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March – 29-30 – Central Park Poet’s Walk – Clifton Hyde, guitar – Stefan Zeniuk, reeds – Cassidy Holden, Bass – Jesse Selengut, trumpet,vocals.

It wasn’t even fifty degrees but we were out there. When the wind blew it got pretty darn icy. Regardless, I braved my sinus-infected head and chose to go work the streets. My great band of hearty stalwarts were right there with me. From an audience perspective both days were really great. This is the magic time of year, early spring. Last year was tremendous and I hope the same or better this time around.

The special treat was Cassidy on Bass. He’s got a great quarter-note and takes great solos. I always to raise my game playing with that guy. Although the last two days I’ve felt too darn sick to really feel good about what I’m doing musically. Just trying to plow through the day and get back out of the cold. Glad to be home.

Eve surprised us by coming out and taking some photos and dancing a little bit. In fact, here are some photos she took on Saturday along with a link to her Flickr set of Central Park and another one she did of Shanghai Mermaid.

Eve’s Flickr Photo Page

Today’s set-up was a little weird. Vipers were at the fountain. Baby Soda was on the promenade in front of the band shell where Ralph usually is and then we were down on the poet’s walk. That’s three swinging bands within a 5 minute walk. The only trouble is Tin Pan wasn’t really swingin’ today. Oh well, can’t always be on point. I had Marco Gazic come fill in for Clifton and he’s really playing rhythm guitar better and better. The Cangelosie Cards has been schooling him real well. To sit in for Stefan, I invited an Argentinean girl named Mercedes. It was her first time playing in the style and she hadn’t really listened to much of it before last night when I gave her a CD. She’s mostly a free player. Anyway, it felt like it was a big adjustment for her and the music wasn’t really grabbing people’s attention the way it often does. And just barely in ear shot, I could hear Adrian just tearing it up with the Baby Soda crew. Shit, that dude can play some lines! Dang.

I had that “tail between my legs kind of feeling.”

Nice day though…

Our first hit in Central Park this morning. Not bad. We’re sounding more and more band-like every time we play. Stefan is really working the clarinet like a champ. Tuba Joe brought out little Fiona to the park. She was a calm quiet baby. Delightful.

Our CD went online for sale today at CD Baby so if you like to hear some tracks – or purchase it on line you can do so by clicking on the album cover below:

Some words about Alice that I didn’t get to say at our release party: Alice McNulty is my great aunt – my father’s mother’s kid sister. She was a real card and always had a joke. Most of the jokes were pretty dirty. I remember trying to listen from the top of the stairs after I got sent to bed so I could hear what everyone said I was too young for. I didn’t even understand what I did hear but I do remember my uncles and older cousins laughing it up.

Alice drank very dry martinis.

Alice’s version of a very dry martini was a cold of glass of gin. She would just wave the vermouth over the glass! My grandmother would chastise her: “Face it Alice, your just drinking gin.”

Alice was the only person I’ve ever heard about who broke her arm playing tournament level bridge. The story goes that she was leaning back in her chair, yucking it up, probably with a few drinks in her, and she tipped over backwards.

I remember being at one of my cousin’s weddings. She could tell that we were old enough to be sneaking drinks and she wanted to offer advise. She called us over. “About the drinking…” We thought we were in trouble. “… Just don’t mix your drinks. You can get real sick and that’s where hangovers come from.” Later when it was apparent to her that I was considering a life as a musician she warned me about marijuana, “I figure you’re going to try it because that’s what you’ll do. But its not going to make you a better musician. If you don’t have it in you to begin with the dope will not help you. Don’t rely on it. You don’t need it to be great.”

Alice was very formative in my ability to blow smoke rings. I remember us sitting around the card table with Gummy (that’s our name for my grandmother – another story) helping us to learn bridge. She was a grand master player. She could blow the big ones by snapping her jaw just so. The one’s I really liked were the tiny ones. She would take a drag and then make an “0″ with her mouth and then tap her cheek lightly with a red polished finger. Forty or fifty little rings would come popping out.

