Iconostasis

Here's music to make glad the hearts of men. Some of us got a boost from our parents who thought it would be a good idea to "take lessons." In my case it was at the piano. I try to analyze the circumstance (beyond the initial exposure) that makes some people much better than others. They all seem to get the same basic start. Tony D'Aquila got to be very good. He's accompanied a lot of noted singers of popular music. When Tony went to Germantown High School his father wouldn't allow him to play soccer. "Y' gotta get a job."

Funny! I got the same orders when I wanted to play soccer. "Y' gotta get a job." Instead of kicking soccer balls I pumped gasoline in the afternoons. Neither of us played soccer but we both got piano lessons when we were kids, but any similarity of our fortunes ended there.

Germantown was full of good musicians. I've known a couple of them. For a while I supposed that Larry Wallen might become a great violinist. That's because I knew him and liked him when we were little. There is a time when we think by emotional prejudice. It's not a logical equation that guarantees the future.

Charlie Gaines, Jimmy McGriff, the brothers Frankie and Billy Root, Archie Shepp and Reggie Workman were all G-towners and they all had nice careers in popular music and jazz.

Between Larry Wallen's house and mine, on Cliveden Street, four brothers practiced on string instruments and all of them soon enough got chairs in The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Wow!

When I was a kid Sergei Rachmaninoff called Philadelphia's "The World's Greatest Orchestra." He was right and those four kids who went to Emlen School, Francis and Joseph and Robert and William de Pasquale, grew up and all played together beginning their long association with the orchestra under the Maestro, Dr. Ormandy.

There's no plaque at Emlen School and if one isn't placed in "The Walk of Fame," civilized civic leaders ought to rip it up for lack of defined purpose. The de Pasquale Quartette has made glad the hearts .... of many, beginning when they were little boys in their home and eventually and soon enough to the world. What a remarkable reward for childhood's practices.

I'll put their picture on my wall with the other heroes from my town.