FEATURED JOBS
Weird how life works. A few months ago, the Baltimore-born harmonica virtuoso Jerry Adler crossed my mind, so I emailed him, saying I hoped he was doing well. Don’t ask me why I happened to think of him. But I never heard back.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Adler, via telephone, nearly four years ago, on the occasion of the publication of his memoirs, “Living From Hand To Mouth.”
He was an absolutely delightful interview—lively, funny, classy, highly quotable and warm. He was impressed that I had interviewed his more famous brother, Larry, in the late ‘90s, and we schmoozed for a while about the virtues of the harmonica (aka, the Mississippi Sax, tin sandwich, gob iron, etc.).
Recently, I heard (belatedly) that Mr. Adler passed away in March of prostate cancer, at age 91, in Sarasota, Fla. Of course, I was saddened to hear this news, but I had to check my email trash to see when I wrote him out of the blue. Turns out it was only a couple of days before his death. I guess sometimes people have a connection that they just can’t explain.
In honor of Mr. Adler, I’m going to reprint here my article, titled “Heavy Breather,” from July 28, 2006. May his memory always be a blessing.
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Jerry Adler likes to tell a story about his close encounter with Mao.
Yes, that Mao, he of gray flannel jacket, stern visage and “Little Red Book” infamy.
Mr. Adler, an acclaimed harmonica virtuoso, was a member of an entertainment troupe in the 1970s that performed on the first Western cruise-liner to sail into Shanghai’s port. Among those who boarded the ship for a ceremonial banquet and performance were Chinese Premier Mao Tse-tung and his sycophantic, inebriated entourage.
“I did my numbers, and afterward they told me Mao wanted my harmonica,” recalled Mr. Adler, still fuming at the Chairman and Great Leader. “I said, ‘No, this is my instrument!’ But they started begging me, and then I realized that in my cabin I had another harmonica that needed to be repaired. So I went and got it and gave it to him onstage.
“Well, Mao, who was quite drunk, gave me a big grin and proceeded to play ‘You Are My Sunshine’ on it, “he said.” I was furious! He got much more applause than I did!”
Getting upstaged by Mao. Jerry Adler has a million of ‘em.
Despite his lifelong vocation, the Baltimore-born Mr. Adler is no blowhard. Now 87 and living in a suburban Milwaukee retirement community with his second wife, Jean, he might be employing a great deal of understatement when he says, “I’ve had a fascinating life.”
After all, Mr. Adler has performed for royalty and political heads of state, dazzled audiences around the world with his technique and musical wizardry, recorded and played with music industry legends, befriended and tangled with Hollywood icons, contributed to myriad movie scores and soundtracks, and even enjoyed dalliances with famous and stunning starlets.
“I’ve always had a lot of chutzpah, and I’ve always been a cocky guy, “said Mr. Adler, chuckling,” and sometimes I’ve really gotten my foot in it.”
Now, those experiences are chronicled in Mr. Adler’s amusing and poignant new book, “Living From Hand To Mouth: My Memoir” (Authorhouse).In a phone interview last week with the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, Mr. Adler said his first wife, Sylvia, who died in 1990, originally suggested that he write an autobiography. The second Mrs. Adler also encouraged her husband, an admitted procrastinator who has suffered from health ailments in recent years, to complete the project.
“The consensus is that it’s an ‘easy-read’ book, “Mr. Adler said.“People are fascinated with the contents, so I’ve been grateful for how it’s been received. I get e-mails from all over the world praising the book—Saipan, Indonesia, Tokyo, Germany, everywhere.”
In the book, Mr. Adler writes of growing up in West Baltimore, at 2210 Bryant Ave., the son of a Russian-born Jewish plumber and his Baltimore native wife.
As a child, Mr. Adler was sickly and passed the time by playing the harmonica, much like his older brother, Larry, who became arguably the best-known and most accomplished harmonica player of all time. The elder Mr. Adler, who died in 2001, convinced his 13-year-old brother to enter a Baltimore Sun-sponsored harmonica contest.
Jerry Adler won first prize in the contest, which afforded him the opportunity to perform at the Hippodrome Theatre with comedian Red Skelton. Skelton was a major influence on the budding entertainer.
“He was my mentor for a long time, a very generous man,” said Mr. Adler. “He taught me body movements on stage and how to `learn’ an audience and address them. He told me, ‘Never talk over applause.’”
