Even More About Major Maestro - Major Maestro Music
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I am an organic musician who started playing classical piano when I was seven years old. I was born in 1952 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, went to the Bronx High School of Science and have a degree in piano performance from CCNY. I have performed at many major venues in New York including the Playboy Club, Dangerfield's, The Village Gate, The Vanguard, and Gerde's Folk City. While in New York, I also performed and was a musical director with several off-Broadway productions, cabarets and worked at numerous piano bars. In 1976, I performed excerpts of one production at the White House for the annual Pageant of Peace. I also toured the country and overseas with Grammy award winner Kirby Stone (Bauble, Bangles and Beads) and with other acts.
Since moving to Atlanta in the early 80’s I have entertained with many bands for private parties and corporate events and have been a member of Hotlanta, Tiffany Entertainment, Celebrity Orchestra, Daddy-O-Strut, Peachtree Music Syndicate, Totally Savage, Big Daddy Jr, The Boomers, The Atlanta Machine, Nick and The Healers, The Radio Show and the New York Jazz Cats. I also frequently perform as a solo pianist for private parties and 5-star hotels. In spite of my legitimate training I morph from style to style with ease. My playing is full of passion and the sheer joy of making music. I am the proud owner of a limited edition Steinway Tri-Centennial Grand which resides in our bedroom! My playing is both inventive and inspired and I live to play.
Major Maestro is an all-original funk project that started in 1975 and it was also my nickname. After moving to Atlanta, I embarked on a career in advertising and marketing but continued to be involved with music. I created many hours of original electronic music over a 20-year span and always wanted to remaster the final tracks; this was the one item on my 'bucket-list' and with the help of my friend, Rob Tenney, I finally did it in 2018. I decided to then create this website as a repository of all my musical endeavors.
The Early Years
Although I started on piano at seven, one of my first experiences being on stage was when I played the part of Nanki-Poo, the wandering minstrel, in my sixth grade class performance of The Mikado. Since that exposed me to the guitar, when the Beatles came on the scene and Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers was released, I started to focus on guitar. I never stopped taking piano lessons but preferred to be the guitar player in a band since girls paid more attention to the guitar player! I played guitar in a band in high school called Fiat Lux and we did some gigs at Sweet 16 parties.
During college I was in several bands and I went back to keyboards because I could express myself better. Although I had learned many Hendrix and Clapton riffs (and could play the entire Robby Krieger solo on Light My Fire), there were things inside my head that I could not express on guitar. I was in several bands while in college. One was named Autumn that included other music majors (my bass playing best friend Bobby Garbo) and we mostly did songs by Yes and other progressive rock bands; we later changed our name to Money & Butts (it's a long story). Ernie DeVito and the Classical Pop Rock Conspiracy did all originals and since Ernie knew Bob Dylan, we used to rehearse at his studio in Greenwich Village and I got to play a Hammond B3 organ used by Garth Hudson of The Band; a roadie had to show me how to turn it on! Ernie also knew Richie Havens and we rehearsed at his place as well. We played places like Gerde's Folk City and also did a concert at the bandshell in Central Park before thousands of listeners. I also played in a top 40 band with horns called Iconoclast; we played clubs in the Bronx, Brooklyn and upper Manhattan. While we played songs by Rare Earth, Chicago and the O'Jays, we also played Pink Floyd, ELP, Uriah Heep and Mahavishnu Orchestra!
After college I became more immersed in music than ever before. One band was called Melts In Your Mouth, a horn band with a female lead singer. Another project was called Tiffany in Time, an act that was put together from ads for musicians in the Village Voice; these same musicians were the core of the Major Maestro funk band! I did a lot of cabaret work (Mingle Mangle at Upstairs at the Downstairs), backed singers at piano bars and also go involved with off-Broadway productions. In 1976, I performed excerpts of Peter Copani's Fire of Flowers at the White House for the Pageant of Peace. I became the musical director for Val Reiter & Company and played at Dangerfield's, The Playboy Club and we went overseas and spent a month performing in Casablanca, Morocco. I then joined Grammy award winner Kirby Stone and went on the road touring the US, Canada and also performed for a month in Saudi Arabia. This band brought me to Atlanta for a 4-month engagement and I got to entertain at a Falcons half-time show at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium before 50,000 football fans!
After moving to Atlanta in 1980 I started working in advertising and marketing and became a player and leader in bands that played for private parties; no more clubs. I also started to actively compose and record the electronic music that became the Major Maestro Music compilation. One of my first Atlanta based bands I joined was Celebrity Orchestra, which then became Tiffany Orchestra and when my dear drummer friend Brian Burns passed in 1988, I took over as band leader and it became Tiffany Entertainment. We mostly catered to the Atlanta Jewish community playing weddings and bar/bat mitzvah parties. I then joined Peachtree Music Syndicate and then joined Daddy-o-Strut, both of which only performed for high-end special events.
In 2000 I founded Xxela Marketing Services, which has been a very successful venture and I was profiled in VoyageATL as a local small business owner; here is a link to the interview: VoyageATL-Xxela. I eventually stopped playing in private party bands and began to play in clubs in and around the Atlanta area. Some were blues bands, others were jazz and quite a few were classic rock and a mixture of oldies. I played with Big Daddy Junior, The Larry Griffith Band, The George Price Band, Totally Savage, Blue Denim, The Boomers and The Radio Show. Most recently, I've been involved with recording projects (New York Jazz Cats and Nick & The Healers), co-writing and recording all the music for a musical called The Sicilian Heart, performing as a solo pianist at hotels and private parties, entertaining with several duo acts including the Big Chill Duo and the New York Jazz Cats plus I play every Wednesday night at Guston's in Woodstock with great musicians in a band called The Radio Show.
That's all for now!