Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,787

This is the grave of Torrie Zito.

Born in 1933 in Utica, New York, Salvatore Zito grew up in an Italian-American family, in case the name wasn’t clear enough on that point. He mostly taught himself to play piano and started getting jobs in clubs as a teenager. This was mostly accompanying others. He moved to New York in the mid 1950s and took piano classes there. He got to know Marion Evans, the arranger. We probably don’t talk enough about arranging in our music history, largely because rock and roll kind of killed it due to the small group nature of it and the Dylan-esque Cult of the Man with a Guitar. But arranging was critical to the orchestra-based and big band music of the day and remains important in a lot of music to the present. He was a good pianist too and styled himself after Bud Powell, so he played around a lot.

Zito went all in on arranging and started getting to know jazz musicians. He became a go-to guy on arranging for albums where jazz musicians wanted strings. His first big album was with James Moody on 1961’s Moody with Strings. Then Bobby Darin hired him for Love Swings, his album from later that year. By the mid-60s he was a go-to guy working with some of the biggest names in music. In 1966, he worked with Perry Como on Lightly Latin (lightly indeed) and then in 1967 with Herbie Mann on the creatively titled The Herbie Mann String Album. All of this led him to be the arranger for The Perry Como Show.

Probably Zito’s longest running collaboration was with Tony Bennett. They did over a dozen albums together, starting in 1967 and continuing until 2013. Bennett later said that Zito “gave me the greatest musical education I ever had.” Now, that might just be Bennett being the total class act he always was, or it might be true. I am sure Zito did give him a heck of a musical education and I am sure a lot of other people did too. And I am sure Bennett returned the favor and educated those guys too. From 1973-79, Zito and Bennett worked together almost exclusively.

Zito got the attention of rock and roll stars too. He arranged the strings on John Lennon’s “Imagine,” among other successes. Over time though, Zito’s biggest interest became arranging ballads for orchestra, moving away from jazz and pop as he aged. In a 1974 interview, he stated, “When I got really attuned to the orchestral thing, I was greatly influenced by the Impressionists…Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, etc. and somehow I tried to marry that within the pop thing.” Sinatra heard a lot of this work and brought him to arrange some of the songs for his version of musical Skyscraper, from 1965.

Zito would remain a big time arranger for the rest of his life. He did a lot of arranging for Doc Severinsen’s band on The Tonight Show. Believe it or not, Severinsen lives, now 97 years old. Among his later work included with Carly Simon on her album Film Noir and George Michael on his Songs from the Last Century. Basically, he got a lot of work doing those albums in the 90s and 00s when pop stars wanted to sound like they were from the 40s. I’ve always found that a bit of an artistic desert, but hey, if they can sell work based on that, good for them, and of course it got not only Zito but a lot of musicians work too.

Unfortunately, Zito really loved him some smoking and that’s what killed him, in 2009. He was 76 years old when he died of emphysema.

Torrie Zito is buried in Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Manhattan, New York.

Zito never did win a Grammy but he was nominated for Best Arrangement (Accompanying Vocalists) in 1969 for Tony Bennett’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” Incidentally, Randy Newman was nominated in that same category that year for arranging “Is That All There Is” for Peggy Lee. Double incidentally, Todd Haynes is presently making a film about Peggy Lee with Michelle Williams in the title role. Anyway, if you want this series to visit some people nominated for Grammys in 1969, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Peggy Lee is in Los Angeles and Johnny Cash is in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.