My Biz

I don't have the unadulterated chutzpah to officially title this my first autobiographical entry because that would seem extraordinarily egocentric. But though I am certainly neither famous enough nor important enough nor -- perhaps -- even interesting enough to write my autobiography, I've wanted to do it for a long time. So screw the insecurities and modesty. Here goes.

I actually made a start at attempting this years ago, but I hated what I wrote, so I threw it out. I won't do that this time. Even if I hate it, I'll publish it anyway. Someone out there may find some part of it entertaining or amusing or maybe occasionally profound or thoughtful. I had a title for that false start. It was MEMOIRS OF A BAR MITZVAH BANDLEADER. No kidding. In one sense, that was a fitting title. I often wonder whether I would qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records international championship for "most Bar Mitzvahs performed at" if such a category existed. How could anyone have done more? I played my first one in 1955, when "Rock Around the Clock" was a hit for the first time. I'm playing my next one in a month. That's fifty-five years and counting, although I may not be counting many more given the simultaneous ubiquity of DJs and paucity of gigs in our business right now. In these conditions, as Dick Judson once said, there are pretty much two kinds of bandleaders -- the ones who are hurting and the ones who are liars. Anyway, I figure those numbers add up, conservatively, to somewhere over two thousand Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Who else would even WANT that record? Or ADMIT to it, as a matter of fact? And incidentally, who the hell would be snatching MEMOIRS OF A BAR MITZVAH BANDLEADER off the Borders bookshelves? Me, I guess. And my mother. And my wife. Maybe. Doesn't matter. Now I've started, and don't try to stop me.