I came to this interview already in love with that music since I grew up listening to big band records.\u00a0 My parents had a stack of albums \u2014 Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey.\u00a0 They\u2019d put one on the turntable and dance in our living room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DeLuke grew up as the sixth of seven children. His father died of rheumatic heart disease when he was 3 years old.\u00a0 He took the train into Manhattan every Saturday morning as a teenager to study with master teacher Leon Roshanov.\u00a0 He went on to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree from the Crane School of Music at Potsdam, then a master\u2019s and professional diploma from Columbia University, and eventually he learned to play all the woodwind instruments.\u00a0 He taught music in the Hastings-on-Hudson public schools for 25 years while continuing to perform professionally \u2014 a secret arrangement with an understanding school superintendent that he still laughs about today.<\/p>\n
![\"96-year-old](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SUT-L-Bry-Deluke-Col-05.jpg\")
Peter DeLuke smiles at the Balboa Park Club during a fundraiser to save Starlight Bowl in April.(Howard Lipin \/ For The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
He primarily played the saxophone with Benny Goodman on the \u201cSteve Allen Show\u201d and the \u201cKate Smith Show,\u201d after Goodman famously fired his entire band at the Waldorf.\u00a0 He performed alongside Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Dorsey, and Mel Lewis.\u00a0 He played opposite Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
DeLuke moved to San Diego in 1985 when his wife was terminally ill.\u00a0 He was familiar with San Diego from his Navy days.\u00a0 He and his family were still living in a motel, their house not yet ready, when they wandered into the grand opening of Horton Plaza and heard a live band playing Duke Ellington music.<\/p>\n
The leader was Gordon Grinnell, a friend from DeLuke\u2019s New York days who had no idea DeLuke had relocated.\u00a0 A few years later, Grinnell fell ill and asked him to take over the band. He has led the Mellotones ever since.<\/p>\n
His son Peter Jr. has watched all of this up close his entire life.\u00a0 He and his brother Dean grew up in a house where Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich were regular visitors, where their father came home Friday nights from his teaching job, showered, ate dinner in his tuxedo and went out to perform. Saturday mornings, his father was teaching private students starting at 7:30 am, often having been on a bandstand until three or four a.m. the night before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest influence in both of our lives was obviously Dad,\u201d Peter Jr. told me. \u201cHe\u2019s always been my hero, my brother\u2019s hero.\u00a0 The inspiration and the work ethic \u2014 Dad was, and still is, very meticulous.\u00a0 I think part of the key to his longevity has been immersing himself in what he loves the most, which is his music. They always say music keeps you young.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Peter Jr. and Dean went on to become professional musicians themselves \u2014 though they chose a different path from their father, forming the rock band Nemesis (a San Diego Music Award winner for Best Nightclub Band in 1991) and SLEDD, an original rock group that has toured nationally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for DeLuke\u2019s secrets to making it to 96: he never smoked, rarely drank beyond a half-glass of wine with dinner, and as a young musician on the road while everyone around him was partying, he was out exploring whatever city the band was performing in.\u00a0 He read about vascular health and cholesterol from a 14-volume health encyclopedia his mother bought when he was a boy \u2014 long before anyone was talking about those things. And he never stopped playing.<\/p>\n
![\"Some](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SUT-L-Bry-Deluke-Col-07.jpg\")
Some of those who came to hear Peter DeLuke perform at the Balboa Park Club with his big band orchestra, The Mellotones, danced to the music. (Howard Lipin \/ For The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
On April 26, I watched DeLuke and the Mellotones headline \u201cA Starlight Swing,\u201d a fundraiser at Balboa Park for Save Starlight, the nonprofit working to restore the historic 4,000-seat Starlight Bowl amphitheater. The event attracted hundreds of people, including swing dance clubs from across San Diego.<\/p>\n
I still think about my parents in the living room.\u00a0 They loved dancing to swing music.\u00a0 And I love that somebody\u2019s still out there keeping it alive.<\/p>\n
The music never dies.<\/p>\n