Back in the early 90s my ex and I
joined forces and built a cabaret act, the type of thing a New York performer
does when he gets tired of waiting for someone else to give him a job. As we poured through material I recalled a tune
I’d heard on one of Lena Horne’s albums. The song was called Joy, and after numerous calls and
letters I tracked down its author, a man named Gerry Niewood, a man who not
only consented to my use of the song, he even sent me a lead sheet, which saved
us a lot of time and expense. He
didn’t know me from Adam but he asked for no credentials, made no demands. That I wanted the song was enough; his
was an unusual act of faith that came at a time when my confidence—in myself,
in my talent—was low. Mr.
Niewood’s song opened the act.
In the Saturday New York Times,
Gerry Niewood’s name stood out as one of the 50 passengers who perished in the
crash of Continental Flight 3407 when it went down near Buffalo on Thursday
night. Since then I’ve read a few
tributes on the Web (Mr Niewood was a jazz musician of renown on his way to a performance with Chuck Mangione and the Buffalo Philharmonic). Here are my words of thanks to a kind, talented man who gave
me a leg up when I was up against it.
RIP.