When Leo Fine, the trumpet player and orchestra leader, was out with his family, well-wishers would approach, happy to remind the St. Louis Park resident that he performed at their wedding or bar mitzvah.
He owed it all to a burlesque show.
Fine served in the Fifth Army Band during World War II, collecting extra pay to perform in officers' clubs but never accepting money to play Taps for a dead soldier. A former touring musician, he teamed with Mort Kaufman to open Park Music Center — an important player in the Twin Cities' garage rock scene.
Fine, who continued to back the greats when they came to town yet passed on a chance to play with the King of Rock & Roll, died on Dec. 28 at age 95, still managing to play a bit of trumpet after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
"He obviously touched a lot of lives through music," son Steven said.
Leo Fine was 7 years old when he and his brother Elliot went to downtown Minneapolis to see a cousin play on the burlesque circuit, he recounted later. He was drawn to the trumpet and Elliot to the drums. The brothers toured across the Midwest in territory bands — dance bands of the era — and performed, too, in a burlesque theater pit band.
It was during Elliot's tenure with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra when they notched one of their more memorable moments.
Occasionally, Leo received calls to play trumpet with the orchestra, and he strolled in one day predicting an easy time of it. But he learned then he had to do a solo, and a difficult one at that, son Dale recalled at his funeral.
