Flamingo on Sandy
By Pat Reynolds
If you're looking for some very good piano music and a fun evening, the Flamingo Lounge on N.E. Sandy Boulevard is the place to be. The fun centers around a piano bar very aptly presided over by Martin Tocci who plays, sings, talks and jokes with the audience.
Tocci plays various kinds of music, a mix of contemporary with '40s and '50s. In interviewing Tocci, this writer was very impressed with his back-ground. He started to play the piano when he was five years old. He took lessons from five to 15 and was being groomed for concert work but quit soon after, then went back at 17. He then started playing with local friends until he was drafted. Tocci returned from the army and went back to play in his native New York. The one very memorable thing about New York was that Tocci played in Jilly's restaurant and met Frank Sinatra there several times.
Tocci says that his musical style was influenced by Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson. The night this writer visited,Tocci had several singers come up to his piano and use the mike that he provides for them. Since it was the day after Frank Sinatra died,Tocci and his patrons did a tribute to Sinatra, with Tocci sing-ing his two favorite Sinatra tunes I've Got You Under My Skin and Night And Day. After the tribute several of the patrons did their special songs. One man from Washington did The Last Farewell and Green, Green Grass of Home. Next Tocci and a very regular customer named Bonnie Jean did a beautiful duet of a song called I'll Take Care of You. Then there was a singalong at the bar to tunes such as Blueberry Hill, When My Dreamboat Comes Home and My Blue Heaven.
Tocci says that he came to Portland after working for several years in Florida. He worked at the Burt Reynolds Restaurant, then became restless and left with his wife for the Northwest. Now he likes working only weekends and is taking classes in composing at college.
Martin Tocci is a regular at the Flamingo Lounge on Fridays and Saturdays, so stop in and enjoy.