Alfred Viola (June 16, 1919 – February 21, 2007) was an American jazz guitarist who worked with Frank Sinatra for 25 years and also played the mandolin on the soundtrack of the film The Godfather. A reliable guitarist with a cool tone, a hard-swinging style, and strong technical skills, Al Viola had been an asset to every session that he appeared on, and there have been many.
Alfred Ferdinando Viola grew up in an Italian family in
Brooklyn, and learned to play the guitar and mandolin as a teenager. As a
youngster, he teamed up with a violinist friend to perform at local Chinese
restaurants. Viola played in a jazz band while in the Army at Sacramento
between 1942 and 1945, where he met Page Cavanaugh. When they both decided to
move to California after their discharge in 1946, they teamed with bassist
Lloyd Pratt to form a trio that was very popular during the next three years,
appearing in a few Hollywood films (including "A Song Is Born") and
recording frequently. 
Im 1962 Sinatra turned to him one night at Royal Albert
Hall in Paris and, with no other warning than saying a few words to the
audience about a Cole Porter tune he was about to sing — and giving Al a “look”
— indicated that he wanted guitar accompaniment instead of the usual piano backup
on the song. It was as subtle as that. Al had never played the song alone with
Sinatra before, had never rehearsed it with him and was racking his brain
trying to come up with the right key to start setting it up in. Only a split
second passed before he remembered hearing Sinatra do the song, “Night and Day”
with Sinatra at Jilly’s in New York a few weeks earlier.
Before Sinatra had finished his sentence, Al was well
into the introduction — in the right key.It was a very famous moment in the
concert litany of Francis Albert Sinatra. The reason Sinatra turned to Al instead
of having Bill Miller play “Night and Day” was simple. Sinatra had noticed
during the set that the piano at Royal Albert Hall was out of tune.
Viola was a highly regarded session musician in Los
Angeles, performing in films, on television and in commercial spots. His
mandolin playing can be heard on the soundtrack of The Godfather; other credits
include West Side Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He continued
playing jazz as well, with
Bobby Troup, Ray Anthony, Harry James, Buddy
Collette, Stan Kenton, Gerald Wilson and Terry Gibbs. He also worked as a
session musician on over 500 albums, including releases by Jimmy Witherspoon,
Helen Humes, June Christy, Natalie Cole, Neil Diamond, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin
Gaye, Steve Lawrence, Julie London, Anita O'Day, Nelson Riddle, Linda Ronstadt
and Joe Williams.
In the 1980s, Viola had a reunion with Cavanaugh and soon
they were working together on a regular basis in a Los Angeles area club as a
trio with bassist Phil Mallory; this association continued into the late '90s,
when Viola dropped out of
the group. In his career, Viola led three albums,
unaccompanied solo dates for Mode (from 1957, reissued by VSOP) and Legend,
plus a Frank Sinatra tribute album for PBR (1978); highlights of the latter two
sets were reissued on a CD by Starline.
His last performance was in late January at a jazz supper
club in Sherman Oaks, California. Shortly after being diagnosed, Viola
succumbed to cancer on February 21, 2007 at his home in Studio City,
California, aged 87. In Viola's obituary in The New York Times, Judy Chamberlain
is quoted as saying, "he was a chameleon and could play in any style —
that was his great talent." She added, "he was a flawless player. You
could barely see his hands move; he was so smooth and quick with his fingers.
(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & NY Times)
Here one of his last performances with Judy Chamberlain at
Spazio's in Sherman Oaks, CA
