THE HERB STORY
By Christian Josi
It’s 4:13 AM here at the beach and I’ve been up since about 1. I’ve read a bunch of articles, and had a lively 45 minute chat with a friend in LA. All the while, I’ve been listening to the SIRIUS Radio Met Opera channel to help calm my heart and my nerves (pro-tip: works like magic).
Fresh health scares do that to you. You can sleep a little, but only enough, it seems, to get what your body really, truly needs. Then you just wake up and lie in bed for hours freaking, sweating, gripping an occasional cat who comes to check on you. That period is really the worst. It feels like the night never ends. So tonight I simply tried something different.
It’s the time when your world is at its quietest, and if you are lucky enough to live at a beach and on a marina, the sole sounds in the air are those of birds, water, and clacking lines on sailboats that sound like cowbells. Not to mention the occasional padding around of the aforementioned cats. Music goes well with all of that, and right now it’s Pavarotti.
I have heart failure and just lost my insurance. There are moments of pure rage that come with that (and insomnia) but there are wistful moments as well. You find yourself reflective, of course and you start remembering the great moments and stories of your life with vivid clarity that almost make you feel like you are living them once more.
I love great stories. I love people who know how to tell great stories. I wish I was better at it than I am, but I’ll try to tell one now, spurred by insomnia, calm air, and Luciano on the radio. Purely for amusement purposes, unlike the kind of stuff I usually write.
May 17th will be the seventh anniversary of the passing of a true American Icon. Herbert Breslin, the “the brash publicist and manager who helped fashion a supremely gifted tenor named Luciano Pavarotti into a superstar but who later wrote a biting memoir about their 36-year relationship.”
I’m a publicist and a reluctant, sometime music producer now so I feel a different kind of kinship with this eccentric and brilliant man, rest his soul, than I did when our paths crossed at a time when I was just a struggling Jazz singer literally walking the streets of New York City, brashly telling various music industry executives why they needed me in their lives. Music people like Harry Connick’s early-on guy DJ McLachlan, the late Frank Military, Frank Sinatra’s longtime friend and protector from Warner Bros., and the late Dr. George Butler From Columbia-then-Sony Jazz knew me and my music much better than they ever really wanted to, I think. I was brought to New York from California by Mel Torme’s musical director and I was mildly cocky about it. To say the least.
Anyway, I don’t remember how Herb ended up on my radar. I think it was a documentary about Pavarotti or perhaps Pavarotti’s memoir. Whatever it was, I got it into my head that the brash manager of the greatest singer in the world would be delighted to meet me.
It was a spring morning 1993, I think, on the West Side of Manhattan. Young Elvis here, armed with his freshly produced CD and freshly pressed suit, walked right in the front door of a skyscraper, hit the right elevator button, and entered a sweatshop-like office — an open-floor plan kind of thing — announcing to the entirely uninterested staff that I was in to see Herb. (Can you imagine trying that in our post 9/11 word in New York? Yikes).
As some of the staff nearer to the door than others gently tried to persuade me to…well…fuck off, He emerged from an office demanding to know what the hell was going on.
At this point, the entire office was staring at me as he walked up and started to quiz me. “What the hell is this?” he asked as I handed him my debut record. Now, staring into his eyes, I got a lot less cocky and a lot more nervous. “It’s my album. I wanted to bring you a copy.”
The office staff at this point had started to stare into their gigantic 1993 computer screens knowing that I was probably about to be verbally eviscerated by this very intimidating figure whom they all obviously knew far too well had little time for bullshit.
“Why are you here? What am I supposed to do with this?” He demanded, looking at my CD. I think there was an f-bomb as well.
“Well here’s the thing,” I said finding some confidence from God knows where. “You made and represent the greatest Opera singer who has ever lived. I am the greatest Jazz singer who has ever lived. I just thought you might want to own another genre. Sorry if I was wrong.”
Following a very uncomfortable pause Herb turned to his staff and bellowed “Are you hearing this? We have before us the greatest Jazz singer who ever lived! Stand, all of you!”
“Who wants to be in charge of managing the greatest Jazz singer who ever lived?”
When there were no takers, he took me aside.
“First off, Jazz is shit, OK? I exclusively represent Luciano Pavarotti. You have massive balls walking into my office like this. But I love it. No, I cannot be your manger, but I wish you all the best and while I’m probably not going to listen to this CD, I’m going to keep it because I kind of don’t doubt you. So go forth and prosper, kid.”
So I did just that. And I prospered well enough and through four albums to not want to do it anymore, at least as a performer. And I do believe that there are in fact a few people not related to me and mostly in the Phillippines who actually think I am the greatest Jazz singer who ever lived (Thanks, man!). But every time I hear Pavarotti’s voice, or every time I hear the name Herb Breslin mentioned, I remember that afternoon, and I remember that there were people working very successfully in the music business back in the day, like Herb, who weren’t complete animals even though maybe they had the reputations for it.
One more thing: I saw him one more time maybe six months later. My wife at the time was having a baby shower for our first child so I was invited to leave the house for the day. Turned out Luciano Pavarotti was giving a recital at the Met coinciding exactly with the time of the shower. So I got a single ticket, one of the standing room ones, and upon arrival I hear a voice booming from a man bustling down a stairway. “Behold the greatest Jazz singer on earth!” the voiced boomed to a lobby full of puzzled opera-goers. Herbert Breslin slapped me on the back, asked how I was doing, and told me he was off to tell Luciano his competition was in the building.
And that’s the Herb story. God bless him.
Christian Josi is a leading communications advisor, a veteran of center-right / libertarian politics and non-profit management, an occasional music and documentary film producer, and a frequent columnist for a variety of publications. He is the Founder and Managing Director of C. Josi & Company, a global communications resource firm based in Virginia Beach and Washington.
