Weighing Every Gesture For Charity

One of the many jokes on the Jack Benny show involved his mediocre violin playing. But like almost everything about his radio and TV character, it was a canard.

In interviews in later years, he was alternately proud of his playing and regretful that he gave it up for comedy. Regardless, he used the violin, along with his huge popularity, for concerts to raise money for symphony orchestras, musicians’ pension funds and venues falling into expensive disrepair.

But how well did he play?

The concertmaster of one California symphony weighed in. This story was published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel of August 29, 1971.

Jack’s wife generally didn’t travel with him to benefits (shopping in London and Paris was a different thing). You can get the idea from this story why she didn’t.

Maestro George Barati Talks About His Friend Jack Benny
"Anyone who has worked with Jack Benny as I have, learns how much serious effort goes into being funny." George Barti, new music director of the Santa Cruz County Symphony, was reminiscing about his long friendship with the famous comedian.
The two got together recently at San Francisco Airport where Benny, en route from Las Vegas to a command performance in Sacramento, joined his friend for publicity photos for their joint appearance with the Santa Cruz orchestra September 18 a[t] De Anza College, Cupertino.
Quipps Barti, "Jack stepped off the plane in the early morning looking, if not 39, fresh and not a day over 50 instead of his calendar age of 77."
Their friendship began over 11 years ago when they first performed together in Honolulu and has been active ever since.
"People always ask me, ‘How well does Jack Benny really play the violin?’” says Barti. "I always answer that playing violin may well be one of the most meaningful things in Mr. Benny's life. He was, after all, a violinist to begin with. I'm convinced he could have made a go of it. It is almost unbelievable that a man in his 60s could take up a stringed instrument again. But with his typical determination and will power, he now practices every day. As a result he now has a good tone, fair technique, and excellent bow arm, and, possibly most important, he phrases well. He takes it completely seriously—and therein lies the basis of his being so funny: he tries but does not QUITE succeed. It's true that he couldn't play so badly if he didn't play so well."

The comedian's renown as one of the greatest of our time is no accident, according to Barti. "He is a meticulous artist who prepares, plans, weighs every work, every gesture."
Having performed with him and watched many of his performances over the years, Barti says that is is [sic] when Benny appears most relaxed and spontaneous that he is in reality most studied.
"That inimitable perfect 'timing' of Benny's which is his hallmark is, like inspiration, 10 percent instinct and 90 per cent practice and perfectionism. At the same time he can improvise like an angel. Of course he has script writers and in Hollywood where relationships wither fast, Jack's have lasted throughout his career, testimony to the respect and affection accorded the man. But he has natural wit as well. We were with him one evening when he was spotted in the audience by a colleague on stage. Completely out of the blue he was pulled on the stage where the stream of wry, in-context spontaneous [sic] remarks had us all aching with laughter."
Barati says he had an experience with Benny's ad lib ability himself. They had rehearsed down to the last lift of the eyebrow two, three, and four times. And then again. "First the two of us, then with key orchestra members since we are all part of the hilariously funny act he does in these famous 'serious' concerts. Patiently he re-explained to them what he'd already told me. Over and over, until by concert time everything was down pat.
"Came the concert, Benny walked on stage, as planned with the elegant dignity of a true virtuoso. But then unplanned he walked past his spot as soloist straight up to me, looking into my eyes with that famous haughty blue-eyed stare . . . and I almost broke up the show with uncontrollable laughter."
Barati says that Benny cherishes his outrageously funny act with symphony orchestras and the life among concert musicians that goes with it. With infinite relish he mentions as friends Heifitz, Stern, Piatigorsky and the many symphony conductors for whose orchestras he has raised over five million dollars. Benny speaks with true awe of what he considers his most precious experience—playing with Casals.
Benny is not, when off stage, a funny man, notes Barati. "He is too busy observing everything as possible material. It is the unerring eye for the human situation, mainly in which he mocks himself, that has made him timeless. There is no generation gap because he identifies, not with persons of one age or another, but with human beings."
He also is the first to appreciate humor in others, says the maestro of the Santa Cruz County Symphony. "When he and Isaac Stern and other artists organized a huge performance to save Carnegie Hall (and save it they did) I sent Jack a long telegram at that performance. It was a mock critique somewhat as follows: ‘Jack, I'm glad that after years of assaulting the stage with your out-of-tune fiddling, you're now trying to SAVE one with it. However, I'm afraid YOUR fiddling might bring Carnegie down instead. Please TRY and play in tune.’
"Benny, who loves a joke on himself, read the telegram from the Carnegie Hall stage that night. The next day every gossip columnist in the country carried the text verbatim."
Mary Livingstone, Jack's famous partner and wife, goes along with his concert career with less enthusiasm than he. At "21" following the Carnegie Hall concert she looked around at the famous concert performers seated at her table and said wistfully, "Sometimes I long for the old days when we went out with Jackie Gleason!"
Barati says of Benny, "You not only learn a great deal when you work with a genius like Jack but also much is revealed in his friendships. Socially Jack is humble, unassuming and still retains a remarkably childlike appreciation of life. Our girls adore him because he is affectionate and interested. Everything he does reflects the generosity which is symbolized by the donation of his time and talent to projects such as ours the concert on September 18 to benefit Montalvo Center for the Arts and the Santa Cruz County Symphony."

1,800 packed the Flint Center at De Anza College on September 18, 1971. “Delights audiences as usual,” read the headline in the Sentinel the following Monday. The paper didn’t reveal how much the concert took in, but some people paid $500 for a show and dinner with Jack. As he put it to reporters the night before the concert, “I like good music and I like symphony orchestras and I hate to see ‘em go to pieces...Rich people get sick of being asked for $100 for so many causes so I believe in asking them for $500 to break the monotony.”

By that point, his various shows had raised $5,000,000. And he was still performing just months before his death.