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Essentials in
History
From Lederhosen To Barbershop: Walter Latzko
Legendary arranger Walter Latzko reflects on a life in music, the great quartets he's known, and his wonderful wife Margie.
Updated: 8/15/2002 8:54:00 AM
WHERE TO START? I used to be pretty good, talking off the cuff, but now I have trouble at times thinking of the right words. So I’m partially reading this. Hope you’ll forgive me.
I thought I’d tell you about how I got into barbershop, right from the beginning and let the chips (and chords) fall where they may. I was born with musical talent. My mother used to say that I sang before I spoke a word. When I was growing up in old Vienna, Austria, I usually wore lederhosen, thus the title of this epic. A spanking from my mother usually hurt her more than me! I had a nice, high soprano voice, good enough to be wanted by the famous Vienna Boys Choir. But I didn’t want to travel all over, so I turned that down; But when I sang the ladies’ trio from The Magic Flute with my mother and my sister Elsa, I took the top part! Then something happened. My voice changed to a basso profundo, and later on, when I auditioned for The Collegiate Chorale, Robert Shaw said to me: “Walter, you’ve got a great fog horn there, but I’ll take you anyway because you know how to read music!”
Anyway, I started piano lessons when I was 6 and I attended symphony concerts quite frequently from age 7 on. I even composed little piano pieces right from the start. But barbershopping? In Austria in the thirties? That was before the invention of “the barbershop seventh”!
No, I guess it all began in 1947, when I was a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts, majoring - believe it or not, in pipe organ playing. The reason I majored in organ was that I wanted to get back to classical music. See, I had gotten rather good playing pop music on the piano. While I was in the Army at Camp Croft, South Carolina, for instance, I’d go in my spare time to a nearby girls’ college, where I would hold a bevy of beauties spellbound for hours, playing the hits of the day on the piano. I mean for 11 straight hours sometimes (well, it seemed like it) . I could improvise pretty well, if I do say so myself, and that, as well as my perfect pitch, helps me with my arranging. Anyway, I thought it was time to return to Bach and Mendelssohn, and what better way to achieve that but on a new (for me) instrument like the pipe organ.
Haven’t said much about barbershop yet. Wait, it’s coming. As many colleges and universities, especially in the northeast, Amherst had a well-established double quartet called, for lack of inspiration, DQ. And I drifted towards them, and they made me welcome, even let me sing with them occasionally, and I thought that trying an arrangement or two would be rather fun. So I started on that- basically a double quartet singing four part harmony, with each part covered by two young men. One of the first numbers I arranged for them was one you might be familiar with is “Mississipi Mud”. (Tape of Amherst College DQ played). Ah, there it is. Oh, I sure had fun with those “people beating their feet on the Mississippi Mud.” Lordy, did I ever.
Well, it was the beginning of my career as an arranger. Next step, while I was at Columbia studying for my Masters in Composition, I visited the Arthur Godfrey Show, a popular radio and TV morning program that had a lot of good singers on it, including a newly hired girls’ barbershop quartet called the Chordettes. I told Godfrey’s bandleader, Archie Bleyer, that I had done barbershop in college and would like to try one for the Chordettes. He said sure, go ahead, which I thought was very nice of him, giving a college boy a chance at the big time. Well, I didn’t get right to it, so imagine my surprise when he called a few days later, wondered where the arrangement was, and told me to come down to CBS the next day to see him. I finished “Lindy Lou, Meet Me By The Watermelon Vine” that night and went down the next day to see him. Archie took a look at it and told me how his arrangers could write beautifully for 19-piece orchestras, but didn’t know what to do with four unaccompanied girls’ voices. He had a hunch that I might fill the bill.
Next thing I know, I’m the arranger and coach for the Chordettes on a big-time radio/TV program. There came a morning when the Chordettes’ bass, Janet Ertel, called in sick. So the girl asked me, Foghorn Latzko, to fill in for Janet. Imagine me singing bass before who knows HOW many million people! I had quite the vibrato that morning.
Well, the job expanded swiftly. The Godfrey Show added a Wednesday night TV Variety hour. On Sunday night, all the arrangers got together with Archie at his office, and we’d decide the tunes we would do for the various performers and Godfrey for the following Wednesday’s TV Show. It always had some kind of a theme to it. A French Show, a Spanish Show, a Flower Show. I would have to arrange it when I got home after the meeting ’cause the girls would have just three days to learn it to perform before millions on television. The words would be on the teleprompter, but the girls would have to have their notes cold. Once I had to arrange Tippi Tippi Tin, and the girls never forgave me for that one. ( It was a very repetitious song, and it didn’t “barbershop” too well, either! Didn‘t even start going around the clock). I did about 300 arrangements for the Chordettes over the next two years including four albums, some of which were published in two booklets by Edwin H. Morris. And I continued to arrange for them when they were on the Robert Q. Lewis TV and radio shows.
