Walk into Nino’s Tuscany on West 58th Street, and the first thing you see is a smiling elf of a man behind a piano. Irving Fields has been the house player here for six years — a drop in the bucket for a career that’s spanned an amazing 80 years. At 94, Fields looks 25 years younger than his age, and his lithe hands dance over the keyboard. In short, Fields is both a musical and medical marvel.
Fields grew up on the Lower East Side, the youngest of six children born to immigrant Jewish parents. His varied career includes stints on cruise ships, playing resorts and nightspots in Miami Beach and various foreign locales, and, in the 1950s, recording “Bagels and Bongos,” a hit album melding Latin rhythms and Jewish music.
Fields lives with his wife of 28 years, Ruth, on Central Park South, a stone’s throw from Nino’s, where he works six nights a week. Over a plate of spaghetti, he spoke about a life behind the keyboard.
I grew up very poor, but I was blessed with a loving family. My father had a beautiful voice, and for entertainment at night our family would harmonize on popular tunes of the day, like “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” It was like we had our own glee club.
I joined the choir at a local temple when I was 10, and started taking piano lessons. I thought I was pretty good, so at 15 I took a shot and performed on a popular radio show called “The Fred Allen Amateur Hour.” It was sort of like the “American Idol” of the 1930s. I won the prize, which was a $50 bill. I ran to a bank and traded it in for 50 singles and when I got home, I got my family in a circle and threw the money in the air, and everyone laughed as they grabbed for the dollars.
That year, 1930, I put together a small band and we’d do weddings. We only knew five songs, so we’d open with those, and by then everyone was drunk, so we just played them over and over, and no one complained. We’d each get $5 plus a $2 tip.
I played every venue that would have me. In 1937, I got a job playing cruise ships going down to Cuba. Cuba was wide open back then, and I fell in love with Latin music.
I wound up in the Army in World War II and was put in Special Services, going to bases to play for the troops.
After the war, an agent got me a six-month gig at a Miami Beach hotel called the Versailles. I hooked up with a bongo player and a bass player and called it the Irving Fields Trio. We worked Latin music into the standards of the day, and we became real popular down there.
I’ve worked all over the world. But by the 1960s, I wanted to set down roots, so I came back here to live.
I’ve been at Nino’s for six years. I’ll get here at 6 and have something to eat. Then before I start playing, I’ll walk up to each table and ask what they’d like to hear. I’ll tell you, if you name any song, there’s a 90 percent chance I’ll know it. So I can play for anyone anywhere.
You get some interesting people in here. Buzz Aldrin the astronaut came in once. I didn’t know who he was. He asked me if I’d play “Fly Me to the Moon,” and his whole table laughed. Well, I played it for him, and then I found that this guy had actually flown to the moon.
For the first hour, I try to keep the music romantic, because this is a place people come to chat and be intimate. In the second hour, I’ll mix it up more. I’ll do a little ragtime followed by a classical song and then swing into a Latin song. I’ll close with a song I wrote called “Miami Beach Rumba.” Then I’ll sit at the bar and have one margarita before I go home.
I’ll keep doing this as long as I can. The secret to my longevity is to have a sense of humor, to watch what you eat and to do something you love. This job keeps me young. I have one of the happiest jobs in the world. I say I’m 94½ years young, and with each note I play I get a day younger.