Ever seen a musician nod off onstage? Not slump over suddenly, or have a seizure, not one of those rapid knock-outs. A gradual, excruciating nod.

Siggy Laria plays lounge piano. But that’s no excuse.

It’s important to know that he also has a backing band, with a vocalist.

Siggy swears he not a “dope fiend,” in the appealing lingo of this septuagenarian somniac’s era. He says he’d played four weddings in three days and should’ve canceled his regular Sunday restaurant gig at DeLuxio’s. But he didn’t, and took a nap instead, during the second chorus of the torch song standard “Death of Each Day’s Life.”
The band did not appear mollified by Laria’s heroic marital-assistance efforts. This wasn’t the first time their bleary leader has slowed the band’s pace to a crawl, they say.
They left Laria asleep on the stage and broke up the band on the spot.
It’s midweek now, and DeLuxio’s manager Ishie Rose still doesn’t know if the houseband gig will stay with Laria, the pianist’s ex-bandmates (who didn’t even sleep on it before enlisting a new keyboardist, Ginny Gilbert of the First Hipsters), or some other act entirely.
Whoever gets it, it’s a dream gig.