FINALLY! tribute to my dear friend and teacher Vinnie Tanno

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3N7dvyGCEE

He was the greatest player I ever heard live and I've heard them all. On a good night he could play Cherokee in the key of B natural at 320. He could play very nice double C's and used them many times in his solos. Listen to the double B he gets out after all that playing on the bridge.

Rest in peace Vinnie (Vincent Napolotano) Tanno

Your friend, student and champion.

Chris LaBarbera

BTW he was 22 when this was recorded. You should have heard this man in his prime around 38 years old......Mother Fu**er

EBjazz · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:05 am Post subject:

Wow. Clifford meets Dizzy!

Eb
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danny45635 · Heavyweight Member Joined: 01 Feb 2015 Posts: 508

Very cool. His playing is so clean too.
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Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

Just so everybody knows thats NOT Vinnie on the picture. That is a picture of the trombone players band Lon Norman from sometime in the early 1950's. The trumpet player in that picture was a very average club date player named Jerry Marshall.

Vinnie when I knew him could have been a Wolfman Jack double.

He was on the bands on Stan Kenton "Cuban Fire" "Kenton in HI Fi"
Charlie Barnet
Lionel Hampton
Tommy Dorsey
Jimmy Dorsey

There is a live record out there recorded in Miami with an all star band featuring Vinnie. It was recorded in 1977 and a place called the Swiss Chalet (now a gas station). On the band with Vinnie are Frank Rosolino (3 weeks before his tragedy) Nat Adderly, Pete Minger, Arnett Cobb, Danny Turner Alan Eager, Duffy Jackson and his dad Chubby on bass and leader.

I road down with Vinnie ( I was 15) and got the thrill of my life. Thank goodness somebody recorded it. Vinnie and the whole band were on FIRE.

Chris LaBarbera

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

listen to his solo on fu-dunk

TrentAustin · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:35 am Post subject:

great playing! Seriously great articulation!

Thanks for sharing this!
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Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

You guys keep mentioning his articulation, well his favorite book and he also claimed it was Brownies too was the "Gatti Method for trumpet". He always was preaching Gatti......

scipioap · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:51 am Post subject:

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

Thank you so much guys for posting that. You have no idea what that means to me to see that.

That picture is from the mid to late 1950's and its probably with Kenton or Barnet etc.

When I met him as a kid he had a salt a pepper wolfman jack beard. But thats what his chops looked like when he was really blowing.

Can't thank you all enough.

Chris

scipioap · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 2:03 pm Post subject:

No, thank you, Chris!...for turning me on to another paisan player! By coincidence, as a kid growing up in Waltham, MA in the '80s, my mentor was the best trumpet player in town, and lifelong best friend to my father (who played trombone), another "Vinnie" (Melideo), who died far too young.

To confirm, above photo is Stan's band in 1956; seated are Lennie Niehaus and Bill Perkins.

Found a later photo, matching your description:

Do you recall another paisan player of that era--Al Mattaliano?
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chuck in ny · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 5:47 am Post subject:

thanks chris for putting this up. great business you guys have there, the music business. this isn't persia 1000 years ago where the cream really had the opportunity to rise to the top. in a long enough life so far i would observe not to take business conditions too seriously and simply develop yourself and technical level.

fox · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 8:31 am Post subject:

Nice to hear Vinnie. He taught me how the body- back muscles were involved in playing. I remember him as a very physical presence but never had a chance to hear him in musical context. I still have the Schilke 11 he gave me back in '76. He was a dark-haired bull back then.
Doug

Tony Scodwell · Heavyweight Member Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 1961

The photo of Vinnie and Billy Root was from a live date at Cappazoli's in Las Vegas. Billy was working with me on the house band at the Frontier doing Siegfried and Roy, not exactly a jazz gig, and Vinnie had moved to Las Vegas and was doing a dixie gig at the Orleans. I was contracting the band at the Frontier and we needed a trumpet player when Stu Satalof left the band and Billy recommended Vinnie. Vinnie stayed a few months and I don't think show-biz really was his forte as much of a giant player that he was. Geesh, you'd think a person with his talent would LOVE lions and tigers.

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markp · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:14 pm Post subject:

Holy cow! How did this guy manage to not be famous?

I've traveled in jazz trumpet circles all my life with my antenna up learning all I can about the people who do this, and never heard of him.

It really isn't a small, small world.

EdMann · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:29 am Post subject:

I'm with you, Mark. Hadn't heard the cat. Wow. Thx for turning us on to him, Chris. Hope you're good in F L A.

ed

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

Yeah the Schilke #11 !!!

Vinnie had probably 300 mps that he had ruined trying to alter them himself with the "back of a boy scout knife"

But that Schilke 11 was his baby. he would never touch that.

You just had to know this guy. He was absolutely crazy (in a nice way) He had a mlp Benge with two lead pipes and he just couldn't decide witch one he liked better. the horn was gold plated but the plating was ruined from Vinnie constantly having repairmen taking one pipe off and soldering the other on.

One day he calls me happy as sh!t. He says "I got the greatest trumpet in the world now" He had a repairman solder BOTH leadpipes on to his horn at the same time!!! So now all he has to do is take out his mp and move the upper tuning slide leg to change pipes.

That was Vinnie.....

Chris

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

Thanks for chiming in Tony,

You happen to be right. For as great a soloist as Vinnie was the complaint was that in a section he never played anything the same way twice.

He was sick and hadn't been playing very much when he did that Billy Root date. He told me he didn't care for his playing on it.

I would imagine that his best years were down here in FL in the late 1960's and some of the first few years that he spent in vegas.

He married a very sickly woman and was always taking care of her. So toward the end of his career he kind of just "let it slip away"

But MAN if you only heard him in his prime. He would scare the sh!t out of you.....

razeontherock · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 6:52 pm Post subject:

Thanks for posting this Chris! And good to hear from you man.

Mr.Hollywood · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Dec 2002 Posts: 1730

what ever became of Bob ?

I know he had his "15 minutes" but then he just seemed to vanish.

I remember seeing him in an old issue of the Getzen Gazzette when he was with Liza.

The thing with Vinnies horn with two pipes soldered together was that it was a MINT early Burbank (with the music ledger scroll on the bell, apparently very rare) with a gorgeous anderson gold plate on it. I saw the horn before Vinnie went leadpipe "postal" on the horn and it looked like it belonged in Tiffany's window. But years of going back and fourth with the pipes took its toll on the beauty of the horn.

That was Vinnie.

May God Bless him wherever he is........

BTW Vinnie sent me to Reinhardt, he was from South Philly (Italian section)

Chris LaBarbera

Tony Scodwell · Heavyweight Member Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 1961

Hi Chris. Yeah, I didn't want to "tarnish" his great reputation but when Billy recommended him for "Sigfried and Roy", well, it was somewhat of a disaster. Vinnie spaced things out on a regular basis and made the same mistakes over and over. I had no choice but to let him go which was very hard to do. Production shows are unique in that with the same music night after night, and in this case year after year, the guys get sensitive to the most minute changes and glaring mistakes were bugging everybody in the band. Even Billy admitted to me that it wasn't working out. I never heard him in his prime but I certainly know what a monster he was.

All the best,

Tony