Nero Music Lives

Nero’s music is adaptable to any musician’s style. Its range from simple to sophisticated is what is so enjoyable and interesting about the collection. Musicologists will find new examples of how wartime and postwar culture influenced the underappreciated West Coast string sound. The WW II V-Discs document his immigrant and new citizen patriotism for America and share what service troops who tuned in to listen to USO knew about Nero. Post war commercial radio/recording hits that are in this site’s audio section echo the Hollywood craze and crave; an insatiable taste for perky sunny melodies that could underscore any movie, and could sell because they were easy to sing and play from sheet music.

Contemporary Culture

Nero sounds are still in our contemporary culture. Visit YouTube to see how Nero’s “The Hot Canary” once filled the bill for the big stars, including Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Weston, and Maynard Ferguson.

Today the songbird still lives on many a concert stage as a violinist’s recital encore and a showstopper for Euphoniumist Joel Burley.

The Paul Nero Group (2015)

It has been more than 50 years since Paul Nero’s recorded works were first played. Today’s updated interpretations give it a new dimension. 

Meet The Paul Nero Group; Berklee College of Music students joined me in this Paul Nero Project in the summer of 2015 and enthusiastically brought their own creativity to his music. My uncle would have been gratified to hear his work understood and recorded by today’s musical talents. That was the dream that kept him going. 

Paul Nero held the bar high for himself and his musician colleagues. He had strong opinions about the hard work and sterling technique he required of his musicians.  I was blessed to have a remarkable group of talented young professionals to work with who met the standard. 

My heartfelt thanks to Canada’s multi-talented Shon Boublil for his energetic work as my research assistant for this ambitious project. The gathering and arranging of archival material was more time consuming than we thought, but worth the effort. Shon’s musical arrangements and guitar solos for the group’s new takes on Nero’s “Placidia”© and “Mulholland Drive"© make the heart sing. Percussionist Daniel Feldman and bassist Osmar Okuma, both now a part of California’s present West Coast music scene, gave such rich support as we all took this happy musical journey recording these tracks.

It is fitting to use Paul Nero’s own words from his album,  'Paul Nero & His HiFi ddles©' (Sunset, 1956) to sum up my extraordinary experience with my students in bringing the Paul Nero Project to the world.