Tornader: The Band That Should’ve Been Huge
A Story of Death, Revolution, Depression, Cocaine and Theft
Just like Eagles, Pantera, Steely Dan and Phish are jolted by Jersey cats injecting attitude into the mix, the long-lost Tornader had a double-shot of Jersey within its ranks with Perth Amboy’s Jack Waldman on keyboards and New Brunswick’s Angelo DeBraccio on sax. Thus, this is a tale etched on my brain like a tattoo.
(Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly June 1977; Posted With Permission)
Dancing under the stars to Tornader (l-r) “Everynight” Charley Crespo, J. Wertman, Mike Greenblatt, unidentified car sitter, Carol Ross, Roman Kozak and Toby Goldstein.
There’s a sense of expectancy just before a band breaks big. When it sounds that good and things are going just right, you know it and you can feel it. I can’t think of a more exciting time of life. It’s happening right now for Larry Alexander and Sandy Torano of Tornader (rhymes with raider) who are about to embark on a 26-city tour. Their Polydor debut has Johnny Winter, Joe Beck and The Brecker Brothers but it’s Larry’s songwriting and Sandy’s churning guitar that makes this record a major breakthrough for reggae, fusion and hard funk fans.
New Marlboro Massachusetts is in the Southern Berkshires. It’s where Sandy owns a 30-acre farm used for rehearsals. He bought it from Columbia Records four years ago as it was being used for practice sessions by Herbie Hancock who was drawn to its dreamy atmosphere and near-perfect bucolic condition. It’s also where Polydor sent a bunch of us press geeks to gawk at the surroundings, listen to the band play live, do interviews and dance all night long.
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Before Tornader, Sandy had put together a fantastic band that Jazz-Rock Fusion star guitarist John McLaughlin promised to help. He came up to jam for a few days and to settle some business. McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra had been shattered when Billy Cobham and Jan Hammer went on to greener pastures. Sure, they jammed incessantly for a few nights and it must’ve sounded great but Sandy said he knew something was weird when he noticed McLaughlin pulling guys to the side and talking about something. Leaving for a while, Sandy returned to one of the jams only to find McLaughlin missing. That’s when his band told him they were quitting to join Mahavishnu Orchestra. He couldn’t believe it. He also couldn’t condemn them as he knew McLaughlin could offer them much more money. So drummer Narada Michael Walden, bassist Ralph Armstrong, alto saxophonist Jean Bell and tenor saxophonist Russ Tubbs wound up becoming the second edition of Mahavishnu Orchestra leaving Sandy holding the bag on a band he took two years to form.
Sandy is pretty philosophical as we sit by the pool on a brilliantly sunny afternoon. “Hell,” he admits, “I would’ve done the same thing if I were in their shoes. You don’t turn down someone that big. But I had McLaughlin pegged from the start. Him and his so-called religious phase. He tried hard to convince everyone, even himself, that he was a devoted follower of [meditation guru] Sri Chimnoy [1931-2007]. Yet I caught him backstage at The Bottom Line one night rolling joints. You never saw a cat move so fast when he saw me.”
John McLaughlin is not Mahavishnu anymore and Sandy called it before anyone. That’s the way he is. He calls ‘em like he sees ‘em. Like the time Edgar Winter saw him playing in a Miami bar and snatched him up for his band White Trash. But Edgar wanted Sandy to play exactly the way he told him to and Sandy’s style was way too personal for him to change. To this day the two don’t talk. Edgar’s brother Johnny has become good friends with Sandy, writing the liner notes for the Tornader Hit It Again Polydor debut and even adding some blistering slide guitar.
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“I remember being told to get my things and get in this huge black car. I didn’t know why and started crying but eventually we were driven to the airport and landed in America and I’ve been here ever since.”
