Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Gus Dolfi, second from right, tall and dark-haired, in his younger days.

Gaston "Gus" Dolfi sits at his kitchen table in Carnegie listening to an old cassette tape of music he and his big band recorded during a performance at Carnegie Park about 15 years ago. The concert was part of a benefit for the Carnegie Boy and Girl clubs.

This occasional series profiles performers and aficionados to mine their memories and knowledge of a lifetime in music.

Now and again, he is swept into the music. He hums a solo from Woody Herman's "Woodchoppers Ball," then anticipates the next solo.

"That's my brother, Sal, on trumpet," says Dolfi, listening to a solo on "Tenderly." "He was a hell of a trumpet player. We had a hell of a band. I could never put a band like that together again. The entire brass section is dead. I think there's only three of us still living."

At 84, all Dolfi has are the tapes and a mind filled with colorful remembrances.

He still loves music and says if he had to do over again, he wouldn't change a thing.

"Music is beautiful, babe," he says. "What's more beautiful than music?"

He thinks about that for second.

"Well! Maybe my wife, Helen. She's been putting up with me for 63 years."

Dolfi doesn't get to play his beloved music much anymore.

His 12-year-old great-granddaughter, Corrine Furjanic, was in town from New York a few weeks ago, so he wiped the dust from his old alto saxophone, softened the reed and gave her a few lessons.

"I was tough on her, but that's how my father taught me," says Dolfi with a chuckle. "My dad would go upside my head if I didn't know my lesson."

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Dolfi at his home in Carnegie.

No downtime

Since his retirement in 1996, there haven't been many opportunities to perform or teach. But there was a time when he performed seven nights a week. He was also band director for 21 years at St. Raphael in Morningside and Lawrenceville Catholic High School.

"Every time I ran into Gus, he was beautiful," says trumpeter Danny Conn. "He was always gracious. He is a great saxophone player. He could play any kind of show. We played together at the Moose Lodge in Bloomfield. We would play for dancers and comedians. The shows would start after midnight. It was great."

In an era when big bands dominated the landscape and every community and every nightclub featured live music, Dolfi could be found fronting a band or performing in its saxophone section. He played the Ankara and Bill Green's Terrace Room in Pleasant Hills, which was torn down to build a shopping center.

At Greater Pittsburgh Airport's old Horizon Room, Dolfi's band, led by Larry Faith, backed up everyone from Al Martino and Phyllis Diller to Nat Cole and Nelson Eddy.

He laughs at the time he heard a mouthful from singer Patti Page.

"She wanted 18 musicians, but the contract called for nine," says Dolfi, chuckling as he recounts the story. "I told her, 'Ms. Page, if you want more, you're going have to go buy them yourself.' She was getting paid $10,000 a week. She decided to buy a five-piece combo, and that didn't make sense.

"I still love her. She was a nice person."

Farm to bandstand

Dolfi grew up on an 87-acre farm in Horning, near South Park. He started playing music at 6, after receiving a clarinet from Jack Marouse, an accordionist who took music lessons from Gus' father, Nello.

"I had six German shepherd puppies and he said, 'I'll give you a clarinet for a puppy,' " says Dolfi. "My father said 'take the clarinet,' and I did."

Dolfi played Marouse's clarinet until it was stolen years later in Chicago while he was performing in Tommy Carlyn's band.

Back on the farm, Dolfi and his brother, Sal, took lessons from their father, a trumpeter in the Pittsburgh Symphony and a close friend of Fritz Reiner, the PSO's former director.

"Before I could take my lessons I had to hoe a row of corn," says Dolfi. "That's the way it was in those days. My dad was strict even though he was a music professor."

During the Depression, his father sold the farm and the family moved to Zero Street in Heidelberg.

Dolfi attended Clark High School for a year before transferring to Bridgeville High School, where he played in the band. When things became tough at home, he formed a quartet called the Four Mosquitoes to earn some money.

Pianist and accordionist Eddie Andrews was a member of the Four Mosquitoes. He recalls the good times he and Gus had during high school.

