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Mario DeSantis has serenaded countless just-marrieds, celebrated the induction of Cal Ripken Jr. into the Baseball Hall of Fame, served as a one-term mayor of Solvay, tickled the ivories as “The Magic Piano” for more than 20 years on the local children’s TV series Magic Toy Shop and raised five children with his wife of 59 years, Anita. Despite all that, the keyboard player and longtime bandleader is perhaps best known for the musical legacy he continues to leave Syracuse in the form of the DeSantis Orchestra, which marks an amazing 65 years on Tuesday, May 22.
Now with his eldest child, Maria DeSantis, taking the reins of the band of renown, you’d think it might be time for DeSantis to slow down a bit and enjoy a semi-retirement. Instead, his office, tucked in the Regency Towers apartment he shares with Anita, is packed full with stacks of sheet music circling his busy desk and the walls are covered with photos documenting his life’s work—each photo complete with a story he is more than willing to share. Mario DeSantis, 83 years young, continues to perform alongside the various incarnations of the DeSantis Orchestra, and helps Maria run it, even though she officially bought the business 20 years ago.
The orchestra began as a nine-piece on May 22, 1947, when the group performed at Central High School’s Lincoln Auditorium. DeSantis still has the program from that performance. Over the years, the group has grown to include a rotating roster of about 50 union musicians who perform in various types of groups—duos, trios, nine-piece, 12-piece, 18-piece—depending on the function they’re playing. The orchestra, which joined Local 78 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) in 1949, tends to split at about 20 percent community events, 40 percent weddings and 40 percent other events including induction ceremonies, union gatherings and benefits.
Over the years, the orchestra has played such prestigious events as Hillary Clinton’s fundraiser reception for Dan Maffei’s second run for Congress in August 2008, the Governor’s Tourism Conference Dinner/Dance in various cities throughout the state in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and the 1993 wedding of the Baldwin brothers’ sister, Jane Baldwin, to Randy Sasso. They have managed to attract some of the most talented musicians in the region who have kept the lineup at a consistently impressive caliber, with members including Joe Riposo, Mark Copani, Joe Whiting, Ronnie Leigh and Isreal Hagan. Collectively, the orchestra’s members have more than 20 Syracuse Area Music Awards (Sammys). And although much has changed since that first performance in 1947, some things have remained very much the same.
Mario DeSantis is a perfect example of how music keeps people young. Although he’s 83, his personality would never give it away. He jokes often, smiles and laughs. He tells stories that may have happened 40 years ago, but remain relevant today. He holds family at the center of his life, and still runs the band as father to his “band sons” as he calls them, just as he has for 65 years.
It’s obvious Maria DeSantis learned well as an apprentice to her father. Family is also her primary focus. She exudes energy and excitement for what the group does and her undisguised adoration of the band is endearing. Charm aside, it takes more than love to make any relationship work and the DeSantis duo would be the first to admit it. Over the years, challenges in the industry have made survival as a group increasingly difficult. By extension, running a band that can have as many as 18 members on any given job could easily be called grueling.
However, the steady challenge has also been a steady joy for the elder DeSantis, whose optimism has also undoubtedly kept him youthful, “I can’t tell ya much more than I’ve done this for 65 years and enjoyed every minute of it,” he declares. “I’ve loved sharing it with everybody.”
Super Mario
Mario DeSantis started playing piano at age 9. His father, Thomas, taught him as well as other local keyboard kings like Larry Arlotta and Bill DiCosimo of Grupo Pagan. Thomas DeSantis has his own history with Syracuse music: In 1919 he started a music store with Universal Music that opened at 717 N. Salina St., and he later headed a local group named The Venetian Gondoliers, who all played mandolins, mandcellos and mandobasses, and had a regular show on WFBL radio. Music has always had a place in the DeSantis DNA.
Thomas taught his son classical piano right up until college, when Mario was accepted as a performance major to study under the prestigious pianist Egon Petri at Cornell University. However, the young DeSantis was quietly contemplative on the way home from the audition in Ithaca, rather than openly thrilled.
“My dad says, ‘You’re not talking,’” DeSantis recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t want to do it. I want to go back to Syracuse. I want to open a music store, start a band and I want to be recognized instead of going out there and competing with the masses. I would rather try to be something as best I can be in my hometown.’ Family was most important.”
So his dad relented, and DeSantis stayed local and graduated as part of the first class at Le Moyne College in 1952 with a degree in business administration. Directly following graduation, he opened his own music school and store, called Thomas DeSantis & Son at 1317 S. Salina St. At this point, the DeSantis Orchestra had taken shape and DeSantis was using logic he gained from his other love, baseball (he has a Yankees calendar on his crowded desk), to improve his “team.”
“Someone asked Casey Stengel, ‘How is it that you won five pennants in a row and five World Series in a row?’” DeSantis explains, “And he says, ‘I couldn’t have done it without the players.’ So I went on a mission of hiring the best we could and the product immediately was sustained and improved the integrity of the performance. The rest is history.”