Another major influence, of course, was Mr. Adler’s big brother. Although siblings in the same field and playing the same instrument, the Adler boys never felt a sense of competition, according to Jerry Adler. He said he never felt overshadowed by his better-known brother.
“Larry and I, for the most part, always lived on opposite ends of the world, so there was no conflict or competition between us,” he said. “I was immensely encouraged by him. He was a genius at classical music, while my forte is pops with some classical. Larry was a giant in the field. The harmonica was considered a toy before Larry Adler. He made it legitimate.”
After a British talent agent caught his act, Mr. Adler relocated to England at age 15 to perform at the London Palladium for $500 a week–big bucks during the Depression. “I was booked for two weeks and wound up staying in Britain for more than four years,” he said.
At 17, he played his first British Royal Command Performance, before King George V and Queen Mary in 1935. “When we went to the Royal Box, I shook hands with the king, which you weren’t supposed to do in those days,” Mr. Adler said. “So the photo of me shaking the king’s hand appeared in newspapers all over Europe. But I was just a kid, I didn’t know any better.”
Along the way, Mr. Adler played the great houses of Vaudeville, rubbing elbows with such show biz greats as Jimmy Durante, W.C. Fields, Milton Berle and Benny Goodman.
He also became the primary harmonica player in Hollywood, featured in motion pictures for two decades, with such credits as “Shane,” “The Alamo” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the latter of which he played the solo on the Henry Mancini classic “Moon River.”
“I just played what they told me to play,” Mr. Adler said of the movie industry. “There was a call for the harmonica to be dubbed in a scene, and the music department came to me. I did mostly westerns, but other films as well. They wanted mood music, and the harmonica lends a lonesome, quiet feeling to a score.”
In particular, he is credited for playing harmonica in the 1941 film “Pot O’Gold” and teaching its star, James Stewart, how to play the instrument.
“It’s undoubtedly the worst film ever made, but all of the harmonica playing is me, “Mr. Adler said.” [Stewart] played pretty well, but not professionally. He used to watch me like a hawk, and he looked like me when he played. He was a marvelous man. We stayed friends for many years.”
Another movie icon with whom Mr. Adler became well-acquainted was Vivien Leigh, while working on the set of the 1938 film “Sidewalks of London.” He said he and the future Scarlett O’Hara shared an amorous encounter one day during a limousine ride back from the set.
“She was unbelievably beautiful, and I was madly in love with her,” he said. “It was just one time, which was quite enough. But the first thing that went through my head was,‘If only the guys in Baltimore could see me now!’”
After years in the film industry and Vaudeville, Mr. Adler began a lucrative career playing on cruise ships. “I had a family to support, so I started performing for the cruise business and found a very enthusiastic response,” he said. “I did that for 24 years and sailed the world five times over. It was an exciting life.”
While the harmonica is largely associated with such musical genres as country-and-western and the blues, Mr. Adler has mainly performed the pop standards of George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter.
“It leaves me cold,” he said of today’s music, adding about blues harmonica players, “I wish I could do what they do, but I can’t. I tried, but I’m awful at it. I don’t have the feeling for it. It’s out of my era.”
Now retired, Mr. Adler said he performs occasionally, usually at book signings, for short periods of time.
“I just don’t have the breath for it anymore,” he said. “I still enjoy playing but it’s frustrating because there are things I can’t play anymore, like ‘Rhapsody In Blue.’”
So for the most part, Mr. Adler is left with his grand memories of more than 65 years of performing in top-flight concert halls and nightclub stages around the world. The stories in the book–which at times might sound apocryphal to the skeptical and cynically inclined–never fail to delight and amuse.
Like the time Mr. Adler had a fistfight with Al Jolson backstage at New York’s Capitol Theatre. “He asked the Nicholas Brothers to give him a shoeshine, and I said,‘These people aren’t shoeshine people, they’re artists,’ and we started slugging each other and fell into an alley,” he said.
Or the time in the early ‘50s he performed “The Missouri Waltz” with President Truman, a fairly decent piano player, at a White House performance: “He said, ‘Young man, I only play the black keys,’ and I said, ‘It’s OK, sir, I’m not prejudiced.’ People howled, and Truman almost fell off the piano chair.”
All in all, Mr. Adler said, it’s been a good life and a good career, and that’s what he hopes to get across in his book. “I certainly appreciate the joy I apparently have given people,” he said. “Show business has been good to me.”
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