Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso, dead at 87

Larry Adler, who brought the harmonica to the concert stage, died in London on Aug. 7. He was 87.
Mr. Adler had lived in Ridgefield during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee sought out suspected Communists. He and his performing partner, the tap dancer Paul Draper, were denounced as Communist sympathizers in 1948, and a concert in Greenwich was canceled.
Although he denied supporting the Communist cause, he refused to take a loyalty oath and continued to criticize the House Un-American Activities Committee. The libel suit he and Mr. Draper filed against their accuser ended in a hung jury and the ensuing case was dismissed because the performers lacked funds to continue it.
In 1952, Mr. Adler and his family moved to England, where he continued to perform, record, write books, and even work as a food critic for a British magazine. He wrote his autobiography, It Ain’t Necessarily So, in 1985.
Born Lawrence Cecil Adler in 1914, he was a Baltimore native and had taught himself the harmonica and was playing in vaudeville by the age of 14. Over his long career he performed everything from classical to jazz and pop. He brought the “mouth organ” to the serious stage, gained worldwide recognition as a musician and performed with leading symphony orchestras worldwide. During World War II he went on many USO tours with comedian Jack Benny.
In Ridgefield, Mr. Adler lived at the James Waterman Wise home on Pumping Station Road. There he wrote several film scores, including Genevieve, for which he received an Academy Award nomination in 1953.
Mr. Adler’s two marriages ended in divorce.
He is survived by a son and three daughters, as well as two granddaughters and two great-grandchildren.