Tornader, right now, is a band to be reckoned with. With great promotional push from Polydor resulting in high record sales in R’n’B markets, they’re just about to break loose opening for Kool & The Gang, The Commodores and Average White Band across the country. The current lineup has been together for one week. They recently brought six critics—including myself—up to the farm for an advance look. It had to have been a gamble to have journalists hear a band together for a mere seven days but it paid off. I wound up bonding with keyboardist Jack Waldman as we’re both from New Jersey. Oklahoma drummer Cedrick Wright lives on Tulsa time, having played with Leon Russell. Texan Frank Gravis quit college to play bass for Chuck Mangione. He brought his “power-hitter” from Austin. It streamlines pot smoke right into your facial apertures. Once they hit the road, two more horns plus back-up singers will be added.
Friday afternoon two carloads of jaded music critics, Polydor people and publicity professionals empty out of the vehicles for good food, strong drinks and a big pot-smoke that had everybody ready for music. Then we all staggered into the barn where Tornader was jamming. The music is not easy to describe. It’s a new hybrid. Progressive Reggae? Fusion Funk? Soul Rock? Who knows? It was the first time the band was on display for anyone other than close friends and family. Depending upon the selection, it moves and grooves in many different directions at the same time. It sure as hell ain’t disco. It’s jazz with no nod to bebop or swing.
PHOTO (from left): Rick Stevens, East Coast a&r director for Polydor inc., Larry Alexander and Sandy Torano; Richardson, who produced the LP; and Johnny Winter, who plays on the album.
As the equipment crew started to set up for the evening’s outdoor bash, I spoke with Sandy. His background could be made into a movie. The Torano family was wealthy and respected in Havana, Cuba. His dad was politically active and gave huge amounts of money trying to stop the rise of Fidel Castro. I questioned this. Why did he want to stop Castro from taking over from the corrupt Fulgencio Batista who let American gangsters flood Cuban hotels with prostitution, gambling and Peruvian cocaine? Castro’s cry was “Yankee Go Home!” and he would not be swayed. At that, Sandy smiles, and softly explains. “Aah yes, that’s all true, but Castro wanted to redistribute the wealth. My father was a land-owner and refused to buckle under like all his neighbors. When I was eight or nine, I used to watch the police pull up in front of my house, come in and just ransack the place. I never really knew if they were looking for anything in particular, or just trying to scare us. On a few occasions, they roughed up my parents a little.
“One night,” he continues, “I remember being told to get my things and get in this huge black car. I didn’t know why and started crying but eventually we were driven to the airport and landed in America and I’ve been here ever since.” And if he went back? “I couldn’t,” comes the answer. “If any Torano re-enters Cuba, they’d be imprisoned or shot. I have no more family there anyway. They were all lucky to get out while they still could. Now you can’t.” As Torano excused himself to go adjust his guitar strap, I sat mesmerized by his story. Hell, us left-wing college kids used to wear Che Guevara t-shirts and considered ourselves weekend revolutionaries (but that’s another story). The revolution we were espousing in the 1960s burned out quickly because for us it was nothing more than stimulating intellectual rhetoric.
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“I’m half a Big Mac and half a bowl of rice and peas.”
The sun was hot. Tornader was pushing hard. Sandy’s churning leads, right along with Angelo’s hard-boiled New Brunswick ax, juxtaposed brilliantly with some ethereal Perth Amboy keyboards by Waldman, made their “Reggae Rock’n’Roll” explode in our faces. “Floating” could’ve been a Miles Davis outtake. Us critics are sprawled on the lawn drinking beers (Jack Daniels for me). Why am I the only one taking notes? Wait a minute! That opening passage is a direct lift of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage.” I lose myself in the music, making a note to ask Sandy about borrowing the Hancock riff. When I do, Sandy says, “I wrote it with Herbie in mind.” Maybe I feeling a little comfortable after all the Jack Daniels, but I got in his face.
“You didn’t write that! Herbie did. You stole it!”
“Well,” Sandy says softly, “Herbie has really had a profound influence on my life and we’re actually really close. Yes, I lifted that passage sorta as if to say `Hello Herbie!’ and let the people know where this thing comes from before I move on. I mean, the rest of it is completely different from `Maiden Voyage.’” (From that point, Torano stayed away from me for the duration of the junket.)
