writings
of Peter Tammer |
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Alfredo |
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Joe asked me why I call you Bambino? I told him about a movie
light I bought for the College while I was at Swinburne. It was an Italian-made
movie light which was twice as bright as other lights of the same size. He
seemed to enjoy this explanation of your nickname.
I had a practise session with Joe
before the afternoon got under way. The people who came to the Drop-in on
Sunday gave us a big accolade. Joe’s great portable Wurlitzer playing certainly
helped me over the scratchy parts; with my fog horn I can’t get the last high
notes like Pavarotti, or Mario Lanza, or even Dino Martini. It was all in good
fun and the others loved it. One, who clearly was inspired by my effort but who
must remain unnamed, has even threatened to learn a French song which is a particular
favourite of mine and sing it at a Drop-in in the future! I can’t bear the
thought that I have started something terrible and will be repaid in full when
he presents that great French song with terrible pronunciation, in an Aussie
accent, and out of tune to boot!
So Bambino, why is this song so
important to me? I don’t think I ever told you how it came into my life. I was
only about ten years old, maybe I should say ten years young, when my parents
met an Italian man named Alfredo and his German wife, Gerda. As you know our
home was a cosmopolitan home by the standards of Melbourne in 1953. Many of our
visitors were recent arrivals from various parts of Europe and the Middle East.
All were welcome at our house, as well as at Uncle Victor’s and all of Dad’s
brothers homes.
I have no idea how Mum and Dad met
Alfredo and Gerda, it could have been by Dad meeting Alfredo via work, or Mum
meeting Gerda via hairdressing. I just don’t know. In the case of Mr. and Mrs.
Pelliconi, they certainly met Mr. Pelliconi through his wife who was one of
Mum’s clients, and that is how I came to know all about the mandolin, with the
Italian style gourd-shaped sound-box rather than the American version with a
flat banjo-like sound box, which I was learning at the Victoria Banjo Club.
We were living in our new house in
Venice Street, Box Hill, where we moved after we left Belgrave. A strange thing
Bambino, there were three other streets coming off Elgar Road with Italian
names, Piedmont, Verona and Naples Streets. I don’t think I’ve told you that
before. Byron Street and Milton Crescent were just down the hill near the tram
terminus at Wattle Park.
I was going to Marcellin College in
Canterbury at that time, my younger brother John also went there, my sister
Maureen went to a convent school; my younger sister Gabrielle was only about 2
years old.
We often had a lot of visitors over
for lunch on Sundays in those days, Dad’s brothers, his uncles and aunts, Mum’s
brother Philip and his wife Olive, Mum’s sister, Auntie Monica and Uncle Jack
with their large family, and many strangers like Alfredo and Gerda who had
recently arrived from Egypt. Also, John Pelliconi, his wife and their two
beautiful daughters, who, despite their fine Italian surname, had migrated to
Melbourne from Egypt. The Pelliconis spoke four languages and John Pelliconi
played the mandolin like an angel. He was a large rotund man with chubby
fingers. I’m being polite Bambino, they were
really fat fingers, like someone else I know, but you wouldn’t believe how well
he played those ‘classical’ melodies on such a tiny instrument. I think it was
through his playing that I first heard Vivaldi, Scarlatti and Corelli, as well
as some of the popular songs of the day.
Anyhow, although Mr. Pelliconi had
some influence on my life it was Alfredo who made the greatest impression upon
me.
As you would know Bambino, an Italian
man meeting and marrying a German girl only a few years after the war was a
most unusual thing, especially now that I’ve learned so much about the wartime
experience of these two nations from films like “Rome, Open City”, but also
from docos and other readings. They were a handsome couple. Excuse me Bambino
dear, an example of ‘litotes’... I’m selling them short. He was extremely
handsome and she was a stunner! At that time in the early fifties they had what
I would now call ‘film star’ looks. Alfredo accompanied himself on his guitar
singing popular songs from that period, “Mamma son tanto felice”, and “Torna a
Surriento”. He sang really well, and in those days I thought he played very
well too, but now I realise he only strummed the few chords which were
necessary for those songs in a popular style. His guitar technique was very
basic compared with John Pelliconi playing his mandolin. But when Alfredo sang
he strummed with very good rhythm, and if he played music from South America he
used a tango or rumba rhythm which would have been very unusual for me to hear
in those days. I was gob-smacked!
