Fran Kaufman captured this moment during a Midday Jazz concert in about 2015 at St. Peter’s Church. We were duetting on “Estate”.
Dear Gene,
The moment we met in the sanctuary of St. Peter’s Church in NYC in 2010 and you played the first chord of “My One and Only Love”, I was smitten. Something in the way you listened to my phrasing and the space you left and then filled so perfectly with those architecturally pristine and yet heart-filled voicings, left me wanting more. I got your number and high-tailed it to your famous bachelor pad on E 60th for a session as soon as I could. We discovered quickly that we had a deep love for many of the same songs and singers, and our path lay before us. I think we both knew we would play together for a long time. Our 16 years of friendship and music-making were filled with so much joy, something you seemed to have ready access to. Not to say you didn’t feel pain or sorrow or fear. Your sensitivity to human feelings ran deep and you expressed it in your music, especially in your solo work.
You called your connection to music (and especially to your guitar) a gift from God and declared that not to tend to that gift would be a crime. That’s what you realized in that monastery in Massachusetts and that’s what you acted on when you left David Henken’s architecture firm to focus exclusively on the guitar. You renewed your vows again and again, when Wayne Shorter asked you to join what would become Weather Report, when The Tonight Show moved to LA, when you got a call to support Frank Sinatra himself on a night that you yourself were due to headline the Jazz Nativity concert (you declined the Chairman of the Board). When countless other high-profile jazz musicians, hungry for what only you could offer, asked you to join them, you gently and firmly declined most, in favor of your work with your trio, then The Duo with Michael Moore, and then more and more, solo adventuring, a task which yielded so much glorious music for the guitar. Alongside your seminal guitar study book, the transcriptions of those arrangements have left us (those who can venture to play them!) a tangible way to join you in your search for ever more clear, beautiful, reaching ways to express the music in your heart. For the rest of us, we have your recordings, over 30 as a leader or co-leader, to keep you close.
For an astoundingly large number of us, musicians or just music lovers, there are big, joyful memories of you outside of music. Every stage, every room, every diner you entered felt your presence. I never witnessed a person on whom your warm brown, twinkling eyes and genuine curiosity didn’t work its magic. You charmed us all. You certainly charmed the nurses and staff at the Actors Fund Home, who took such exceptional care of you and supported you in all your endeavors, including heading into Manhattan to hear Ron Carter at the Blue Note, or, last December, to play with him at Mezzrow!
You touched so many. When bassist and friend Josh Marcum, your niece Nina Collins, and I were putting our heads together to figure out who to reach out to immediately after your death, the list kept getting longer. Leaving alone the musicians you played with and students you taught: “What about Gene’s neighbor of 40 years at the third floor walkup on E. 60th St., Jack Schneider? Or the lovely staff at one of his favorite restaurants across the street, Canaletto?”
For my part, I feel so full of your love, that gratitude prevails over sorrow right now. You changed my life musically when we met. I will continue to follow the path I saw before me when we first played “My One and Only Love” and will keep in mind what you always said about Chet Baker, that “He never played a note he didn’t mean.” We feel that about you, as well, Gene, and what a beautiful touchstone to have.
There are other, even more important lessons I learned from your example and from your words, Gene. Treat everyone with respect and love, be curious and generous in music and in daily interactions, honor your ancestors, treasure your family (given and chosen), forgive, ask for help, and say thank you and mean it. You gave your everything to the music and to the guitar. But somehow you also gave your everything to people around you, and not just a select few.
You’ve been a member of my family for over 15 years, and you’ve been a part of my son Bayly’s extended family for all of his 13 years. As someone who treasures chosen family deeply I’m very, very grateful for that fact. I have the music we made (live and on our recording “Dream Dancing”), memories and photos and videos. I discovered the other day that I have something else I will always treasure: easily 50 voicemails you’ve left me over the past few years, so many of them clocking in at exactly 4 minutes. Why 4 minutes you may ask? Because that is the maximum amount of time my phone will give anyone for a voicemail. You inevitably had completed your thought in under 30 seconds. Those short messages are filled with enthusiastic praise - of my singing, yes, but also of my apartment cleaning skills (when I would tidy up for you as we played and sang through songs we loved), messages of support and love for Bayly, a recommendation of a song we should do at our next gig - “Oh and when are you getting us a gig in Toronto?”, but it’s what comes next in the message that I am digging the most right now: 3.5 minutes of pure Gene. You’d inevitably forget to press “end call”, turning the iphone over on the table instead, and continue with your day. You might say to someone at the lunch table: “She never answers, she’s too busy.” Or perhaps you’d turn back up the volume on your tv and I’d hear 3.5 minutes of Rachel Maddow with your commentary, or the Yankees Game with your commentary. If I was really lucky, I’d hear 3.5 minutes of you back at the guitar, painstakingly building the most beautiful arrangement of the most beautiful song, alone in your apartment, playing for God.
Here’s a bit of the very first song we ever played together, one we performed at each and every show, including our last concert August 9, 2026 at The Actors Fund Home. Thank you for the music and for the love, my friend.
Yours,
Melissa
My One and Only Love with Gene Bertoncini at St. Peter’s Church, July 2025