Benny the Motor City Maestro

Besides making millions of people laugh, Jack Benny raised millions for symphony orchestras, venues and musicians’ pensions funds.

He was honoured in return, as John Gardiner of the Windsor Star reported on Oct. 29, 1959.

Jack Benny, appearing as violin soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Friday, Nov. 13, at the Ford Auditorium in a spectacular benefit concert for the orchestra, will receive the Laurel Leaf Award of the American Composers Alliance for his outstanding contributions to such organizations eight days later in Washington, D. C.
The Laurel Leaf presentation will be made at the Third Annual President's Ball of the National Press Club in Washington by Ben Weber, A.C.A. president, who will be introduced by William Schuman, Juilliard School of Music president.
Benny has raised more than $1 1/2 millions for the leading American symphony orchestras by appearing with them as soloist. His Detroit performance under Paul Paray will find him playing Sarasate's "Gypsy Airs" and the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in minor.
Tickets for the Detroit benefit concert are priced at $5, $10, $25, $50 and $100.
Among previous recipients of the Laurel Leaf Award, presented for distinguished service to music in America, are Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, Martha Graham, Howard Hanson and Howard Mitchell.

If you’ve read any reviews of Jack’s concerts, you’ll know it was pretty much the same act, just like in vaudeville in the ‘20s when you’d have a routine and take it from city to city. Reviews are, generally, the same, too. Music critics enjoyed Jack’s performances, as much as the audience, it seems. My guess is they were pleased that Jack respected classical music, and did not ridicule it. He ridiculed himself, just like he had done on radio and TV all those years.

Here’s what the Detroit Free Press critic had to say the following day.

When Benny Stood Up to Play
BY J. DORSE CALLAGHAN
Free Press Music Critic
Sixty thousand dollars is not to be laughed at, but Jack Benny in his role as a violin virtuoso definitely is.
The dollars came from the sale of tickets at a top of $100 each for Benny's appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Friday night at the Ford Auditorium.
They went to swell the orchestra's maintenance fund.
And everyone who laid out the price of a ticket was amply repaid. The Benny adventure was a hilarious event all the way.
Even conductor Paul Paray and concertmaster Mischa Mischakoff revealed unsuspected gifts for comedy.

THE FACT that Benny is more than a mere fiddler kept the comedy turn within good taste. Most of the fun, in fact, was completely musical.
We had the good fortune to experience it twice. Once in the early morning at rehearsal when Benny laid out the comedy routine, and again in the evening at the formal presentation. The big laughs involved Benny and several members of the orchestra. When the comedian began to falter in his performance of a brilliant passage in the Sarasate Ziegunerweisen," Mischakoff gallantly came to his rescue.
The indignant Benny waited out the display of violin fireworks by Mischakoff in splendid indignation.
At the next pause he held a whispered conference with Paray, who then banished Mischakoff from the stage. Mischakoff, the picture of dejection, moved into the wings.
SIMILARLY, Gordon Staples later came to Benny's "rescue." This time, though, the assistant concertmaster banished himself.
A like fate overtook percussionist Arthur Cooper for his temerity in sounding too frantically on the cymbals.
Competition wasn't entirely eliminated, however.
When a stage hand brought in a music stand for Benny, the comedian handed over his Strad.
The "stagehand" immediately flashed through a dazzling set of finger exercises and handed the instrument back to Benny.
It was an incident without words, in the best Benny tradition.
BENNY, in his project of raising money for maintenance funds of major orchestras, broke all Detroit symphony box office records with a net of $59,000. This ran his contribution for the week to more than $100,000, including an appearance with another orchestra.
Benny's part in the proceedings otherwise included his impersonation of the concert styles of four world famous violinists, and an "intimate" discussion with the audience.

The only thing that marred the Benny visit was beyond his control. Isaac Stern had a recital in at the Masonic Temple in Detroit the same evening. Stern and Benny were friends and I’m sure the conflict must have bothered both of them.

The two of them performed together at the National Press Club appearance mentioned above. Washington columnist Lucian Warren took their friendship as the angle of his column on November 26, though he didn’t mention the Detroit scheduling problem.

FEUD—Guests at another recent Press Club function were treated to a mock between Jack Benny, the comedian, and Isaac Stern, world renowned violinist.
Introducing the audience to a couple of highly classical violin solos, Stern said he wished to do so “before this program disintegrates as it is bound to do when Jack Benny appears a little later.”
The laughter which greeted this sally prompted Benny to shout from the audience: “Quit making them laugh. That’s my department.”
When Benny did appear, the pair staged a violin duet of the “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” with Stern doing the intricate rhythms and Benny interjecting an occasional simple note or two.
A moment later Benny played the violin with Vice President Richard Nixon as the piano accompanist. Benny said that the vice president had demanded “equal time” after Benny’s recent performance with another famous piano player, former President Truman. The Benny-Nixon selection—“The Missouri Waltz.”

One of the magnificent things about Benny is he continued these charity concerts year after year after year, even after he turned 80 in 1974. The only reason he stopped was because of the pancreatic cancer that claimed his life at the end of the year. He had concert-lovers laughing and applauding to the very end.