's Terrace Room

The Mosque held an "Open Sesame" for us: the Terrace Room, a downstairs space which Frank Dailey leased to present bands, after his nationally famous Meadowbrook ballroom, on Pompton Turnpike, Cedar Grove, was shuttered due to gasoline rationing. Early on, one of us discovered a backstage ramp at stage left that led down to an anteroom abutting the Terrace Room bandstand. So instead of leaving after inter mission, you can imagine where we headed. We took that route and sneaked in to catch the name bands close-up. Thanks to our tuxedos, the club staff didn't bother us.

Saturday matinees often found the bands rehearsing under the keen surveillance of the upstairs theater-ushering novices. One unforgettable July evening in 1943, we stumbled on Harry James and his sidemen playing a card game. We knew from the tabloids that he was flying to California in a few days to marry Betty Grable. How cool was that? The James band had been booked for a month at the Terrace Room. Dare we speculate that Harry's sudden departure to Hollywood to marry the screen queen might not have been in the plans? At any rate, the James band got a two-week holiday. They were replaced by Stan Kenton and His Orchestra, of Los Angeles, on their second trip east.

Another day the year before, Frad remembers watching an Army bugler instructing Harry James in bugle calls — very likely for his role in the Hollywood movie musical, Private Buckaroo. Harry played himself in the Edward F. Cline film also starring The Andrews Sisters. The film tells the story of Army recruits in basic training, with the sisters attending USO dances.

Our own band's life ended in mid-1944. The senior class prom was held at the Terrace Room. Most of us (not Smitty and Frad) graduated from Barringer High and entered military service. Dick was first to go, joining the Navy that fall. He was assigned as (what else?) a musician. In Norman, Oklahoma he played piano in a band led by ex-Glenn Miller tenor star and vocalist Tex Beneke. Later, he graduated from Montclair State College and took a master's degree in music education at Columbia University.

Dick was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study composition with the eminent Prof. Nadia Boulanger at the Fontainebleau School of Music, outside Paris. Mme. Boulanger also taught Aaron Copeland and the jazz trumpeter and composer, Quincy Jones. Another young American there, Laura King, was studying classical piano. Dick met Laura, they fell in love and were married the following summer.

Our best friend went far, and not just in music. Richard C. Oliver's classical compositions were published in the United States and Europe. He was tendered a Medal of the Soviet Union for his contribution to music and education. His "Psalms of David" is in the choral archives of the Haifa Museum in Israel, and is performed today. Dick was music director at the Robert E. Bell School in Chappaqua, New York, and a varsity tennis coach. The school named him Tennis Coach of the Year 1982.

Long life, sorry to say, was not in Dick's genes. Both his parents had died before they reached 50. Dick died at 55, on July 4, 1982. He left his wife, Laura, their daughter, Page, and son Ford, and a sister, Janet Oliver. We tried without success to contact several members of the family.

Don Robertson (we very old pals and two nephews still call him Bill) enlisted in the Navy in July 1945. The war ended suddenly while he was in boot camp, catching the Armed Services by surprise. Reservists like him spent a year replacing longer-serving sailors, who had earned their discharge.

His "Bill" nickname was a casualty of military service. Seems the Navy brass didn't take kindly to "My name is Donald, but everybody calls me Bill" at roll calls. Not here they don't, sailor.

A civilian again, Don graduated from Newark College of Engineering, now the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in 1950. The next year he took an M.S. degree in fluid dynamics at Stevens Institute of Technology. Curriculum rigors and a demanding 32-year career at ExxonMobil forced him to put down his drumsticks.

Nearly 30 years crept by before he picked them up again. That was in 1972, when he became a charter member of the New Jersey Jazz Society.

Don met Chuck Slate, a drummer and leader of his own Traditional Jazz Band and the catalyst in forming the NJJS. Chuck encouraged him, even letting him sit in with his band. Don served on the board for 18 years, two of them as president. He edited the society's monthly journal, Jersey Jazz, for nine years.

On assignment to cover big-name drummer Sonny Igoe's 70th birthday in 1993, our drummer decided to get some formal instruction from the Master. Every Tuesday afternoon for the next five years found him in Sonny's Emerson studio, getting his stuff together. Sonny's instruction, basically taking the student apart and putting him back together again, was largely responsible for the now 86-year-old Don's ongoing presence behind the drums in The Centennial Jazz Band, and before that in The Buffalo Rhythm Kings, and Reeds, Rhythm & All that Brass big band.

