Dennis McNeil looked past the lights at the audience from his stool in front of the stage fireplace and said, “I just love to sing.” But that was putting too fine a point on his performance at Live at the Lounge two weeks ago. The former New York Opera tenor does more than sing. He tells stories in the tradition of the ancient enchanters, mostly through song, but not always.
One story that evening was “MoonRiver.” The Johnny Mercer lyrics are poetic enough to be read alone, and magical when accompanied by Henry Mancini’s music and sung by McNeil. Music director Ed Martel, on keyboards contributed the rich Mancini sound.
Two drifters off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end
Waiting ‘around the bend
My Huckleberry friend
Moon river and me.
But the song was just the introduction to McNeil’s “MoonRiver.” A friend, he said, is married to Henry Mancini’s daughter. One weekend while walking through San Francisco’s Union Square the friend heard a boy playing “MoonRiver” on a trumpet.
When the boy finished the song, the friend walked up to him and said, as he dropped a few dollars into the boy’s trumpet case, “My father-in-law wrote that song.”
“Really?” the kids said.
“Really,” the friend answered as he turned to walk away. Then he caught himself. He was inSan Franciscoto produce a show for Latin Grammy winner Arturo Sandoval.
“How’d you like to see Arturo Sandoval tonight?” he asked the boy. The boy’s eyes lit up. He said he would ask his mother.
That night the boy showed up at the theater with his mother and his trumpet. The friend guided them around to the stage door, where Sandoval invited the boy and his mother to watch the show from back stage.
Near the end of his performance, Sandoval told the audience he wanted to bring out a special guest to play “MoonRiver.”
Very quickly, the generous gesture took a horrible turn. The boy held his trumpet awkwardly and sounded awful. When Sandoval asked why he didn’t hold the trumpet correctly, he answered, because it was broken. So Sandoval offered the boy his own trumpet to play, but still he sounded awful, even to the audience that was rooting for him.
Then the boy asked if he could give it one more try with his own trumpet, and he nailed it. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, McNeil said.
The following week Sandoval had an $8,000 trumpet, one a manufacture had given him, delivered to the boy inUnion Square.
McNeil grew up inManhattan Beachand spent his early professional years living in an apartment on The Strand at Second Streetin Hermosa.
“I was single and didn’t have a job. It was perfect,” he said. During this period, he was invited to tour with legendary songwriter and musician Sammy Cahn, whose “Three Coins in a Fountain” and “My Kind of Town,” are among the many standards he wrote for Frank Sinatra
McNeil sang Cahn’s “It’s Magic,” the song that put Doris Day on the charts.
You sigh, the song begins, you speak and I hear violins
It’s magic.
The stars desert the skies and rush to nestle in your eyes
It’s magic
After every show, McNeil recalled, they’d go to a bar to unwind, and Cahn would say to whoever was at their table. “Name somebody and I’ll tell you a story about him.”
One time, McNeil recalled, someone asked Cahn, “Which comes first, the words or the music?”
“First comes the phone call,” Cahn answered.
Last year, McNeil received a call to sing at the Mark Taper for Hal David’s 90th birthday. He sang “Alfie,” David’s biggest hit.
What’s it’s all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give,
Or are we meant to be kind?
“To perform that for David, and Burt Bacharach, who wrote the music, really meant something to me,” McNeil said.
McNeil will sing stories, from Cahn to Van Morison, again on Sunday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 at Live at the Lounge, 1018 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. For tickets call (310) 372-1193. ER
