The Gravesite

Jazz Central Jazz Bio Jazz Greats Jazz Stories Young John Graves     I chose the right parents. My father was a teacher and a fine musician. My mother was an actress-comedienne. They gave me music lessons and endless support. Because of World War II, my high school band played for almost every dance in the county, as all but the old musicians had been drafted (and I learned a lot from those old timers). In college, I majored in radio, and took advantage of every possible opportunity: I was a disk jockey, had my own weekly comedy show, and directed a weekly musical program, as well as playing piano several nights a week in a night club

BRIEF MUSIC BIO...
Throughout his various life pursuits, Graves’ love and devotion to music has remained constant. Even during the thick of his television and movie production days, he performed several nights a week at private parties for the likes of Judy Garland, Groucho Marx, Danny Thomas, John Wayne and other stars. He has accompanied George Burns, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Rudy Vallee, Redd Foxx, Arthur Duncan, Jimmy Durante and other musical celebrities. He also performed on television for the Betty White show and was musical director for the Gloria Hart Show.

John started playing professionally in 1942 at the age of 14. He toured the west and mid-west with two different combos, providing dance music and three floor shows a night. Played piano bars in Los Angeles for four years.

He played over three thousand private parties, as single, leader, or sub- at virtually all banquet facilities in the Los Angeles area, including:
Beverly Hills Hotel, Bonaventure Hotel, Beverly Hilton, Biltmore Hotel, Beverly Willeadershire, Los Angeles Hilton, Century Plaza, Huntington Sheraton, Bel Air Hotel, Mariott Hotel, Disneyland Hotel The Queen Mary, Disneyland Convention Center, Anaheim Convention Center, Los Angeles Country, Club Bel Air Country Club.

Also, during his thirty five year career as a TV and film executive and producer, worked with outstanding composers, conductors and arrangers such as Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, Gil Melee, John Scott Trotter, and Nelson Riddle. (And even the Monkees!)

More on John's work with Outstanding Composers

Musical Celebrity Snippets....

Janet Leigh, with whom I had attended The College of the Pacific in the mid-forties, was married to an aspiring big band leader, and I was the piano player. We went from Stockton, California down to Los Angeles to make several demonstration recordings of the band over a period of a few days. On our second day there, Janet asked me if I could spare five dollars so she could buy a few groceries (she hadn’t yet been discovered by Norma Shearer and made a star). The next day she paid me back. (It would probably have been more exciting to have carried that indebtedness over the period of her stardom.)

Gracie Allen was the only person who ever requested that I stop playing a song. It was at Judy Garland’s party at Romanoffs Restaurant in Beverery Hills. I was leading a trio and singing a hit from the day, Poor Little Robin.. George and Gracie were dancing by and Gracie shouted, “Stop playing that song! I hate that song! Just stop it!” (I didn’t. Perhaps I should have had a tip jar for songs to avoid.)

Rosemary Clooney was booked for a large charity stage show and I was to accompany her. I went to the scheduled rehearsal to go over her arrangements with her at the house in Beverly Hills she shared with Jose Ferrer. Her son and daughter let me in. The large living area had the all furniture stacked against the wall and was bare, except for a large Steinway grand and bench in the middle of the room. Her kids said that their mom was in the pool cabana, but I could talk to her on the intercom phone.
Rosie said she didn’t want to come into the house, and we could just conduct the rehearsal over the phone. So, I sat at the piano, balanced the phone between my left ear and shoulder, and we went over all the arrangements. The big show went off without a hitch.

more musical celebrity snippets

Jazz Stories in "Just Say Yes: Memoirs of a Geezer "

All That Jazz - encounters with Duke Ellington, Mel Torme, Anita O'Day, and Dave Brubeck
Life is an Ad Lib Solo - my jazz formula for living

mini reviews of the book         read a Dave Brubeck review of John's book
back to top


Musical Celebrity Snippets

Ray Bolger was the first celebrity whom I had met in a party for which I was playing. It was a very fancy affair, hosted by Carlton Alsop in an old-wealth section of Pasadena, California. After dinner, I was delighted to share my piano bench with the loose-limbed dancer. We talked, he made requests, and even sang some of them, mainly to me. Before he left, he offered me the job of becoming his accompanist on a forthcoming tour, but I had just started what I hoped would be my career at NBC and had to refuse.

