Mark Steyn's Passing Parade: Obituaries & Appreciations Expanded Edition by Mark Steyn

Author:Mark Steyn
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Politics & Social Sciences, Popes & the Vatican, Catholicism, Popular Culture, Leaders & Notable People, Christian Books & Bibles, Religion & Spirituality, Social Sciences, Rich & Famous
Publisher: Stockade Books
Published: 2014-04-16T22:00:00+00:00

Swingin’ Fascist

ROMANO MUSSOLINI

September 26th 1927 ~ February 3rd 2006

BACK IN THE Sixties, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Britain’s leading psychedelic novelty group, recorded a number called “The Intro And The Outro”. You know that moment when you see some act live on stage and midway through the set they do an extended if not interminable beginning to the song so the leader can introduce every member of the band individually? Well, that’s what the Bonzos did:

Hi there, nice to be with you, happy you could stick around. Like to introduce ‘Legs’ Larry Smith, drums…

Only in this case the intro never stopped. After the real band members and a few genuine special guests – “Eric Clapton on ukulele” - Viv Stanshall moved on to some even less likely soloists:

Princess Anne on sousaphone…

Looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes…

Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion…

Really wild, General! Thank you, sir!

I would have liked to have seen Adolf Hitler on vibes. But the closest I came was one night in the Nineties, in London at a jazz boîte called Pizza On The Park: up on stage, looking very relaxed, Romano Mussolini on piano… Not Il Duce himself, but the son of. Mussolini père wound up hanging with his mistress from that gas station, Mussolini fils preferred to hang with Chet Baker and Lionel Hampton at hot nightclubs. Junior seemed in better shape than pop did at that age, and not just because at that age pop was swingin’ in the Piazzale Loreto rather than at Pizza On The Park. Romano was similarly bald but taller and thinner than Benito. Your initial reaction was that he’d make a much more photogenic dictator than dad, but then you noticed that he was way too mellow. You can get away with being short and looking like you’re bustin’ your blackshirt if you’ve got the requisite 24/7 passionate intensity. It was just about possible to imagine Romano as an amused 007 villain – “I’m afraid you’re beginning to bore me, Mr Bond” – but not conquering Ethiopia.

The closest family resemblance was the pudgy fingers with which he plunked the ivories through Hoagy Carmichael et al. Romano played, to my ears, like a slightly melancholic Oscar Peterson. Occasionally inspired, he was always efficient: he made the refrains run on time. To be honest, I’d only gone to see him because I liked the whimsy in his combo’s moniker – “the Romano Mussolini All-Stars”. They weren’t all-stars, just solid Italian molto hip cats; the only star quality, as he recognized early on in his career, was the enduring potency, or at any rate curiosity value, of his pa’s name. But the designation hinted at least at the possibility of some A-list agglomeration of second-generation dictatorial talent. There was a comic in London in those days called Bing Hitler, but I don’t believe he was a blood relative – and, come to think about it, he’s since dropped the Hitler handle and gone on to great success as CBS late-night host Craig Ferguson.

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