In 1953 DeSantis married Anita Moretti, who had caught his eye nearly a decade earlier. They had performed together with the Pompeian Players, a community-theater group that specialized in Broadway-style musicals; Anita was in the chorus and DeSantis was musical director and pianist for more than 40 years.
When his children, Maria, Tommy, Andrea, Mario Jr. and Joanna, asked years later how the couple met, DeSantis explained, “I was playing piano with the orchestra and mom came out. I looked up on stage and saw mom and I stopped what I was playing and I started playing, ‘{the theme from the movie} Love Story,’” DeSantis romantically recalls, singing part of the tune.
But his children caught his bluff. “Maria says, ‘Dad! It wasn’t even written then!’ And I say, ‘But I played it anyway.’”
Things were moving along well for DeSantis, but about 15 years into the orchestra’s existence he had enough of playing standard arrangements. “I said to Anita, ‘That’s it. I am sick and tired of playing the store-bought arrangements that every band plays,’” DeSantis says. “’The only distinguishing factor is if this guy plays it better than that guy. You all sound the same. Nothing wrong with a Chevy, but I don’t wanna drive a Chevy if everybody else is driving a Chevy.’”
He was on the verge of giving up when he told a friend, Len Carey, who had been a percussionist with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, about his annoyance. Luckily, Carey was able to convince DeSantis to try an alternative: If the generic arrangements were the problem, why not hire someone to write them specifically for the group?
Carey put DeSantis in touch with arranger Jay Owen, who quickly reinvigorated the orchestra. Suddenly the charts were challenging enough to match the musicians’ abilities, and the music was more catered to the instrumentation DeSantis had at any given time. “I explained to him that we couldn’t do a 17-piece orchestra and keep it working here. So I said, ‘I want you to write for 12 and make us sound like 17.’”
Owen, as well as Joe Riposo, longtime alto saxophone player in the orchestra, continue to write charts for the group. But the individualized compositions come at a heavy price, generally five times what normal sheet music would cost. DeSantis had to be smart in figuring ways to compensate. One mode is to incorporate sponsors into the business model, including various banks, companies, individuals, families and small businesses in and around Syracuse who still help fund the orchestra.
“Their impact is immeasurable,” Maria emphasizes. “Without them, a band of this size and production simply could not perform as often as we do.”
Another compensation method, perhaps the most basic, was simply to be
able to deliver a level of product consistently above the competition.
Orchestral Maneuvers
Achieving that level and creating success was and is still tied up in several factors: the caliber of musicians, their willingness to cater their performance to whatever function they are performing at, their high morale and their ability to play a variety of music that spans the 1950s to today, giving them about 900 songs to choose from for any given event. That final factor became especially prominent when Maria took on more responsibility for the business in 1979.
She is the eldest of the DeSantis children and fondly recalls music always being around as she was growing up and always being involved in the family business, especially when her father started yet another program in 1954. There was no instrumental music program for Catholic school students in the diocese until DeSantis began one that operated until 1997. “I worked in dad’s music store as a child putting books together,” she says. “I was always involved. I loved being around the guys back then.”
Maria took up piano lessons when she was 4, although she doesn’t play as much today. She began singing and was heavily involved in musical theater with the Pompeian Players growing up. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that she began with a group, Hot Pocket, as well as the orchestra.
Maria gradually took on larger roles with both the orchestra and her
father’s music businesses, both of which had moved and multiplied: The
South Salina branch moved to 1732 W. Genesee St., changed its name to
DeSantis Music Schoolhouse and opened another location at 411 S. Main
St. in North Syracuse in the 1970s. Then, when Bonne Music in DeWitt
came up for sale in 1985, they bought that 3455 Erie Blvd. E. location
as well. For a time, they owned three school/stores, but downgraded to
one in Fayetteville at 128 W. Genesee St. around the time Maria bought
the school from her father in 1989, a business she already had been
running for 10 years. In 1992, Maria bought the orchestra from her
father, and in 2001 she sold the school, making the band her full-time
business.
Ave Maria
Maria DeSantis’ influence has been pivotal to what the orchestra is today. She’s worked to incorporate a youthful edge, bringing in more contemporary music, funk, rhythm’n’blues and client-picked songs.
“The music changes over the years and over those years we’ve added all kinds of things,” she explains. “I love the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, I think we’re pretty strong in that. The current music, we play depending on the event. We try to choose it keeping in mind who the players are and what they play really well. What the audience wants—our book of charts is almost an audience-driven book. That’s the main selling point of what we’re doing: We’ll learn to play anything. It’s your event. The focus is on you. The spotlight is on you.”
The orchestra members’ ability to be flexible and perform between small groups to a full orchestra, depending on the event, is key. At times, Maria will send out only a pianist and singer, while at others, a group of 15. Sometimes, she’ll send both. When Jennifer DeStefano Stagnitti was married on Oct. 15, 2011, she had worked for months with DeSantis to plan the appropriate music for her day. The result was a brass quintet in the church with two vocal soloists; a harpist, a pianist and jazz trio at the cocktail hour; and a full 15-piece band throughout the entire reception. The music, literally, never stopped.
