[TPIN] New England dance band leader dies at 90

[Peter Sokolowski]

NB: the last time I heard the Herbert band (around 1989) the trumpet section
included Jay Daly, Paul Fontaine, and Greg Hopkins. Note that the famous
Woody Herman early-60s band had many Ted Herbert alums: Bill Chase,
Fontaine, Danny Nolan, Phil Wilson... --Peter

Ted Herbert, big band leader, dead at age 90

May 29, 2006

MANCHESTER, N.H. --The leader of the Ted Herbert Big Band, which played
around New England from the World War II era through the early 1990s, has
died.
 Ted Herbert was 90 when he died at home Saturday night. His daughter said
he had suffered heart problems for years.

Herbert also was a well-known music teacher and owner of a large, downtown
music store, Ted Herbert's Music Mart.

Ted Herbert's Big Band played its last official gig on New Year's Day 1991,
but he came out of retirement six years later to hold a benefit at the
Palace Theater. "Ted Herbert, One More Time" raised $20,000 for a
scholarship in memory of a high school music teacher, Arthur Mirable.

"He was a giant in music education and a giant in the music world," said
former Manchester Mayor Robert Baines, who took trumpet lessons at Ted
Herbert's Music Mart as a boy.

Baines, a former music teacher, said his program benefited from Herbert's
generosity. And Herbert's band played at his wedding.

"He was always giving back. He was a giver, not a taker," said David Seiler,
a professor of music and head of the jazz program at University of New
Hampshire.

Herbert was born Thaddeus Piaseczny and started his band in 1939. He took
the stage name Herbert, based on his mother's maiden name, Herbut, because
his manager warned him his real last name would limit him to polka jobs,
said his son, Thaddeus Piaseczny.

Herbert's band, featuring Herbert on alto sax, was the summer house band at
the Hampton Beach Ballroom and Casino for 26 years. When enthusiasm for big
band music waned, the band continued playing for its now-older fans at the
Danvers Point Yacht Club.

"He just knew how to set the tempo for dancing at different times of the
night," said Jean Gearty, a singer with the band for three years, starting
at age 15.

"When I think of Ted, I think of live music. That's what he was really
about," she said.

Gearty remembers cramming into a DeSoto with Herbert and 17 other band
members as they traveled around New England and New York State, towing their
instruments in a trailer. Like many of the band's singers, she married
another band member, a trend that eventually led Herbert to stop hiring
women singers.

The band launched the careers of big band-leader Bill Chase, studio musician
Bill Berry and trumpeters Robert Turk and Herb Pomeroy, among others. In
1964, six of the seven members of the Woody Herman brass section came from
Herbert's band, Piaseczny said.

Herbert also encouraged the career of another son, who leads the Mark
Herbert Little Big Band, also based in Manchester.

"When downtown Manchester was a ghost town, Ted Herbert was still there. He
was committed to downtown," Baines said.

He also visited schools and encouraged students to play music. He sold and
leased instruments, but when students couldn't make a payment, he worked
with them, Baines said.

He also sponsored the visiting musician for the first University of New
Hampshire Jazz Fest in 1974. The event now draws talent from across the
country.

"He did little things to help people, little things behind the scenes,"
Baines said.

Two years ago, Herbert's family sold the music store to the Music and Arts
Centers of Frederick, Md. They kept the music school and building.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday.

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Information from: New Hampshire Union Leader, http://www.unionleader.com