Carol Channing was a guest star on a George Burns’ television series episode. The script called for her to do a burlesque “bump”. In those quaint days, “bumps” were not allowed to be forward and backward—only side to side. In my role as Broadcast Standards Editor, I went to Burns’ office and demonstrated to Carol how the delicate maneuver should be executed. She was due on the set, and I had a bicycle (I can’t remember why) and she asked if I would give her a ride on my handlebars down to the set. It wasn’t a long ride, but certainly memorable.

John Raitt introduced himself and his daughter, Bonnie, to me after a Quaker silent service in West Los Angeles back in the Fifties. (I was experimenting with various forms of religion at that time.) It was interesting to me that after an hour of complete silence, people were saying, “Wasn’t that a lovely service!” However, it would have been interesting to hear Bonnie sing a hymn, even at eight years old.

Jimmie Durante was the first vaudeville act I got to play for when I was hired by the Fifty Two Association, a group whose motto was “The Wounded Shall Never Be Forgotten.” They brought a busload of wounded veterans from a different hospital once a month to Scandia, a lovely restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, for a dinner and a show.

The American Guild of Variety Artists would provide the entertainment, usually a name performer who happened to be in town between shows or tours. I would rehearse with the performers at six, eat dinner with them at seven and then do the show. This went on for about six years, and I got to play for a remarkable range singers, dancers, novelty acts, and comedians, including Larry Storch, June Christy, Redd Foxx, Arthur Duncan, Rudy Vallee, Pinky Tomlin, and Martha Tilton. Luckily for me, Durante didn’t smash the piano, as he often did in his act and on television variety shows .

In another Durante snippet, I went with two songwriter friends to his house, where I was to play while they auditioned a song they had written for him. During the singing of their masterpiece, the phone rang. Durante answered and said, Hi Harry,” and a twenty minute conversation of laughs and reminiscences ensued. When he hung up, he said, “That was Harry Truman.” (He didn’t buy the song.)

Loretta Young not only swept through the doorway in outrageously beautiful gowns to open each episode of her dramatic television series; she also was the series’ executive producer. The final episode took a rather pronounced religious bent, and it was my job to reflect NBC management’s concern over its acceptability for a mass, primetime television audience. The occasion was the “wrap party” for the season, and all the cast and crew were on the set, following the final shot. Food and drink were being brought forth, and everyone was in fine fettle, including Loretta. Upon hearing my related management concerns, she merely shrugged, handed me a drink, and said, “If God wants this episode on the air, it will be on the air.” (Evidently He didn’t want it, or her, on the air, as this was pretty much the end of her television career.)

Blake Edwards, the writer, director, producer, and husband of Julie Andrews was producing a new detective series called Peter Gunn, which NBC had just purchased for the new season in the mid-fifties. Since I was to be the so-called censor for the series, Blake and I were getting acquainted at lunch in the Universal commissary. He was almost as excited about the composer he had just hired to write the original score for the series as he was about the series itself. He told me about the unique jazz sound this exciting new talent would be bringing to background music for dramatic television. (And he was also a really nice guy!) It turned out his name was Henry Mancini.

Zamphir was not only a very nice young man, who gave me his new Pipes of Pan album in a train compartment going from Budapest to Vienna in 1972 on a trip where the Communist Hungarian guards had just forcibly thrown a man’s briefcase off the train- -he also has a name starting with the letter “Z,”which I needed to end this alphabetized chapter--and the book.

What Ralph Guild says about "Just Say Yes: Memoirs of a Geezer

"John Graves memoires are a warm and often humorous chronology of the TV and movie business during the second half of the 20th century from someone who was active in many parts of both businesses on three continents. His anectdotes leave the reader with a feeling of having met and known the active participants personally."

Ralph Guild, CEO of Interep Radio Store, the pre-eminent National Sales Representative organization in the U.S. and scholar of the radio industry (with a room named after him in the Museum of Broadcasting in New York).

Go to our Product Page to purchase John's new book "Just Say Yes."