“Maria got to know my tastes and had ideas and the experience necessary to make it work,” Stagnitti says. “The best way to describe it was ‘utmost professional in nature.’ She was resourceful and approachable and she helped, out of the thousands and thousands of songs there are, narrow them down and put them together in a way to guide the night. It guided the whole wedding.”
High compliments like this are typical for the band, but on the other side of the coin, the DeSantis team has also had to face many individuals and bands with very different attitudes. Some performers would take the approach that, as a hired group, the client is paying for what the band does, with no, or very few, adjustments needed.
“They think we’re foolish,” Maria says. “But it takes more integrity to do what we do. To just put what people request on a CD, they {other groups} don’t take the time to learn it. We do.”
The proof is the band’s 65 solid years of steady bookings and customers that come back, sometimes decades between events. “You think people don’t remember but we have families where their oldest daughter is 45 and their youngest is in their 20s and they come back to you 19 years later,” a wide-eyed Maria says. “That’s the ultimate compliment. Who remembers that far back?”
She also emphasizes that the only way to keep the skillful musicians they hire is to make sure business is steady as well. “How do you keep a band for 65 years?” she prods. “You have to have work! You have to have that much work to have people commit to you.”
The nature of the group allows members time between events, ample notice of each gig and the option to find a replacement if needed. Yet the DeSantis team still needs a reliable stable to cull from to maintain their stellar reputation. The “team” has changed over the years since the outfit began, as Mario DeSantis has seen nearly 80 musicians rotate through, but he’s also seen several stay for decades, including Riposo, director of jazz studies at Syracuse University and a two-time Sammy winner, who has been with the orchestra for nearly 40 years
DeSantis speaks warmly about Riposo, calling him his equal, while others in the group are his “band sons.” “I hold him up as a worldwide authority {on music},” DeSantis says. “I call him Dr. Joe.”
The two talk after every performance, critiquing and always looking for ways they can improve. This camaraderie is part of why Riposo has remained loyal for so many years.
“The band is like a family,” Riposo explains. “Everyone associates like one big, happy family. That’s how it should be. Also, the caliber of musicians he hires: He always has the best. For someone like me, that means a lot.”
But as a primarily jazz-style musician, Riposo also has the challenge of separating what he does with the orchestra with what he does as a jazz musician and composer. The two lines of work are completely at odds, with jazz embodying complete freedom and innovation, whereas the orchestra requires focus on the client’s, rather than the musician’s, desires.
“You function as a family,” Riposo clarifies, in regard to how he rationalizes the difference. “You give up your individuality for the band. There is a mutual respect for each other. You have to keep it separate. If they don’t want bebop, don’t play it. If they like swing, you need to communicate that. Music is a language and you need to be effective in it. If I’m playing avant garde, I need to use that language. It’s the same as speaking. The mark of a good musician is one who can play in character. Musicians need that versatility. I value that.”
Just as Riposo gives of himself for the good of the band, DeSantis understands from a musician’s perspective what they gain in the exchange as well. “There’s a certain excitement for them {the orchestra members}, too,” Mario says. “It’s a two-way street. They are already well-recognized: Joe Whiting, Ronnie Leigh, all those people. But taking them out of their idiom and putting them in front of a big band—when you’re playing with a four-piece band at a club date and then do the work we do when you’re in front of a big band with tuxes—it’s a nice experience and we enjoy it. The band enjoys it.”
The DeSantis Orchestra doesn’t have any specific anniversary plans, although Maria hopes they’ll be able to celebrate with a major event in the fall. Their summer schedule will find them busy, playing events including the Finger Lakes Festival on June 24, a Solvay Geddes concert on June 28 and, interestingly, a concert commemorating the 65th anniversary of Armory Square on Aug. 11. The orchestra also performs annual concerts including the summertime Candlelight Series in Armory Square and a Christmas-themed show each December.
Although Maria DeSantis emphasizes the tremendous amount of work required to plan and coordinate more than 160 events for the various combinations of the orchestra each year, it’s easier since she hired full-time assistant Lisa Gentile in January, and it’s become especially fulfilling in this very meaningful year. Her father is quietly proud, always displaying a sense of wisdom. He holds the group’s accomplishments up, but recognizes the greater importance of his life’s work.
“My dad used to say, ‘When times are tough, people need music more,’” Mario adds.
Maria nods in agreement, “Absolutely.”
For 65 years of rises and falls, great times and tough times, the
DeSantis Orchestra has consistently delivered exactly what people need.
Out of the past: Clockwise from top, Mario DeSantis handles
the paperwork circa 1997; an early image of the DeSantis Orchestra from
around 1950; Maria DeSantis swings with vocalist Keith Condon in 1990;
up, up and away with Maria’s band in 1989; and the program for the
orchestra’s debut
concert, held at Central High School’s Lincoln Auditorium on May 22, 1947.
