March 17, 1973: Toni Castellani and Gingerbread Express
Another visit to that venerable
March 17, 1973
Old Friends Enjoy Gingerbread Express
THE COUPLE
at the back table is carrying on with enthusiastic conversation about what a
classy home Gabriel’s Gate on
A kitchen at the bar and a sauna where the restrooms are.
Put a big bed down in that lower section to the side and pillows everywhere.
Keep the tree and DEF-initely keep the stained glass windows.
The chances of that happening are about as likely as NFT
asking for lower bus fares. This is a Wednesday night and business is
burgeoning. And up there on the tiny stage Toni Castellani already looks right
at home.
* * *
“I LOVE THE GATE,” she’ll tell you. “It’s like hosting a cocktail party all the time.
The people provide the conversation and we provide the atmosphere.”
This night her group Gingerbread Express is mostly subdued,
a great time for that “Lady Sings the Blues” medley that’s made just right for
that old-time duskiness in Toni’s voice.
She does “You’re So Vain” dusky too, all the daggers removed.
There’s a “Tommy” medley that’s bright and not too heavy, bass and drums
holding back. “Dueling Banjos” – Toni dueling neatly on flute with guitarist
Mark Josephs.
And a touch of the unexpected. That long-haired kid who
climbs out of nowhere and insinuates himself between Toni and Mark and starts
playing fiddle. They all do Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and it sends
a little electric shock through the crowd.
* * *
“THINGS LIKE
that always happen here,” Toni says later. “One night I looked out and by some
coincidence there were so many musicians in the audience. God love ‘em all.
“And they all came up and grabbed rhythm instruments and
formed a big conga line and we all danced down the middle aisle there.”
The fiddle player’s name is Richie Bauer and The Gate’s
owner, graying, jovial Leonard Silveri, likes him so much that he hires him to
come in on the night Toni’s group is off.
* * *
TONI’S DONE
regular engagements at The Gate for three years now – she was the second artist
to play the place – and she’ll be there five more weeks. The crowds, Mr.
Silveri notes, are bigger when she’s in. Toni has a lot of friends.
She’s 28 and she’s been finding new friends ever since she
began her career in the window of the old Aliotta’s on
“I started singing when I was a little, little girl,” she
says as she waits for the rest of the group to arrive for an afternoon practice
session at The Gate.
“My mother, she died seven months ago, used to be a night
club singer. Her name was Sue Renzi and she used to work for Harry Altman at
the Town Casino.
“No, she didn’t push me into singing, it was really ironic.
I just fell right into it. In grammar school, in high school at
“I’m glad I grew up when I did. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross
were singing. I was learning from my old Billie Holiday records. My main love
was sitting on a piano and singing.
“Some day I’ll retire to some dark bistro and get a piano
and there I’ll be, singing my torch songs, Billie Holiday songs.
“I was so excited when the movie about her came out because
I knew it’d be right up my alley. When something gentler like that makes it, I
just grin like a jack o’lantern.”
* * *
IN COLLEGE,
at Rosary Hill and later at UB, Toni studied drama by day and sang in local
clubs by night, working with some of the city’s best piano players. She says
she learned the most from Bill Maggio:
“Bill taught me so much about my voice. He filled me in
like nobody ever did. We played The Cloister in February and after six years he
still remembered all my keys.”
The other members of Gingerbread Express begin to show up
as the photographer arrives.
First there’s Mark. Toni liked the way their voices blended
when they first met in
* * *
NEXT IS DRUMMER
Bradd Gray, 24, who grew up in Buffalo, played with the rock band Parkside Zoo
and has been with Toni ever since she came back from an unsuccessful try at
Broadway (see box) and they both worked with The Vibratos.
Toni calls Bradd one of the most versatile drummers in the
city. Sunday afternoons he shows his other side when he sits in with Spoon and
the House Rockers on
And then bass guitarist Tom Calandra, WKBW’s zany musical
commentator and one of the city’s veteran rock ‘n rollers. Tom refuses to stand
for a typically posed photo.
* * *
“TOMMY
eventually will incorporate his piano and some of his songs into the group,”
Toni says. “Working with him is almost like corralling stallions. It’s like
capturing a fine bunch of exotic energy.
“I asked him to play for us last fall after I went for a
ride on his motorcycle. We needed a bass player and he felt it was time to get
out in front of people again.”
The present group was put together in three weeks of
rehearsals last month, although Bradd and Tom played with the previous edition
of Gingerbread Express last fall – the one that had singer Mondo Galla and
guitarist Ernie Corallo in it. Prior to that, top-flight pianist Joe Azzarella
was with Toni.
“We do have a notable alumni,” Bradd remarks.
“I think this is one of the best combinations we’ve had,”
Toni says. “A lot of people sense some sort of warmth about the group. The
first weekend we were back, the crowd had those old smiles.”
The session breaks up so that the four of them can get some
rest and then come out to pour energy on the energetic Friday night crowd.
Toni, however, doesn’t quite make a clean getaway. Halfway across
The box/sidebar:
Toni Loves the Theater
Toni Castellani’s other love, besides singing, is the
theater. It was her college major. She worked several Studio Arena shows in the
mid ‘60s, did “Three Penny Opera” and “Little Mary Sunshine.” Then she figured
she should try for the big time.
“I got out of college and went to
* * *
“I GOT A FEW
little chorus parts off-Broadway and I didn’t like it. It was rough. You were
competing with 1,000 people and those open auditions were really amazing. Then
when I got my Equity card, there were closed auditions and they were just about
as bad.
“I came close to getting a part in ‘Funny Girl’ after
Barbra Streisand left it, but I was beat out by Lainie Kazan. It was an
almost-but-not-quite.
“One day a man walked up and offered me a part in a musical
version of ‘Picnic.’ I thought he was a joker, you get those kind of guys all
the time, but it turned out to be real and I missed it. It closed out of town,
though.
* * *
“AND I DID a
TV soap opera – ‘The Nurses.’ I went on the day they stopped showing it in
“I was down there for 3½ years, working in clubs, trying to
get noticed, and I got homesick for
“Then I got an offer to come back and work with Al Fiorello
at The Executive and it was a knockout summer there. I went back to
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO:
Can you guess which one is Tom Calandra? Correct. He’s the one standing on the
right. Toni Castellani is on the left, sitting on the front steps of Gabriel’s
Gate. Bradd Gray is sitting next to her. Standing behind him is Mark Josephs.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Toni Castellani fell totally in love with The Gate. She married the owner, Leonard Silveri. She also returned to her other love – acting. She joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1980 and has worked as a
voice-over artist in national TV commercials and animated feature films. She’s
done animation voices for Gremlins, Smurfs and the
She went on to found the Western New York Voice Actor
Workshop to train voice actors and established an agency,
Toni, who now
goes by her actual name – Antonia Silveri – is the only person present during
this interview who’s still alive. Her husband died in 2007. Drummer Bradd Gray
passed away in 2005 and bassist Tom Calandra, who became a tireless supporter
of ground-level
Also gone is guitarist Mark Josephs. A
multi-instrumentalist and composer of more than 300 songs, he was part of swing
fiddler and mandolin player Lew London’s trio when it performed at the
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