Tom Stein Live!

Thomas Allen Stein

April 14, 1952 – June 28, 2010

Tom Stein was born very young and took his time growing up. His first few years were uncomfortable without a best friend or music, but he met Leon Natker

when he was four and got his piano when he was five, so after that everything was okay. He won national music awards before hitting his first decade.

Tom was a problem child in school. A decade later his behavior would be referred to as hyperkinetic; today it would be labeled ADHD. He excelled at trouble until Leonard Meier “saved his life” by bringing him into the music department. Suddenly he went from the lowest class to the highest.

Tom always functioned best when he had a mission.

He stayed firmly entrenched in the music department throughout high school, earning so many awards that department head Earl Auge had to buy a special pin for him his senior year.

Tom always had a girlfriend: Jenny Podgers, Jackie Brittan, Sue Dale, Berdine Wishne. He would take Claudia Harris to breakfast at iHop every Sunday and tell her about his date with whoever he’d taken out the night before.

Tom and Claudia never dated.

After he graduated in the upper two-thirds of his class and Claudia’s family moved to California, he walked the 15 blocks to stare at 7428 Lowell Ave. and wonder, “How can I marry her if she’s moved away?”

Tom majored in History at Northern Illinois University. Although he sang in the choir, he stopped playing the piano from age 18 to 23, making a sum total of 10 out of 58 years during which he did not actively pursue music. Instead, he threw himself into studying American history, talked his way into masters-level classes while still an undergrad, and wrote a paper on the Townsend Act that he was proud of for the rest of his life.

Tom transferred to U of I Chicago in his junior year before dropping out of college altogether to live in a dojo and study karate. He was accepted into the USMC Amphibious Recon program but wisely never signed the final papers. He moved to California, didn’t marry Claudia, then returned to Chicago to become a court reporter because he knew he could move his hands well. He hung out at the No Exit Café with Brian Gill, Joe DeAngelo, and other die-hard Chicago night-lifers. One night a friend asked, “If you can move your hands so well, why don’t you go back to playing the piano?” He gave it some thought — and solicited some advice — until another friend told him, “You could do worse things than study jazz for five years.”

With his usual fervor, Tom plunged himself into studying jazz, blues, and all matter of non-pop music. His quest took him to lessons with Skip Green and onto the Acorn on Oak, where he became one of Chicago icon Buddy Charles’ protégés. Within a couple of years Tom was a walking encyclopedia on jazz history and well on his way to developing the incredible left-hand dexterity that would become his trademark.

As he worked his way up from being fired off the stage to doing six-week suburban gigs with songstress Lynda Hope, Tom and Claudia didn’t get married three more times. Finally, Claudia came through Chicago on her way to New York to say goodbye once and for all. She showed up at his door on Wednesday. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” he told her on Friday. A week later they exchanged vows at City Hall.

Thus was the stage set for the rest of their lives together.

The newlyweds soon followed Tom’s parents west and settled in Orange County, close enough to Phoenix that they could drive in to pick up his Rhodes piano but not so close that he had to watch his dad die over the next two years. His part of the inheritance paid for a 1976 ½-ton Chevy van with a rather distinctive paint job that the newly formed husband/wife duo took on the road. They landed back in Orange County long enough for Claudia to give birth to Ilona Nicholle, then buckled their six-week-old infant into a baby seat and headed out again. When Daddy Tom could no longer handle the dangers of his daughter being on the road, they returned to the OC to gig, opt for the marriage over the act, and launch his real career.

Tom partnered with Tracy Longstreth, Alex Taylor, and Adrian Tappia in some of the most “happening” venues below Pacific Coast Highway until they made it into The View Lounge at the top of the Marriott in Fashion Island. The musicians who got onstage with Tom over the course of the next two decades at The View, Savannah’s, French 75, countless smaller gigs, and casuals too numerous to name included some of the best live and studio players in the Southland, a veritable “army” of outstanding musical talent: (in alphabetical order) Denny Dennis, Diana D’Itri, Bobby Dorman, Gary Gould, Jeff Jorgenson, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Scott Martin, Diane Newberry, Dave Owens, David Page, Joe Pocaro, Ron Robbins, Cathy Schreiber, Rick Sherman, Burt Shur, Alex Taylor, Greg Vail, Denise Valen, Jim Varley, Wayne Wayne, Albert Wing, Gary Wing, Brian Zsupnik, and many, many others.

Shortly after leaving The View, Tom returned to his musical-theater roots as a principal player at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Calico Saloon and Birdcage Theater and at Wild Bill’s Wild West Dinner Extravaganza. He also returned to college to finish his History degree. As expected, he threw himself into his studies, made friends with all his teachers, and earned an “A” in almost every class. He won “Paper of the Year” for his original research on Edward I, took over as Managing Editor for The Welebaethan, California State University, Fullerton’s award-winning historical journal, when the Editor in Chief could not finish the job, and served as Editor in Chief the following year although still an undergraduate. After earning his BA, he entered the master’s program with an eye toward an eventual doctorate.

But it was not to be.

No biography of Tom would be complete without mentioning his family. He was fiercely loyal to his 9-year-older sister Claire (Chick) and his 12-year-younger brother Steve and absolutely devoted to his mother, Doris. When his mom passed away in 2005 after a prolonged illness, Tom’s world was badly rocked. Forced by  his own health issues to choose, he elected to stay with the master’s program rather than Knott’s, but the pressure of school combined with the general decline in available gigs started taking its toll. By fall 2009, he had what was then diagnosed as pancreatitis. Two days after his 58^th birthday — celebrated with a gig at the Villa Nova — he began a series of hospitalizations that culminated in his death on June 28, 2010.

While trying to persuade Claudia to not marry his son, Tom’s father once talked nonstop for three hours during which he described his own mother as a woman of 10,000 words; Tom certainly came by his loquaciousness naturally. But for all his chattiness, Tom was remarkably close-mouthed about one aspect of his life: his acquired family. Over the last few years, he and Claudia took three young adults into their home and supported them as they went to college. He initially accepted their intrusion on his space “only because it’s the right thing to do,” but, being Tom, he soon grew to love and cherish each of them both individually and as part of his family. But he also quickly tired of being questioned about why he didn’t insist they get jobs and pay rent, so many of his friends and even some of his extended family do not know about “the kids” who, along with Lona, were such a source of comfort and pride for him.

Tom Stein was one of a kind, “a gentle soul with a bombastic spirit,” as one high-school friend remembers. Some called him a musician’s musician; others dubbed the ultimate clutch player. He loved accompanying beautiful voices and fine instrumentalists. He loved reading history, watching history, and talking about history. And it was no secret that he loved his family and, especially, Claudia, his life partner and best friend.

Tom was honest to a fault, guileless, stubborn, and demanding: a dreamer who made dozens of plans and completed as many as he could, a man always on a mission, larger-than-life character who came at life with passion and gusto. He made every performer on his stage sound good and never made a mistake without the best of intentions. His career moves always caused ripples around the county, and his fans were legion and devoted. He was an event.

Once you met him

You never forgot him