"We did that for a while and then we both went off to serve in the military," says Andrews. "When we got back, we played together for about five years at Moose Lodge 46 in Bloomfield. We later performed together at the Oasis in Mt. Lebanon. But that job ended after Mt. Lebanon decided to go dry.

"Gus was very trained as a musician. His father was a music teacher. He taught Gus and his brother the old-fashioned way with a stick."

The Four Mosquitoes performed for two years every Saturday night in Heidelberg.

"I had a lot of guts in those days," says Dolfi. " I went up to the owner and I said, 'If I clean up that room upstairs can I have it for 10 cents a night for dancing?' He said I was going to have to give them a little bit. I had it going very well, and I was making pretty good money."

In the Army now

In 1942, he was drafted into the Army, where he served in the 102nd Infantry Division. In addition to being in a band, he drove jeeps and laid telephone wire.

"I was doing night driving for a colonel whose responsibility was to take messages from division headquarters out to the division," recalls Dolfi. "The Germans were very smart. They were tapping into our telephone lines. So we had to deliver messages in person."

For his service to his country, Dolfi was awarded two Bronze Stars, one while he was still in Germany and the other 50 years later.

In 2004, Dolfi and Lenny Zielinski, both members of VFW Post 331, were grand marshals during Carnegie's annual Memorial Day Parade.

Shortly after World War II ended, Gen. George Patton came in to review the troops of the 102. At that time, Dolfi was the drum major of the band. Gen. Patton walked over to Gus and said, "You're a tall S.O.B." To which Gus responded, "Yes, sir."

"Here I am at attention standing 6 feet, 5 inches tall, and he was about a foot shorter," recalls Dolfi. "He was a great general. He was the best damn tank general we ever had. I have a place in my heart for Patton."

After his discharge in 1945, Dolfi returned to Pittsburgh and formed the Gus Dolfi Sextet. After a few months he fired the entire band because they didn't want to go on the road backing up Jack Dempsey, the onetime heavyweight boxing champion of the world who, late in life, attempted a career as an entertainer.

When the Korean War started, Dolfi was ordered to report to duty at Fort Myers, Va., but after 17 days he was discharged because he was married with four dependents. He and his wife, Helen, have three children.

Starting over

Finally home for good, Dolfi joined Tommy Carlyn's Orchestra. Carlyn had one of best big bands in the area. They toured Chicago, New York, St. Louis and Memphis. During their tour of Memphis, Gus got to meet a young Elvis Presley.

"I met Elvis at the Peabody Hotel and we became very good friends," says Gus. "Then he became very big. There was one thing about Elvis -- he never looked like a bum."

After leaving Carlyn's band, Dolfi formed another band, with Larry Faith as leader. For the next year or so, the group worked for Andrew Chakere at the Vogue Terrace in McKeesport.

Their first gig was backing up a young Tony Bennett.

"At first Tony couldn't sing too well," Dolfi says. "He was a little bit flat." The group also backed up Dean Martin, Nat Cole, Louis Armstrong, Les Paul and Rosemary Clooney.

"Rosemary was skinny as a pencil and could really sing," Dolfi says. "They were all really nice people. You couldn't have met a nicer person than Dean Martin and Satchmo. You couldn't play wrong when Satchmo sang. He made you feel it. Nelson Eddy was also a fantastic man. He introduced me to Chivas Regal."

In 1950, Dolfi and the Larry Faith Orchestra opened at the Horizon Room. The band remained there until it closed in 1967.

"Our last gig was with Phyllis Diller," he recalls. "She left Pittsburgh and went to Toledo, Ohio. A few weeks later, I received a letter from her telling me she had made 'The Bob Hope Show' and was making $40,000 a week. She was a beautiful person and fun to work with. Sometimes we got the good ones and sometimes we had to play with the bad ones. But still the show had to go on."

Back in his kitchen, Gus is humming the melody to Stan Kenton's "Artistry in Rhythm."

"Kenton had a hell of a band. There were so many great bands. I miss playing music. I miss it like mad."