Back at Barringer High

After spending at least two summers retaking failed courses, Fradley finally got his diploma from Barringer High in January 1945. So did Bill Smith. Frad was drafted into the Army that April, and after Infantry basic training in Macon, Georgia, was sent to Korea. This was before the Korean War.

The day he crawled down the Marine Flasher's rope net in full field pack and lined up ashore in Fusan (Pusan), a sergeant asked if there were any typists among the arrivals. Frad raised his hand. Facing a classification officer, he had the chutzpah to say, "I can type, but I'm really a musician." And found himself playing bass, first in the 24th Corps Army Band, with sidemen from several famous big bands back home. Soon traded for a clarinetist, he was assigned to the 27th Special Service Co., outside Seoul. He toured Korea (one nation then), filling out skeleton pit bands for visiting USO shows from Hollywood.

At St. Lawrence University, Frad organized a 17-piece dance band featuring Stan Kenton arrangements. He took a master's in cultural anthropology at Colgate University, where he published a one-issue inter collegiate journal, Musart. In 1960, he left an executive PR post at Pfizer in New York to become a freelance journalist, translator and narrator north of Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied classical double bass for 25 years with the Norwegian-American bassist, Tina Austad, and

played in several top amateur symphony orchestras. He also was violinist and bassist in the first John Tchicai Trio, a short-lived free jazz unit led by the world famous reeds player on bamboo flute. Frad turned 87 this June.

William Austin Smith spent May 1945 to October 1947 as an "engineering cadet" in the Merchant Marine. He sailed the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific. Bill graduated from Stevens Institute in 1951. Commissioned, he served in the Navy during and after the Korean War, from 1953 through 1954. After several engineering jobs, he switched to academia, becoming an instructor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, while studying for his doctorate.

Bill moved to the University of South Florida, where he was a professor and chairman of the mechanical engineering department. All told, he says, "I really got more good engineering experience from my service duties than from the colleges I attended — plus a lot of salty 'sea stories' to keep my future students from falling asleep." The 86-year-old retiree now makes his home in Lutz, Florida. "My heart is still with the big bands," he confesses. "If I have any favorites they're Glenn Miller,

Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey, who played the music that pulled so many of us onto the dance floor with those lovely girls we went with."

On a visit to attend his brother Charlie's funeral in 2004, Bill Smith drove by the"new" Barringer building at 90 Parker Street. The stately old building overlooking Branch Brook Park had been replaced in 1964. "The new one looked like a reform school with high fencing around it and barbed wire on the top. I didn't try to go in," says Bill.

 Larry Train was younger than the rest of us. By the time he was draft bait, Uncle Sam had a war for him in Korea. Larry enlisted in the Army Air Force and became a charter member of The Airmen of Note, the band formed in 1950 that succeeded Glenn Miller's Army Air Force band. Sammy Nestico, who later became a famous arranger for Count Basie and other big bands, was in that band.

Besides their Air Force duties, the Airmen of Note were conscripted to portray the Glenn Miller civilian and military bands in the 1954 movie, The Glenn Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart as Miller. There's a scene where the USAF band is playing "In the Mood" outdoors in London when a buzz bomb strikes. The trumpeter then soloing behind Stewart is our Larry TaM.

A civilian again, Larry became a much in-demand trumpeter, first on Broadway and then in Southern California. But the winds of career change were blowing anew. Larry enrolled in chiropractic college. Today, Dr. Lawrence TaM is a thriving chiropractor in La Jolla, California, his trumpet a distant echo.

More than 70 years now separate us from our teenage "orchestra daze." Alto saxophonist George Monda died at 78 in 2007, after a career with the postal service. We have lost all contact with Lou Rossi, our other alto player. If you are out there, Lou, give us a holler. Do you remember the name of the other trumpeter in the band picture?

Lou Rossi did give us a holler: 

He graduated from Barringer in 1945 and spent two years in the Army, playing in the band at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  After discharge, Lou attended the Sherwood School of Music in Chicago. Back in Newark in 1949, he opted for more steady employment, with music as a hobby. He took a job with Public Service Electric & Gas in 1949 and attended Rutgers evenings, earning an accounting degree in 1958.

Lou was made manager of the PSEG’s engineering testing laboratory in Maplewood. He married his Barringer classmate, Jean Vinciguerra, in 1955, a union that ended with Jean’s passing in 2008. Retired from PSEG in 1990, he lives in Belleville. He joined several community bands, including “Swing Town” in Maplewood. Rheumatoid arthritis stiffened his fingers, and by 2005 forced him to stop playing. But Lou still listens to the music we love.