Looking back from where I am now, I’m
sure he was a most influential person in my musical life; not the most, because there were so many,
before and since, but my love of music was deeply enriched by Alfredo’s songs,
his style of singing, and his guitar playing which was so new for me at the
time.
Mum and Dad only kept in touch with Alfredo and Gerda for a
few years. I don’t recall them visiting us after we moved to South Caulfield
when I was about 13 years old. I’m fairly certain I never saw either of them
after we moved from the appropriately named Venice Street, Box Hill.
Then my musical life meandered down
many new pathways, I was drawn by so many influences. As you know Bambino, I’m
a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. I don’t mind that at all, I like being
Jack. But had I not encountered Alfredo and his guitar, I may never have
experimented with making a guitar (well, two guitars actually!) for playing
folk songs, then learning to play Flamenco to accompany my sister Maureen’s
Spanish dancing, and eventually, classical guitar inspired by hearing Segovia
on radio... yes Bambino, “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” first heard on the radio in
the kitchen when I was about 17... and the rest, as they say, is history.
The years rolled by. In the fullness
of time I had become a middle-aged person making films and teaching at
Swinburne, hardly ever playing the guitar. Just mucking around and playing for
friends at parties, not really learning anything new, not expanding upon what I
had learned up to the time I was 23 or 24. Very few new songs, and no new classical
or Flamenco pieces. I was in my musical dormancy. The eruption which you have
witnessed only commenced in 2008 when Ina and Graeme introduced me to the Irish
Nights at Trentham and since then I’ve learned more than one hundred new songs
or pieces which I would never have dreamed of playing before they persuaded me
to bring my guitar along. So the last Friday of February 2008 was an extremely
important date in my calendar.
About thirty years ago I was visiting
my Mum and Dad after finishing work at Swinburne for the week. I had made a
habit of calling in for dinner on Friday evenings. As I was deeply into the ‘diary-observational’ style of filming
in those days, occasionally I would take a camcorder with me. VHS camcorders
offered an opportunity which shooting on film did not: compared with the weight
and bulk of movie cameras, the noise they made, as well as the expense of film
and processing, video was the go! I was ‘filming’ Mum in her kitchen washing up the interminable dishes at the sink, the late
afternoon light filtering through the lacy curtains over her ageing face. I
can’t recall what she was talking about when we began, but then she turned to
me and asked me if I remembered Alfredo. I said “Yes Mum, of course I do, he
was a wonderful musician. I liked him very much”. She paused, and then said “I
heard from …. Veenie... (one of Mum’s childhood friends) that he died the other
day... (pause, long pause) …. he was killed in an accident at work.... he was
crushed by a forklift truck”. I was shaking, convulsively, my hand-held
camera-work went downhill fast. I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t bear to
think that the life of this beautiful man who had inspired me so, who had given
me his wonderful gift of music, had just been snuffed out... that Alfredo had
been squashed like a fly.
I have often thought about Alfredo
since that time. Dad has passed away, Mum also,
and my sister Maureen, who opened up the world of Flamenco to me died recently.
She was very young!
Both sides of our family have longevity
in their genes, many of our uncles and aunts living into their 90’s, but
Maureen died at 62 years of age. However, there is something quite different
about the death of Alfredo. He did not make it to old age. He did not succumb
to illness. His life was ended suddenly, unexpectedly, most brutally. I hope it
was instantaneous for him, not a lingering death. I know none of the details. I
often wondered if it might not have been an accident?
These are things I will probably
never know. Who could know if he had an ‘enemy’ at work? Possibly someone who
didn’t like wogs. I remember that once he told my father about guys stealing
tools hidden in their kit bags as they signed off from work for the day. He was
obviously angry at them for that, it is one of those very few memories which
made such an impression upon me nearly sixty years ago when I was so young and
so impressionable. Other than his music I have no other memories of Alfredo...
those wonderful Italian songs he gave me have left an indelible memory which I
will cherish until the last day.
That is why I sang “Torna a
Surriento” at our Drop-in on Sunday. I wish you had been there Bambino. I think
you would have enjoyed it.
Ciao,
pt
2017
FOOTNOTES/LINKS
“Torna a Surriento” (Dean Martin)
“Mamma” (Andrea Bocelli)
“Mamma” (Gigli)
“Recuerdos de La Alhambra” (Segovia)
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