It’s a history that many don’t want lost. Town Meeting member and lifelong Milfordian Joseph DiAntonio, 81, remembers growing up in a musical heaven. He took clarinet lessons from Mussulli after Boots came home from playing alto saxophone with Stan Kenton’s famous orchestra, touring the country with Curran and another Milford man, George Morte, who both worked as road managers.

Using his connections, Mussulli got big-name jazz musicians including Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Charlie Parker to heat up the Crystal Room, a defunct nightclub that was run by the Sons of Italy. They were the Elvis Presleys and the Blood, Sweat Tears and the Led Zeppelin of their days, said Stanley Jones, a former newspaperman with the Daily News who became involved with the Milford Youth Orchestra. I remember Dizzy Gillespie, the bebop trumpeter - he was there, DiAntonio said.

I met him there at the bar the night they were going to play there, and what a gentleman. DiAntonio recalls Gillespie being fond of the house spaghetti and meatballs. So Dizzy came back a few times. Mike Crowley, 59, who played under Mussulli in the Milford Youth Orchestra, remembers sneaking in to the club as a kid. Everybody went, and they just kind of wave you in.

Mark Calzolaio, 54, a drummer in the youth orchestra, recalls being 10 in the summer of ‘63 when Boots and Curran brought him to meet Buddy Rich. I still got the sticks to this day that Buddy Rich gave me, Calzolaio said. That was the old Crystal Room in Milford - that was the place to be. The music was right in your lap - and all because of Boots’ influence and connection, DiAntonio said.