RSS 2.0 FeedThursday, November 17, 2011, Merrick Life
Versatility keeps this musician entertaining
Meet Ted Caragol.
Merrick resident Ted Caragol’s life reads like an excerpt from a Nat Hentoff profile in jazz: learned to play piano from Lenny Tristano, just upstairs from saxophonist Lee Konitz; socialized with Pearl Bailey; wrote a song for actress Lee Remmick; talked music with Bill Evans; sat with Oscar Peterson – who invited him up to Canada to train, Carmen McCrae and saxophonist Eric Dolphy; and roomed with Blood, Sweat and Tears co-founder, trumpeter Dick Halligan.
Surprisingly, people in the community can also hear Mr. Caragol play every Sunday morning – as organist during Bellmore Methodist United Church services, where he also presides over music selections sung during Sunday services.
He doubles as the church’s choir director, where he surely had an influence over his daughter during her days singing in the Calhoun choir.
It is as a member of the American Society for Composers And Producers (ASCAP) that Mr. Caragol came to this newspaper’s attention, however. Recently, he had two songs recorded for an album of 9/11 songs released by Hilltop Records.
“I was approached by Hilltop Records about a new CD project, “In Remembrance,” dedicated to all those who perished or were injured in the terrorist attacks.”
He said that because he had witnessed the second plane hit the World Trade Center, it was both deeply moving and shocking to see the towers fall.
“Years have not diminished the memory, and I was glad for the opportunity to write two songs for the 10th anniversary,” he continued.
“I thought it was great that they accepted the songs,” he added.
“These are songs that speak to and about patriotism,” Mr. Caragol said. “I felt a responsibility, when asked, to write them.”
Musical background
Mr. Caragol went to Sewanhaka High School in the early-to-mid ’60s, where he learned to play the clarinet.
He also managed to squeeze in learning to play the organ – which would help him later in his musical career. His father was a village judge in Floral Park.
After high school he attended Ithaca College, where he received a Bachelor of music degree. While at Ithaca, he took lessons for three years with the incomparable Lenny Tristano, on Front Street.
“We used to jam a lot on Front Street,” he told this newspaper, because there were musicians everywhere. “Dick Halligan of Blood, Sweat and Tears was a roommate of mine,” he said with a smile.
Drafted into the Army, when higher ranking officials learned he had talents as a musician, he was instead assigned to the Army band, never seeing combat duty.
But after his service was up he found himself working for the Town of Hempstead, within the Town Clerk’s office. It was from this position at the town he retired in 2007.
A chance meeting
He tells the story of walking out of the town building one day, and running into and recognizing an old college friend from Front Street in Ithaca, Greg Raffer.
Mr. Raffer’s father happened to be in charge of talent at the Nassau Coliseum and was looking for an organist. Mr. Raffer asked Mr. Caragol if he played the organ...
For the next four years Mr. Caragol held sway as the chief organist at the Nassau Coliseum, playing until the New York Islanders won their last Stanley Cup in May 1983.
He kept everyone in the building entertained at all times. “Whenever [Islanders player] Wayne Merrick scored, I would play ‘Nobody Does It Better,’ ” he said.
Whenever the Islanders lost a game – which was rare during those championship days, he would play “Memories,” for example.
“Light My Fire” was his favorite song to play throughout the evening whenever the Atlanta Flames cames to town.
“I had the opportunity to be creative and play the songs I wanted to play,” he said of those days. “Today, music is played a different way,” he added.
During his years with the town, he also wrote a song for both then-Hempstead Town Supervisor Al D’Amato and Nassau County Executive Fran Purcell entitled “I Want A Life Worth Living,” for their re-election campaigns.
For now, he’s focused on showing how he can play “Blue Rhondo” by Dave Brubeck – but only after he met the jazz giant and asked him how it was done.
“When I met with Mr. Brubeck, I asked him how he could play that sweeping sound from his left hand that no one else had been able to play,” he told this newspaper.
Mr. Brubeck compared his left hand to Mr. Caragol’s hand, and the difference, said Mr. Caragol, “was enormous.”
Asked what made Thelonious Monk the jazz legend he would become, Mr. Caragol said that each jazz player was always pushing the envelope, trying to invent something new. Monk’s “claim to fame” was that he infused “dissonance” into his playing, which worked, and which no one else had ever done before with consistency – and panache.
