For 12 years in Chicago, I lived a wonderful existence, performing magic in the evenings, and learning about magic at Saturday lunches with my friends Ed Marlo, Simon Aronson, Steve Draun, and David Solomon.
We lost Dave on February 18 after a long illness. He was 80 years old, survived by his wife Madeleine, daughter Anna, and granddaughter Maya. David Solomon was born in 1944 and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. He got the magic bug when he was a kid. In 1965, he met Simon Aronson standing at the counter of Magic Inc., and they became lifelong friends. Dave’s profession was printing, but his passion was always magic, and he took his magic seriously.
Of course, Ed Marlo was the spark that brought us all together. Steve Draun first introduced Dave and Simon to Marlo. In those days we’d have an all-day lunch with Marlo every Saturday, and then we often met Marlo individually during the week. Marlo would show us what we wanted to see—magic tailored to our own interests.
Steve and I wanted difficult sleights. I also loved visual stuff. Simon, of course, loved tricks with mathematical principles. And Dave loved the plots of new tricks. He reveled in the creative process of a new plot, carefully fitted with the very best method. I think that’s what Dave came away with. You could see it in his many original effects.
Over the years, a lot of magicians got to know Dave and enjoy his company. If you met him, you’ll remember his contagious, joyful approach to his magic. And, of course, you’ll never forget that smile! He’d start a trick with a smile of anticipation, thrilled to be showing something new, and then be almost as happy discussing it and carefully dissecting it for hours afterward.
In 1982, he wrote Sessions with Simon, which then represented the state of the art of card magic. Magicians loved it. It was a brilliant example of how all of that Marlo creativity and hard work paid off. Sessions was an invitation for Dave and Simon to travel to other conventions and share their magic, and you’d see Dave sitting with the young guys at the convention, handing over the cards, excited to see what they were doing and generously sharing his own effects.
Images courtesy of Quicker Than The Eye
Dave became a close friend of John Bannon, who later joined the Marlo group, and they continued their Marlo-inspired card work after their mentor passed on. Dave wrote Solomon’s Mind in 1985, The Wisdom of Solomon in 2007, and produced the DVD set, The Card Solutions of Solomon. He regularly sessioned on Zoom calls with his friends, even when his health failed and he was in hospice. He was a student of magic until the day he died.
As for those 12 years with Dave and the rest of the Chicago guys, okay… at times I had to put my head under the table to see a move someone was trying to hide from the whole group! We were a family, and we may have been a family of misfits. We may have argued about sleights. But we had a passion for what we were doing, and Dave was the best example of that. I’ll miss Dave. I was inspired by Dave, and it’s hard to overestimate how important that time was for all of us.
Photo courtesy of Madeleine Solomon