Living Legend! AL GALLODORO~ Saturday @ Justin's, Albany NY

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Eyeball
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Living Legend! AL GALLODORO~ Saturday @ Justin's, Albany NY

#1 Post by Eyeball » Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:43 pm

This Saturday, AL GALLODORO will be playing at Justin's in Albany, NY.

Al has been playing sax professionally since 1926, and was in Paul Whiteman's Band in the 1930s.

Al's first job was in 1926 at Birmingham's Lyric Theatre, a one week booking with the `Romeo and his Juliet's' band of the Romeo brothers, whose father would pick him up at school, doing 3 vaudeville shows a day.

Still not quite 14, he joined the orchestra of banjo artist, George Evans, which played along the Gulf Coast during the summer of 1927. He was taken into the union by means which would not stand close scrutiny as he was 2 years under the minimum age for union membership.

In the fall of 1927 he was hired to play in the Forest Club in New Orleans, where his parents relocated from Birmingham, AL.

In 1927 age 15, he became the first alto sax/clarinet in the Orpheum Theater house orchestra in New Orleans, doing big time vaudeville acts (Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen, Milton Berle, Olsen and Johnson, Blackston (magician) Joan Davis, Ritz bros. , among them After the last show he would play from 11:30pm to 5 am at a night club called the Frolics. This lasted until July 1933.

Leaving New Orleans for New York, he stopped by Atlantic City to see a friend and after an audition for Isham Jones , was hired for his orchestra as a sax soloist. After union rules barred him from continuing with Jones for a 6 month engagement at the Commodore Hotel in New York, he became a free lance musician while waiting out the time to get his New York Union card.

In the spring of 1936 he joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra as first chair alto sax/clarinet and featured soloist. The orchestra.disbanded in 1940 In 1947 Paul Whiteman became the Musical Director for WJZ Radio ( which later became ABC radio) Paul Whiteman asked Frank Vangnoni, who was the Musical Contractor for Wiz to contact Al and ask him to join the staff as a soloist. Al joined, and over twenty arrangements were written for him. He performed up to four live solos per week for WJZ and stayed with them until 1967. He doubts that any other musician has played as may live solos on the air as he has.

In October of 1948 , under the direction of Paul Whiteman, Al went on a 29 day tour. On the tour he performed an extremely elaborate three-way concerto (music by George Gershwin) The concerto consisted of the following:
1st Movement Summertime on Alto Sax
2nd Movement Bess, you is my Woman on Bass Clarinet
3rd Movement Liza on B flat Clarinet

In October of 1940 he started with the orchestra of "It Happens on Ice" show where he stayed until the summer of 1943. Sonya Heine, famous ice skater, sponsored the show but did not perform.
He joined the NBC Symphony in June 1942 where he played bass clarinet under Toscanini and Stokowski, as well as Dr. Frank Black.

From 1967 to date he has free lanced in New York, making countless records on various labels as well as playing for dozens of radio and TV programs.

Moving to Oneonta, NY in 1981, he is still playing with local groups and teaching.

http://www.algallodoro.com/index.mv?screen=home

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