BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Throughout Peter Longo’s 94 years, music has been a constant. It was music, particularly the sounds of his beloved mandolin, that amused him while growing up in a close-knit Italian neighborhood years before everyone had televisions. It was music that comforted him while stationed in Italy during World War II, listening to the natives sing traditional songs while he played along. And ever since leaving the military in the early 1940s and seriously taking up the mandolin, music has been his passion — performing with the Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra, beginning with its merger with his own Orange and Vicinities Orchestra and continuing to this day.
A longtime West Orange resident, Longo has played with the Bloomfield Orchestra for so many years that he was honored with a proclamation from Bloomfield Councilman Nick Joanow during the orchestra’s 73rd anniversary concert at Bloomfield Middle School on May 1. For the veteran musician, this recognition was a thrill. But, as it has for the past seven decades, Longo’s true reward came from simply performing the music.
“It’s like eating spaghetti — you eat it and you enjoy it and you feel good,” Longo told the West Orange Chronicle in an April 29 phone interview. “When we play the mandolin, it’s nice and it’s romantic and you sort of feel the spring in the air. Then you get up and you hear the people applaud — that sends you home.
“It makes me feel good,” he continued. “When I play, I’m helping myself — I enjoy playing. It makes me happy.”
Longo has loved the mandolin ever since he first started playing at the age of 21 with his friends, a group of barbers who also happened to be performing mandolinists, around 1943. But the decision to pick up the instrument came about rather unexpectedly. As he recalled, it was more of a practical choice than a matter of being interested in playing.
“I used to drive these barbers (to their concerts) because they didn’t know how to drive,” Longo said. “Sometimes we got home late. So I thought to myself ‘If I have to drive these guys around, then I’m going to learn to play.’ So that’s what I did.”
After taking a few lessons, Longo found he really enjoyed playing and was soon practicing with the five barbers in a backroom of their shop, at times also performing with them on street corners and at parties. Little by little, new members began to join, enough so that by 1946 the Orange and Vicinities Orchestra played its first concert with approximately 100 people onstage.
The Orange and Vicinities Orchestra continued for several years, but soon money became tight; Longo remembers having to pay out-of-pocket for expenses like venue rentals. Meanwhile the Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra, which frequently collaborated with Longo’s orchestra, had also fallen on hard times. So the decision was made to merge the two orchestras, with Bloomfield retaining its name because it had the backing of Bloomfield Township through the Bloomfield Federation of Music.
Since then, Longo has remained a presence in the Bloomfield Orchestra, and is the sole original member of the merged group still performing. And though he admitted that he might not be as talented as Pavarotti or any of the other great Italian musicians he loves listening to, he said his passion for the music has never wavered through the years.
“You’re working all day and have the pressures of living, but when you put the mandolin in your hand and you start to fool around, you get to feel better and feel happier,” Longo said. “Sometimes I used to have Tuesday night rehearsal and I was sick or maybe I had a cold and I would say ‘Maybe I’m not going to go tonight. Maybe I’ll stay home.’ But then I would go because it was a habit. And when you get there and you start playing and you come home, you’re not sick anymore.”
Longo was an electrician by trade, but his career as a mandolinist would be enough to make any professional musician envious. During the past seven decades, he has performed all over New York and New Jersey, rubbing shoulders with celebrities such as Harrison Ford and Phyllis Diller. He even composed a few songs of his own, with two — “Glistening Stars” and “Twilight Fancies” — that will be performed at the anniversary concert.
But no matter what Longo has accomplished and how many instruments he has played — he loves the mandolin, but he plays others just as well — perhaps his greatest accomplishment has been his influence on the rest of the Bloomfield Orchestra. As 18-year member Annamaria Menconi recalled, he certainly had an impact on her career.
“Peter’s amazing vitality and energy and loving personality inspired me to learn and fall in love with the mandola, an instrument I had never seen until I joined the Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra,” Menconi told the Chronicle in an April 28 email. “Whenever Peter plays the mandola, one can see that special twinkle of delight in his eyes. I truly hope that Peter will be able to continue playing for years to come.”
Enrico Granafei, who has served as conductor of the Bloomfield Orchestra since 2008, agreed that Longo has made his job easy.
“He’s a great guy,” Granafei told the Chronicle in a May 2 phone interview. “He’s really wonderful, like an old-time gentleman. And in any given context, like problems or controversies, he’s the one who tries to make peace and speak up to get things back to normal.”
Granafei said that aspect of Longo’s character was seen a few years ago, at a time when some tension existed between certain members of the orchestra. He said Longo does not talk much, but when he does say something, people listen. So when he stood up and gave a long speech on the importance of getting along as a group, the conductor said the message was definitely heard and the situation quickly dissipated.
Yet, of all the Bloomfield Orchestra members, none has been more influenced by Longo than his daughter, Patty Bolles. Speaking with the Chronicle, Bolles recalled that music was an integral part of her life growing up because of her father; the two even playing mandolin-violin duets at family parties. She still vividly remembers lying in bed as a young girl and listening to her dad and his relatives play music outside on summer nights.
“Music was always there,” Bolles said in an April 29 phone interview. “There always had to be music in my life.”
Longo even inspired his daughter to take up the mandolin herself. Even though she had quit the violin while still a girl, Bolles explained that she thought the nicest thing she could do for her father was to learn his beloved instrument so they could play together. So she took a few lessons and showed up at an orchestra rehearsal to surprise her father, who said she has real talent.
“She’s better than me!” Longo said proudly.
Bolles does not regret her decision to join the orchestra, telling the Chronicle that she loves to perform with her dad. She also pointed out that the two are the only father-daughter duo in the Bloomfield Music Hall of Fame to have performed together in the same orchestra.
To see her father recognized at the anniversary concert was particularly special for Bolles, though.
“I am so proud of him,” Bolles said. “He’s been there a very long time. It’s part of his soul. I can’t even imagine him not being a member. And I just can’t be prouder.”
Now that Longo has been recognized at the Bloomfield Orchestra’s 73rd anniversary, the veteran mandolinist is already looking ahead to the group’s next 73 years. Though the orchestra currently has a good number of members, who range from children to senior citizens, Longo said it is always looking for new members. And not much experience is required.
Back when Longo and his barber friends first formed the Orange and Vicinities Orchestra, Longo said they made a vow to do everything they could to keep the mandolin alive. As a result, he said they have always taken on anyone interested, even if they didn’t know how to play, allowing them learn along the way. After all, as he has learned throughout his long music career, skill is not all that counts when it comes to the mandolin.
“It’s what you feel in your heart that matters,” Longo said.
For more information on the Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra, visit https://www.facebook.com/Bloomfield-Mandolin-Orchestra-858990747525169/.
Photo Courtesy of John Meixner
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