Which brings me to my next big quartet, The Buffalo Bills. At the urging of the Chordettes, I went to my first Barbershop Parade, as they were called in those days, with Archie Bleyer. We sat thru a bunch of local quartets and clapped where indicated, until the MC announced: “And here they are, ladies and gentlemen, the newly crowned Champions, The Buffalo Bills.” And out strutted four imposing looking men in their buckskins and rattled the rafters with “Hi, Neighbor!” I still remember Archie and I looking at each other as if to say “How long has THIS been going on?” The upshot of it all was that when the Bills came to New York to do The Music Man for some 1,700 performances, I became their arranger and did eight albums for them. The recording companies, Columbia, RKO and Warners, wanted to heighten the popular appeal of the Bills, which is why I had to write arrangements for ACCOMPANIED barbershop. But I wrote most of them so they could be performed -- “au naturel” -- so to speak.
I even drove Vern Reed’s car to California for him (I got my kicks that year on Route 66), clear from his nice home in New Jersey so he could have his car in Hollywood when they were making the movie, The Music Man! Man, was that a thrill and a half, watching the cast - Robert Preston, Barbara Cook, Hermione Gingold and the rest - making that classic movie! Well, for four days of it anyway. (I recall that they did about six or seven takes on about a thirty second cut of 76 Trombones, which had been pre-recorded. Once they had to do it again because one of the dancers’ pants split in half. Very interesting!)
And when the fellows returned to Broadway I worked with them for several years, rehearsing the Bills in a CBS studio couple times a week for album after album,... it was a blast. And they could blast! I remember how it took the bass, Bill Spangenberg longer to learn his part, but once he had it, man, he was solid for life! You can hear me on some of the albums, playing the bells in Josephine, Don’t Lean on the Bell, the organ in Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight, and the organ in their Hymns album.
So now I was ready for my next quartet, and it was another great one! The Suntones!! I forget just where that relationship started but they wanted the Big Medleys from Broadway shows. And the first one was The West Side Story. And so I set to it. And it seemed to flow from one tune to the next one, and as I recall, I did the whole thing in three days in my little garret, an upstairs back room at my house in Blooming Grove, NY. I had had the good sense to marry Marjorie Needham in 1953. Margie took Ginny Osborn’s place as tenor for the Chordettes. And we settled into this house in Blooming Grove, about sixty-five miles northwest of New York City. I also did all my writing in this garret. I wrote jokes and anecdotal material for a fellow named Jack Sterling. He had a three hour program every morning on WCBS in New York and I supplied him with “material” for some 11 years. Then I wrote scripts for Garry Moore for two years. I’m just mentioning that to confirm that barbershop arrangements weren’t my only source of income.
But let’s return to the Suntones. I wrote several big medleys for them .. Fiddler On The Roof, Sound Of Music, as well as the West Side Story. And other numbers that found favor, such as Pass Me By, It’s A Most Unusual Day etc. etc.
And in 1970, I became a certified judge in the then brand new Arrangement Category. Oh, that was a wonderful session, with the initial class in that category headed and developed by Burt Szabo. There were about 20 of us in that group. The likes of Freddy King, Buzz Haeger, Don Gray (just out of the service) and the inimitable Lloyd Steinkamp. Boy, Lloyd really let me have it in some of his daily newsletters, which he put together for that session. If I recall correctly, he called me Dirty Mouth Latzko. Sweet Lloyd!! I remember a committee of us spent a day discussing whether a Flat Seventh - Tonic progression should be legal or should call for a penalty. I was outvoted on that one, and it became a 5 point penalty until the arrangement category became extinct. I felt bad about giving minus 5’s for flat 7-tonic progressions which I liked, and used in some of my arrangements, and always explained to quartets in the A&R sessions how heartbroken I was, but I was required to give this penalty.
Hadn’t I been outvoted? (Now I believe Flat Seventh-Tonic progression gets by in the Music category.) Anyway, I gave my pluses and minuses for about twenty years. I loved that category! Especially the A&R, where I tried to always have something nice to say to every contestant. Even if it only was only something like ”Those were great uniforms. You guys looked spiffy!” And I’d tweaked a chord or two sometimes. I remember one quartet in Seneca Land that was so delighted with my “tweaks”, they sang them in the lobby half an hour later for all to hear. The old Arrangement category didn’t hurt anybody too much, but we always carried that big stick--the dreaded disqualification. I think I used that stick twice in 20 years! And I’ve got to tell you about my very last judging assignment in the old arrangement category. That was about a year after the stroke. They asked me if I’d feel up to judging the North East District’s preliminaries that spring in Farmington, Massachusetts. I said if I’d get a little help from my friends I’d do it. And help I got - from Dr. Steve (about whom later) and another Steve, Plumb’s the last name. Dr. Steve walked me to all my sessions and A&R’s, and Steve Plumb took my whispered notes on my score sheets. I’m really grateful to the Society for allowing me to do that.
