From the Dept. of Self-promotion: continuing with this Sunday series leading up the publication of Arno’s biography on April 19th.
Today is the fairly obscure title, Whiteman’s Burden, published in 1933 by Viking Press. Written by the silent film actress, Margaret Livingston Whiteman & writer, Isabel Leighton. The back cover, shown just below the cover scan, nicely explains (using by today’s standards some un-PC language) what this book is all about. What it doesn’t tell you is that Paul Whiteman’s orchestra made a huge impression on young Arno, mostly because of Whiteman’s banjo player, Mike Pingatore. While still at Hotchkiss, Arno got to see Whiteman’s orchestra play in Manhattan and meet Mr. Pingatore, eventually buying a banjo exactly like his idol’s. Arno’s Hotchkiss yearbook entry includes this line: Pingatore has one like this.
Whiteman had an interesting career, both in music, on the radio, and in film. I’ll always think of him as the fellow who introduced Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue to the world in 1924, with Gershwin himself onstage at the piano.
The illustration at the bottom of the post (one of a dozen Arno drawings in the book) is of Maurice Chevalier.
