The Music Plays On

By Larrywomack.com

Al died January 9, 1988.

The music plays on.

Alberto Dominic Deleonibus had been my blues brother for about twenty years. During the first eight years of our friendship, we were players in my jazz-oriented dance combo that worked the country club circuit around Nashville, Tennessee.

Twelve years earlier, however, I stopped being a musician and sold my instruments, never to play professionally again. Of all the guys with whom I had played, only Al remained a close friend.

We didn’t see one another often, but each contact was usually fun-filled and upbeat. Most anyone who came in contact with Al would say the same thing. He had a way of making those around him feel good with his cheery, affable, laid-back Italian personality and with his bouncy, rich, bluesy-piano style.

When Al and I performed together, our beings connected in a way that neither of us ever experienced with any other musician. It was like one knew what the other was going to do. Like we’d rehearsed and arranged our improvisations. Sometimes we even amazed ourselves at the complexity of our improvised creations and laughed out loud.

About a year prior to Al’s death, I happened on a local college radio station playing some great straight ahead and contemporary jazz and began buying music and listening for the first time in ten years or more.

When Al would come by, I’d play my latest favorite for him.

Al made a living for himself, his ex-wife, and son as a junior high band director and supplemented his teacher’s salary with local dance jobs. Though we mostly talked music, the conversation would eventually turn to Al’s eclectic personal life. 

Al was a procrastinator of the highest order. He was probably the most well intentioned person I’ve ever met, but he always felt guilty about his lack of follow-through on the things that he thought to be important—career moves, financial responsibility, and family matters. Al always expressed shame that he hadn’t accomplished more—advanced his career or become a better husband and father.

A year before he died, he showed up at my house one Saturday with his first synthesized instrument, a Yamaha DX7 keyboard. Al was a purest about music and uncomfortable, at first, with an electric keyboard. We fiddled around with it, making it sound like a string section, an electric bass, and drums as well as a piano. It was great fun.

Al suggested that I buy an electronic drum machine and a tape recorder so we could make music together – relive the old times. I bought the equipment and every other Saturday we’d play and record multiple tracks. We eventually created a tape of seven jazz instrumentals that we gave to our friends. Some of my business acquaintances didn’t even know that I once played and sang jazz.

Al and I had a great time.

On December 19, 1987, Al called to wish me a Merry Christmas and tell me he was going to a family gathering in Pittsburgh. He suggested that we record some of my vocals for posterity. He said for me to pick out a few tunes over the holidays for us to record when he returned.

On the second Sunday in January, I was sitting in front of the stereo selecting songs to record, when an old musician friend called.

She said, “I had to tell you how sorry I am that your good friend Al Deleonibus has died. I know how close you two were.”

I was shocked! She said the notice was in the paper. I saw that Al had died of a heart attack and that the funeral service was to be held the next day in a small Episcopal church where Al occasionally attended and where his ex-wife, Dottie, played the organ.

I drove the 30 minutes to the church with my radio blaring a new jazz tape that I had planned to play for Al. When I turned the corner to find a place to park, I was awestruck.

The street was lined with cars as far as I could see. People were crowded at the entrance to the church. There must have been over three hundred people there to pay their respects to my friend. The church could hold no more than a hundred. I couldn’t even get close enough to hear the music.

Al, as a teacher and a player, had touched so many more people than he had ever imagined. His warmth, gift, and charm had made the music live for so many. I thought of those self-deprecating conversations and wished he could have witnessed this scene in life.

The music plays on.