Deceased December 25, 2023

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In Memory

Google Anthony Dias Blue and be astounded at what a far-ranging, sensationally successful entrepreneur he was, emerging as our nation’s tour guide to good food and drink and inspiring us with his love of life. But for a minute or two, learn what I owe him as my beloved friend.

We met in September 1952, starting seventh grade at Riverdale Country School. Our first adventure together found us the following spring playing lead roles in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore. Andy was a far better stage actor; I got parts because I could remember lines and lyrics.

The next April, fellow Giant fans, we were together at the polo grounds for the opening day of the glorious 1954 season and together again before his TV in October when our heroes swept Cleveland in the World Series. Later, we attended the last Giants home game in New York at the end of the 1957 season and grabbed at least one unique (and it was large) souvenir. 

A year later, still at Riverdale Country School, we worked as directors when the younger boys put on their own Gilbert and Sullivan production. Andy did the staging while I played the piano and helped with the songs. By that time, we had already been accepted by Amherst College.

All along, he had taken it upon himself to introduce me to the world of sophisticated contemporary American music. Though my family background included luminaries of the musical theater/songwriting world, and though I was being trained as a musician, it was from Andy that I first heard the names Johnny Mercer and Leonard Bernstein (well before West Side Story.) But it was during senior year at Riverdale when he really changed my life, pointing me in the direction of jazz. We were double-dating sometimes, and I spent many weekends at his home in Larchmont, where he plied me with the strange sounds from guys with names like Phineas Newborn, Horace Silver, Duane Tatro. Nothing doing.

Then, one day ... Thelonious Monk’s “Honeysuckle Rose.” I fell on the floor. Yes, I fell on the floor. Finally, a pursuit I could choose to embrace and which would begin fulfilling this adolescent’s yearning for a special identity. Jazz remains my faith. It’s difficult to put into words how much this gift from him has meant to me.

The following year, we both came to Amherst and both pledged DKE. But after three semesters, our paths diverged a bit when I took a year off to study—yes—jazz composition. In 1964, I moved to Indianapolis and worked off my Army Reserve obligation in a control group, based on the professional necessity for travel. Three years later, Andy called to warn me that the Army was ending control groups and unless I found an active unit to join, I was liable for 18 months active duty, just as if I’d been drafted. Nobody else had clued me into this policy change. Andy, you might have saved my skin. (Or should I say—or add—“My friend to the rescue!”)

So, I was back in New York the summer of 1967, making my first efforts at composition. Andy was a partner in a talent agency, and I called him one day to come and listen to what I was working on. I played, and he said, “OK, now sock it to me in minor.” I did. I recorded the piece on my first album, and I’m still tweaking it almost six decades later.

Weddings: I played at his, and he ushered at mine. His lasted his whole life. Mine? Well, everyone’s entitled to a Mulligan.

The last months were terribly painful and difficult, but I never heard him complain.

Several classmates have responded to my sending news of Andy’s death, knowing of our friendship: Skip Friedrich ’62 remembered Andy as “such a good, fun and interesting guy.” Phil Lilienthal ’62 remembers at our grand 50th “a hilarious slideshow for the reunion group showing himself as the ultimate ladies’ man with such a tone of irony that I was in stitches.” George Carmany ’62 remembers the same—“his video of Babs and Trixie speeding off with him in a sports car, mildly lampooning the old guys gathering for a reunion is still fresh in the mind. Andy was a true original.”

David Lahm ’63

Also, check out: https://johnfodera.com/remembering-anthony-dias-blue/