Nino Tempo, an accomplished tenor saxophonist whose harmonious foray into pop singing with his sister, April Stevens, produced a chart-topping, Grammy-winning version of “Deep Purple” in 1963, died on April 10 at his home in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 90.
The death was confirmed on Tuesday by his friend Jim Chaffin.
Mr. Tempo’s career traced an early arc of pop music, from big-band jazz to the rise of rock and funk, before boomeranging back to jazz in the 1990s. As a child he sang with Benny Goodman’s orchestra; he later played saxophone on records by Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra; and he released a funk album, with a studio band called Nino Tempo & 5th Ave. Sax, during the genre’s ascent in the 1970s.
But to many aficionados of 1960s pop music, what rings out in memory is his harmonizing with his sister on “Deep Purple,” a jazz standard originally written for piano by Peter DeRose, with lyrics later added by Mitchell Parish.
The song, given a laid-back arrangement by Mr. Tempo and played by a studio ensemble that included Glen Campbell on guitar, was recorded in just 14 minutes at the end of a session produced by Ahmet Ertegun, a founder of Atlantic Records, who had signed Mr. Tempo and Ms. Stevens to his Atco Records imprint.
In one part of “Deep Purple,” Ms. Stevens speaks the refrain and Mr. Tempo sings it back in falsetto:
“When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls/And the stars begin to twinkle in the night/In the mist of a memory, you wander back to me/Breathing my name with a sigh.”
Mr. Tempo said that he and Ms. Stevens, who died in 2023, came up with the spoken-word idea by accident during a rehearsal. Mr. Tempo had not memorized the lyrics, so Ms. Stevens recited them to him before he sang. A friend at the rehearsal loved the effect, and the siblings realized they were on to something. They decided to try it when they recorded the song for Mr. Ertegun.
“Nobody had done it like we had done it, and it was an accident,” Mr. Tempo said in an interview with The New York Times for Ms. Stevens’s obituary.
But the rushed recording schedule and other complications — a harmonica player failed to show up for the session, compelling Mr. Tempo to play the instrument himself, for the first time — did not instill the duo with much confidence in the song.
“We left the studio thinking, ‘Oh, what a sloppy day,’” Mr. Tempo said.
Atlantic executives agreed: Mr. Ertegun, Mr. Tempo recalled, said the record was “unreleasable.” But Mr. Tempo and Ms. Stevens, who hoped to leave Atlantic to sign with the producer Phil Spector, pressed Mr. Ertegun to put out “Deep Purple” as recorded or release them from their contract.
“Deep Purple” came out in September 1963 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that November. It sold more than a million copies and won a Grammy for best rock ’n’ roll recording, beating songs like Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” and Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night.”
But the duo’s time at rock’s pinnacle was short. The Beatles first entered the Billboard chart in January 1964, and the subsequent British Invasion soon overshadowed the duo’s velvety style of pop.
The siblings did release several more charting singles together, including versions of the standards “Whispering” (No. 11) and “Stardust” (No. 32), which both featured a similar spoken-and-sung device. But their pop career had peaked.
That device had staying power, though. In 1976, not long before Ms. Stevens and Mr. Tempo mostly stopped performing together, another brother-sister act, Donnie and Marie Osmond, reached No. 14 on the Billboard charts with their own, very similar, recording of “Deep Purple.”
Anthony Bart LoTempio was born on Jan. 6, 1935, in Niagara Falls, N.Y., to Samuel and Anna (Donia) LoTempio. His father was a grocer, and his mother encouraged him early on to pursue a music career. (Nino was a family nickname, and he said pairing it with Tempo for a stage name was his mother’s idea.)
Nino was singing onstage by the time he was 4, and at 7, he told Jazz Weekly in 2018, he sang an impromptu number with Benny Goodman’s orchestra that “brought the house down” during a concert in Buffalo.
The LoTempio family moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s to help Nino further his show business career. As he got older he took up the clarinet and then the saxophone. After graduating from high school, he played saxophone with Maynard Ferguson’s band in Los Angeles.
His sister, born Carol LoTempio almost six years before him, had musical ambitions of her own. Before teaming up with her brother, she released breathy, sensuous singles in the 1950s under the name April Stevens. One of them, “Teach Me Tiger,” which Mr. Tempo wrote, hit No. 86 on the Billboard chart.
Mr. Tempo left no immediate survivors.
Mr. Tempo worked for decades as a session musician, playing on records like Bobby Darin’s “Irresistible You”; he was also credited as a writer on a single by Frank and Nancy Sinatra, “Feelin’ Kinda Sunday.”
He reached No. 53 on the Billboard chart in 1973 with the funk single “Sister James,” which he released with Nino Tempo & 5th Ave. Sax. But the group’s only album fizzled in 1974.
Years after the Beatles stalled Mr. Tempo’s pop career, he worked with one of them: He played saxophone on John Lennon’s 1975 album of classic rock covers, “Rock ’n’ Roll.”
He also did a bit of acting, taking uncredited roles in films like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Operation Petticoat.” Years later he did voice-over work in “Garfield” cartoons.
Mr. Tempo worked mainly in real estate for a time before rekindling his music career with a performance of “Darn That Dream” at a memorial service for Ahmet Ertegun’s brother and fellow record producer, Nesuhi Ertegun. Mr. Ertegun was impressed enough to record a jazz album by Mr. Tempo, “Tenor Saxophone,” released in 1990.
As a saxophonist, Mr. Tempo drew comparisons to Stan Getz, including one from Steve Getz, Stan’s son. In the liner notes for Mr. Tempo’s 1993 album, “Nino,” he wrote that Mr. Tempo’s sound filled a void left by his father, but added: “Nino Tempo is his own man. He has his own full tenor sound, and his own beautiful phrasing.”
“Nino” also featured a vocalist with whom Mr. Tempo had worked sparingly since their heyday: April Stevens.
Daniel E. Slotnik proofreads Times articles to help ensure quality. He also writes, primarily for the Obituaries section.
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