sideways trio

jazz spot

the former me

they kept it pretty dark

daytime office hour with mike at the bar

Back in, oh, I guess about 1999 or 2000 I started playing on alternate Sundays at a place in Manhattan called Detour. Detour was on 13th street off 1st avenue and I think Matt Wilson was one of the first to play there, they had a jazz festival every year and a lot of the players I knew hung out there. Mike Magilligan, Adam Kolker, Masa Kamaguchi, George Schuller, Jacob Saks, Dan Reiser, Art the owner, Steve Doyle, Joel Frahm, Chris Cheek, Dave Pietro, the Ferber Brothers, David Berkman, Rick Margitza, Rich Perry....there are a whole lot of names I don't remember right off the bat. A lot of NYU students hung out there as well and they would yell at each other, trying to scream over the music no matter who was playing. I remember playing there with Rich Perry and he was playing the most beautiful, melodic solos but I could barely hear him because of the crowd. There were some great people who hung out there as well: Shawna, Donny, Jackie who was also a bartender and a singer (did a couple of gigs with her), her boyfriend at the time Donovan Patten who was the actor on Blues Clues. Before the smoking ban was enacted, the smoke on a Friday or Saturday was solid enough to slice and this meant a guaranteed shower once I rolled home about 3:30am and afterwards the clothes were out in the hall. Parking was also something of a problem on Fridays and Saturdays so I started taking the train, even if that meant lugging an amp on the subway. Since the band didn't get paid much some band members (like me) would try to make it up in the free drinks - not a good idea.

After a few years it became a really great hang and it was a good feeling to be able to walk in and hear Mike and Donny yell "The Colonel!" (my nickname - colonel sanders, get it?) and drink for free (most of the time) and have a place to play and a place to get some sympathy when my life was falling apart which it was for what seems like forever. But when Mike, Masa (and often Adam Kolker) and I played I thought were on to something, no matter how unenthusiastic the crowd. We tried to play as many odd-meter standards as we could, Bill Evans Tunes, Monk tunes, Wayne tunes, Coltrane tunes, Inner Urge/Moment's Notice/Satellite all in 7, standards in 5, etc. At first I felt somewhat uncomfortable with odd meters but having two friends who were into doing that was great and there were nights that were very special, usually before I got a chance to exploit the open bar to it's fullest. We didn't get paid very much but the drinks were always flowing (another reason to take the train) and it became a home away from home. Around the same time, I started playing with Jeremy Stratton at Grassroots Tavern a few blocks away with Pete Brainin, sometimes Bill McHenry, Rob Sudduth, George Schuller, Owen Howard, Scott Neumann, Dred Scott (on drums!), Anthony Pinciotti, Bruce Hall..... So, eventually, on Sundays I would play early with Jeremy and then run over to Detour and play with Mike and Masa. I started bringing my laptop to Detour and trying to record the Detour Trio but never ended up with anything that captured how it sounded to me on the bandstand. Some nights would be great and some would be lousy but it was always worthwhile. Some nights we would retire to the basement between sets and hang out in by all the old restaurant equipment and the thousands of CDs that were stacking up. Even though Detour paid $35 to the band (!) for 4 hours of music, jazz players from all over the world would have killed for a gig there and Detour got about 10-15 CDs a day right up until it closed. Those were some of the best gigs of my life and even though Detour has closed the Grassroots Tavern is still open and Jeremy and friends are still doing Sundays...it's great to play with them when I'm in town and they need a guitarist.

In 2006 Detour did in fact close it's doors. A jazz club is no way to make a living I guess. I was getting married and moving to Austin and trying to get my life in order. Since I've been in Austin I've been looking for a place where I could try to recreate those Sunday nights at Detour and Dipak has very generously offered one of my favorite venues in the world - The Whip In. This is going to be a great residency!