PHOTO (from left): Sandy Torano and Larry Alexander
Larry Alexander is tall, soft-spoken and articulate. You can sit and listen to this man for hours with that slight Jamaican accent and that humble air about him. He’s married to vocalist/Buddah Records recording artist Phyllis Hyman. She’s a tall willowy beauty who seemed a little sad, stayed in the background, and didn’t say much. The pair make a striking couple, statuesque, brown, good-looking and talented. Larry comes from educated stock and you can sense it in his demeanor. A Jamaican boarding school product, he came to the States at 13, and still tells stories about the various Rastafarians he used to hang with as a kid. “They were very honest and wise people,” he explains in that enigmatic patois. “I looked up to them and respected them very mush.”
“How can you respect someone that holds up a dictator, Haile Selassie, as a God? And what’s with those nasty dreadlocks?”
Larry laughs softly at my obnoxious inquisitiveness. “They wear their hair like that just so they won’t have to bother with it ever. They don’t wash it at all, they just leave it be. All sorts of gnats and lice find little homes for themselves on their heads.”
“Oh that’s great.” And we both laugh.
“No, but really,” he continues, “to the best of my recollection, they were, indeed, very smart who just held on to certain ancient ways. Much has been made of the fact that they use pot in their religious services and the fact that they smoke it all the time. I mean, all the time, man!”
“Nothing wrong with that,” we both agree. He chooses not to comment on Selassie. Our conversation continues poolside as photographers shoot away. He’s warming up now. “I arrived in Florida and after seven years of Americanizing myself, I got a good job as a songwriter for a major firm. I wrote hits for Brass Construction and BT Express amongst the 300 songs I wrote. So I sorta come to this from a soul background. Yet I still feel very close to my homeland. Even though I was drafted as an alien and spent four years in the United States Army, including a stint in Viet Nam, my ties are to Jamaica. My compositions are first starting to reflect that. So I’m half a Big Mac and half a bowl of rice and peas. I met Sandy in Miami where we co-wrote `Everybody Does’ and, man, everything happened so fast after that. Now we’re ready.”
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The elongated weekend was fleeting. It seemingly was over almost as soon as it started. There was no conception of time. There were long discourses into the night on the state of jazz. A good bristling six-man game of touch football ended in a draw. We skipped rope, smoked dope, learned to juggle, went swimming, ate the food that our hosts—Carol Ross and Toby Goldstein—from the powerful Manhattan publicity company of Rogers & Cowan were constantly preparing. We drank (oh boy, did we drink), flirted, danced and I even found time to continue reading my Kerouac novel before and during the scenic ride home.
PHOTO: Phyliss Hyman and Larry Alexander
Post Script: Tornader never achieved the stardom that was predicted for them. But Larry Alexander’s wife did. Phyliss Hyman went on to be a big star with a string of hits stretching from the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s. She starred on Broadway, won a Tony Award, but ultimately killed herself with a mixture of Tuinal and vodka on June 30, 1995—just hours before she was supposed to headline the Apollo Theater in Harlem—leaving a suicide note that said in part “I’m tired. I’m tired. Those of you that I love know who you are. May God bless you.” Perth Amboy keyboardist Jack Waldman died in Metuchen May 17, 1986, at the age of 33, from AIDS.
There’s one more story about that weekend that I’ve never told and certainly didn’t include in the original Aquarian Weekly piece. As Tornader raged through the night with a spectacular fusion of rock, reggae and R’n’B, a black stretch limo pulled up. Dude gets out wearing an iridescent leisure suit with no shirt, hairy chest, and lots of beads and jewelry around his neck. We all asked ourselves, “who the fuck is this guy?” He comes right up to me and whispers in my ear. “You do coke?” Not knowing what to say, I just dumbly nodded my head in the direction of yes. With that he pulls an object out of his suit pocket that looked like a golf ball wrapped in foil. “Here, do this. Share it.” And with that, he gets back in his limo and roars off.
I didn’t know what to do with it. I knew “Everynight” Charley Crespo was drug-free. So was Billboard’s Roman Kozak (who would suffer a fatal heart attack in 1988 at the age of 40). So I showed it to a fellow scribe and he took me in the barn with a knife and we cut that sucker up into lines—inviting others to join us and they did—before going back outside to dance all night long. And we did. Some things you never forget.