But I digress. Another great quartet that I did a lot of arranging for was The Bluegrass Student Union. Met them after an International, I don’t even remember which one it was,- it was in the early 1980s - and they seemed to be interested in my arranging. I ended up doing three albums for them, together with my friend Ed Waesche. The first one was Juke Box Saturday Night, for which I did as a medley or two, and about 8 other arrangements, the second one was Music Man, for which I arranged every song in the show except My White Knight. And then I did a third album for the Bluegrass to which Ed contributed: The Gershwin Album. There’s a rather interesting story that goes with that. I had done a big medley of Gershwin’s opera Porgy And Bess for Ed Waesche’s quartet, The New Yorkers, a year or so before. Ed just didn’t have enough time to do it himself, so he “farmed it out” to me. But just as the New Yorkers started on it, their tenor experienced throat trouble. I mean, severe throat trouble. Porgy And Bess remained in Ed’s dresser drawer, or wherever, for a year or so. So now I’m on the phone with Kenny Hatton (the Blooming Grove - Louisville line was really humming in those days) and we’re deciding what’s to go into the Gershwin album and I remembered Porgy and also Bess. And I say to Kenny “Why don’t you ask Ed about that Porgy and Bess Medley?” and he did, and the rest is almost forgotten history. It became the center piece of the Gershwin album, “Here To Stay”, to which Ed contributed great arrangements like the title song (Our Love Is Here To Stay), and Liza.
Which brings me to a few words about Mr. Kenneth Hatton, known to me as just plain “Kinny”! That man has done more things for little old me! To give you a SMALL example: starting in 1984, completely unbeknownst to me, he spent the year or so writing letters to all sort of folks, arranging for a Walter Latzko day. That took a lot of “arranging” - getting a hall (Montclair State College), getting some of the quartets and choruses that I had done arranging for (Suntones, Blue Grass Student Union, Montclair and Livingston, NJ choruses) plus recorded messages from many quartets that couldn’t attend (including the Chordettes). Kenny even had phony programs printed up so that neither the 1,100 people in the audience nor I had any idea what was about to take place. Thus it was, on January 27, 1985, that I was led into the auditorium with the lights already dimmed. The curtain went up and the combined choruses launched into “Come on along and listen to the songs of Walter Latzko”, which was a slightly altered lyric of the beginning of the longest arrangement I had ever done, The Academy Award Medley, thirty-eight songs or parts thereof, fifty pages, lovingly known as “The Monster.” And the Montclair Chorus, which by the way I directed for three and a half years, learned the whole thing in three months and performed it superbly under the direction of Artie Dolt to a standing ovation! There was dedication!
Getting back to Kinny, that’s not all he has done for me. Besides arranging barbershop, I had been an organist/choir director (for forty-two years) and an oratorio chorus director (for thirty-two years), and when I had my stroke and lost the use of my right hand, I could no longer do any of those things. Well, Kinny asked twenty quartets and choruses to chip in and buy me a computer, music software, and a fax machine. A total of three thousand dollars was donated, and everything was set up for me when I came home from ten weeks of rehab. This wonderful gift has not only enabled me to continue arranging, but I have been able to inventory and put my handwritten arrangements into the computer as well. I now have over six hundred of my eight hundred fifty arrangements as well as some of my religious compositions in the computer, and I’ve been very fortunate that some of the finest quartets and choruses have performed them.
I can’t end this without speaking about another fellow, a barbershopper named Dr. Stephen Peterson. I had worked with Steve and one of his former quartets in the past, and when I was in Helen Hayes Hospital for recuperation after my stroke, Steve came to see me. Thus began an incredible relationship. Since January 1992, Steve has come to my home from New York City
(a one hundred and thirty mile round-trip) every Saturday afternoon, unless he or I had to be away. Our routine consists of his exercising me, taking my blood pressure, prescribing and bringing me my medicine, and THEN the rest of the time we spend talking about barbershop and ideas for new arrangements. I believe that his professional attention and encouragement has enabled me to be here today.
But first of all, there is my wonderful Margie. She has done and is still doing everything for me. I would be nothing without her! We’ll celebrate our 50th anniversary next year.
My theory on arranging is rather simple. I try to stay faithful to the song. Certainly the first time around. Then I embellish it the second time, however much of the tune I use. Oh, there’s also a key change or two in there. I thought I’d better warn you. My tags aren’t the kind that make the audience faint with excitement. Just what I think is appropriate! My arrangements used to be considered “avant guarde”. No more. I’m right between the kibbers and non-kibbers, and I like it there!
Which brings me to the conclusion of my little talk. Barbershopping has been an important part of my life. I can’t think of any organization that has the brotherhood, the love, the “doing things for each other”, that the world of Barbershop has. I have been particularly blessed that way. And I will never, never forget it. The friendships all over that I’ve made are very precious, very special to me!
Summing up, - I’m a very, VERY lucky guy!
Walter Latzko
P.O. Box 155
35 Sayer Road
Blooming Grove, NY 10914
Fax (845) 496-1446
Home Phone (845) 496-3760
Email latzmuzk@frontiernet.net
WEB page frontiernet.net/~latzmuzk/
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