Larry Adler

Larry Adler
City Center NYC (January 1947) photo by William Gottlieb
Born	Lawrence Cecil Adler (1914-02-10)February 10, 1914 Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Died	August 6, 2001(2001-08-06) (aged 87) London, England
Occupation(s)	Composer; actor; musician
Years active	1931-2001
Spouse(s)	Eileen Walser (1952-1957) (divorced) 2 children Sally Cline (1959-1963) (divorced) 1 child

Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler (February 10, 1914 – August 6, 2001) was an American musician, one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin composed for him. During his later career he collaborated with Sting, Elton John, Kate Bush and Cerys Matthews.

Biography

Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to a Jewish family, and graduated from Baltimore City College high school. He taught himself harmonica (which he called a mouth-organ) and played professionally at 14. In 1927, he won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Sun, playing a Beethoven minuet, and a year later he ran away from home to New York. After being referred by Rudy Vallée, Adler got his first theatre work, and caught the attention of orchestra leader Paul Ash, who placed Adler in a vaudeville act as "a ragged urchin, playing for pennies". From there, he was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld and then by Lew Leslie again as an urchin. He broke the typecasting and appeared in a dinner jacket in the 1934 Paramount film Many Happy Returns, and was hired by theatrical producer C. B. Cochran to perform in London. He became a star in the United Kingdom and the Empire, where, it has been written, harmonica sales increased 20-fold and 300,000 people joined fan clubs.".

Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument, often written for him: these include Jean Berger's Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra "Caribbean" (1941), Cyril Scott's Serenade (harmonica and piano, 1936), Vaughan Williams' Romance in D-flat (harmonica, piano and string orchestra; premiered New York, 1952), Milhaud's Suite Anglais (Paris, May 28, 1947), Arthur Benjamin's Harmonica Concerto (1953), and Malcolm Arnold's Harmonica Concerto, Op. 46 (1954, written for The Proms). He recorded all except the Scott Serenade, some more than once. Earlier, Adler had performed transcriptions of pieces for other instruments, such as violin concertos by Bach and Vivaldi - he played his arrangement of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A minor with the Sydney Symphony. Other works he played in harmonica arrangements were by Bartók, Beethoven (Minuet in G), Debussy, Falla, Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Mozart (slow movement from the Oboe Quartet, K. 470), Poulenc, Ravel (Boléro), Stravinsky and Walton.

During the 1940s, Adler and the dancer, Paul Draper, formed an act and toured nationally and internationally. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1949 and settled in London, where he remained the rest of his life.

The 1953 film Genevieve brought him an Oscar nomination for his work on the soundtrack, though his name was originally kept off the credits in the United States due to blacklisting. He scored a hit with the theme song of the French Jacques Becker movie Touchez pas au grisbi with Jean Gabin, written by Jean Wiener.

In 1994 for his 80th birthday Adler and George Martin, produced an album of George Gershwin songs, The Glory of Gershwin, on which they performed "Rhapsody in Blue." The Glory of Gershwin reached number 2 in the UK albums chart in 1994. Adler was a and showman. Concerts to support The Glory of Gershwin shoed he was a competent pianist. He each performance with Gershwin's "Summertime", playing piano and harmonica simultaneously. The album included Peter Gabriel, Oleta Adams, Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Meat Loaf, Sinéad O'Connor, Robert Palmer, Cher, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Courtney Pine, Issy Van Randwyck, Lisa Stansfield and Carly Simon, all of whom sang Gershwin tunes with an orchestra and Adler adding harmonica solos.

He died in St Thomas' Hospital, London, at 87, on August 7, 2001. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain.

Other fields

Apart from his career a musician, Adler appeared in movies, including Sidewalks of London (1938), in which he played a harmonica virtuoso. He was a prolific letter writer, his correspondence with Private Eye becoming popular in the United Kingdom. Adler wrote an autobiography — entitled It Ain't Necessarily So — in 1985, and was food critic for Harpers & Queen. He also appeared on the Jack Benny radio program several times, entertaining disabled soldiers in the USA during World War II. A further biography, Me and My Big Mouth appeared in 1994 but he told The Free-Reed Journal: 'That's a lousy book and I don't like it; it's ghosted . ... [It] has a certain amount of factual material but the author completely missed my style and my voice. That's why I hate the book.'

Personal life

Adler had four children, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren, one of whom was Peter Adler who fronted the band, Action, and others, in Dublin, Ireland in the late 1960s. Adler was an atheist. His brother, Jerry Adler (1918–2010) was also an harmonica player.

References

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Classical Free-Reed, Inc:Interview with Larry Adler

Further reading

Articles

Wilcock, John. "Night Book for Night Owls: Artist at the Gate". The Village Voice. February 25, 1959.

External links

• Larry Adler at IMDb
• Larry Adler at the BFI's Screenonline
• Interview with Larry Adler, originally broadcast June 19, 1987
• BBC News report of death of Larry Adler, 7 August 2001
• Larry Adler collection at the University of Wyoming - American Heritage Center