Symphony Sid - Final Years

Final Years

Sid Torin had three marriages, all of which ended in divorce (two of his wives were Eva Pena and Betty Ansley). He had two sons, one born in 1948 and the other in 1951: Stephen Torin, an artist and Tour Manager with Tauck World Discovery and Marc Torin, who teaches Culinary Arts in Atlanta, Georgia.

He retired to Islamorida in Florida in 1973, where he enjoyed fishing and had his own boat. He also did a full time airshift on a Miami Beach jazz radio station, WBUS. By all accounts, he was a heavy smoker, and he died of emphysema and heart disease in mid-September 1984. While modern media critics acknowledge his importance and praise him for introducing certain jazz artists to a national audience, surviving recordings where he was the announcer do not fare so well. Many modern critics have referred negatively to his on-air work. For example, his announcing at a 1945 Charlie Parker concert is called "annoying"; another critic who reviewed that same reissue calls Symphony Sid "odious" and says he "gives a painful imitation of a hipster". However, a few critics place Symphony Sid's style in the context of its time and understand that in his day, his style of announcing was popular.

Because of his importance in that pre-rock music era, the staff of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has included him in a display about the most influential disc jockeys in history.