Before researching him, I had assumed that there wouldn’t be much on Frank S. Mazziotta, but I was wrong. As historians, we can only hope for situations like this, where the research exceeds our expectations. I do historical walking tours of Little Italy, and Mazziotta’s story is very similar to that of many Italian immigrants in the United States. It was just as inspiring and as interesting. One thing that seems to be relatively common, is that in the past, musicality stayed within families, and therefore many recording artists often involved their siblings in the business. This pattern is the same here.
Mazziotta came from a large Neapolitan family. Hailing from the small town of Calvello, the family had been living there for many generations by the time of the birth of their first child. Rocco Vincezo Luigi Mazziotta and his wife Concetta had 10 children, of which Francesco Saverio (later called Frank) was sixth, born in 1862. Initially, at the birth of their first few children, things in Napoli were relatively sound, but by birth of Francesco, Italy had fallen into a state of internal conflicts and uprisings.
It was at this time that many thousands of Neapolitans and Sicilians began immigrating to the United States. Families like the Mazziottas were a great example of how the immigration often worked out. Being a large family, it was a massive risk picking up and moving the entire family across the Atlantic to New York, so often some members of the family would move, and some members would stay behind until a reasonable footing was gained in the United States. This is exactly what happened with the 10 Mazziotta children.
Two of the boys went to New York in 1868, more in 1872, and the last few made it by 1881. It was at this point where much of the family was reunited. Rocco worked as a potter on Mulberry Street, the main street of what would become little Italy. At the time that Frank (as he started to be called around this time) was growing up there, much of what is now Little Italy was actually Irish. This can be well observed by looking at the census records. The boys, Giovanni (now called John), Raffaele, Giuseppe (Joseph), and Frank, became accomplished musicians, and because they worked in the same field, they remained close.
All four of them often lived just next door to the Bowery, where they found the best and most consistent employment. Living in various addresses on Mott, Elizabeth, and Great Jones Streets in the 1870s and 1880s. It is interesting to note Great Jones Street, as at the time that Frank and his brothers lived there, the beginnings of the Italian mafia were taking root. The famous gangster Paul Kelly (Francesco Vaccarelli) spent a lot of time there on that street and that part of the Bowery getting into fights. The boys continued to work, so they must have been valued musicians, even in the competitive field of the Bowery.
According to a 1903 publication in The Focus he started making records around 1895. It was quite likely that he was discovered by one of the recording people on the Bowery. At that time many record companies physically stayed away from the street, but they supplied the saloons there with records for their arcades. It is known that he started working for Edison however. Edison by the late 1890s had opened a studio at 44 Broad Street just a few blocks from Wall Street. It was there where he began his career in recording.
Since 1889, there had already been a star of the piccolo in recording, and that was George Schweinfest, but Mazziotta brought a new option to the studios. He soon became a staple in Edison’s catalog, but soon he would be recording for someone else. He soon became known for his expertise in playing Irish dance pieces on the piccolo, something that could be a testament to the neighborhood he had lived in. He would have heard Italian organ grinders, and on the other end of the block could have been Irish fiddlers. His recordings are some of the best of Irish jigs before 1910. By 1900, he was living on 91st Street in Manhattan, quite a step up from the crowded Little Italy. He lived right next to the essential transit line called the Third Avenue Elevated, which would likely explain why he had moved uptown by 1900.
In 1895, Fred Hager formed his first military band, at the time he was the youngest bandleader in the country. The exact personnel of his first group is unknown, but by 1898 he was making records, and among the first musicians he recruited was Mazziotta. By 1899, Hager’s orchestra was regularly booked performing live in the Bronx, literally right across the street from the Third Avenue “El.” Most of Hager’s musicians lived in the Morrisania neighborhood in the Bronx, but Mazziotta was an exception, as by 1905 he still lived on 91st Street. Mazziotta, like so many other musicians in Hager’s orchestra, went uncredited on perhaps thousands of records. Thankfully for Mazziotta, he played the piccolo, so he often was easy to hear on the records.
Mazziotta married an Italian girl named Prudena in 1883, and they never had children. This was unusual for the family, as most of the other boys had many offspring. John, for example, ended up having 12 children. Frank left it up to his brothers to continue on the Mazziotta name. Two of his brothers named boys they had after Frank, however.
He continued to work for Hager at Edison and Zonophone, but by 1910 he seems to disappear from recording. It is quite possible that Hager employed him into the ’teens for any of the vertical labels that Hager led, like Phono-cut or Rex. He did however continue to work in orchestras, as did his brothers. By the 1910s, he was living in the Bronx with Prudena. Not much else is known about him from here. He died in 1928, and ended up being buried with Prudena’s family rather than the rest of his siblings. The rest of the Mazziottas are buried together in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, while Frank is in mid Brooklyn at Holy Cross cemetery.
Not much is known about Frank specifically, but what has been discovered so far is quite fascinating. There’s nothing quite like an old New York immigrant story, and it’s even better that we can hear him on so many records long after his death.
R. S. Baker has appeared at several Ragtime festivals as a pianist and lecturer. Her particular interest lies in the brown wax cylinder era of the recording industry, and in the study of the earliest studio pianists, such as Fred Hylands, Frank P. Banta, and Frederick W. Hager.