Alice was also quite the singer. “Gypsy Rose Lee”, “Honeysucke Rose” etc… She knew the words to many, many songs. In fact, many times during any conversation something someone said would rub next to the lyrics of some song she knew and she would sing the appropriate verse. The photo on the album cover is Alice at the beach somewhere and the photo inside the jacket is Alice with a magenta dress singing on the microphone at my brother’s bar mitzvah. You’ll have to buy the CD to see that one…

March 22 – Tin Pan at Union Square / Shanghai Mermaid – Clifton Hyde – guitar, Stefan Zeniuk – reeds, Tuba Joe – Tuba, Jesse Selengut – trumpet,vocals

We did a little hit in Union Square subway stop to get our rehearse on. It was a good feeling running through tunes. We actually made alright money at it too. The Hypnotic Brass dudes came by and they were surprisingly friendly to us, talking about the primacy of brass and how it is a fading art. Keep brass alive.

Fast forward to 9pm over at Shanghai Mermaid. The usual pre-show chaos of sound-checks and last minute dance rehearsals. Rehearsing our tune with Juliette. Rehearsing our number with Veronica Varlow. The chatter in the room is that the security guards had communicated with “Jacob” the landlord’s agent and had been told to shut the party down.

We did our first set. Super fun. The place is ultra-mobbed! While the Cangelosi Cards are doing their thing the fire department shows up. Everyone is scurrying around blowing out candles. Imagine everyone dressed up all classy and about 11 burly axe-and-crowbar-carrying FDNY dudes striding through. OK but the show must go on. The fire marshall himself (white hat and all) says that its ok and we can finish our show.

Then the cops come and shut the whole thing down! Picture Tin Pan on stage while Veronica V. is doing the wonderful number that we put together when a Fireman and a Cop jump on stage and start waving at us to stop. I am hoping that somewhere out in the world there is a photo of exactly that scene so I can post it here!! If you have it – let me know!!

Everyone had to leave very quickly. Stefan stayed on stage after the curtain had closed and continued to play slow, bluesy tenor sax while everyone was filing out. It was a beautiful and sad sound. Eventually, a cop parted the curtains and told Stefan that he needed to stop.

We made it up to the street with the plan to rendez-nous over at Super-Fine. I was a little dejected. This was our CD release party. I didn’t get a chance to talk about the disc or tell stories about my Aunt. We sold only 2. Veronicas Act got stopped before it really got started. Clifton mugged up some feelings for this shot:

We went over to Super Fine where Tanya was nice enough to honor our drink tickets. The plan was to wait a little bit until the cop action out front calmed down and then we’d do a set. About 70 people from the party had made it to Super Fine and it was fun to see the dressy-dressy types scattered in among the DUMBO set. We did have a substantial presence their eventually. When Veronica and Juliette entered there was much cheering, hooting and applause.

A DJ was doing his thing and then we heard Stefan playing his tenor along with some mo-town track. He comes closer to the bar. He sounded great. Time to do it. As we were heading to the back to get our horns folks started cheering us on! It was a trip! “Are you going to play? Please play?”

We assembled near the ramp over by the bar and played a 30 minute set of loud, brash, brassy, bluesy music replete with made up lyrics about cops and full tilt screaming. Stefan is jumping on and off tables and railings. Joe is making up completely different chord changes to tunes. I was playing as high and as loud as I ever have ever with that band. Folks were going nuts for us. Many dancers had set up right next to us and were swinging each other around. It was a scene.

At the end Tanya made an announcement about this being our CD release party and Sister Kate and Stefan went around hawking the discs to good effect!! I hung out drinking Gin and Tonics with Clifton and crew. Wound up in my bed to get exactly 2 hours of sleep before getting ready to play classical brass music for Easter Sunday the next morning.

The last few days have been somewhat hard. I have been trying to get Tin Pan out to Central Park for the initial hit of the season but the clouds have been against us. Today is the day, however. It’s going to be 50 and sunny so we’re gonna go get some.

On Tuesday, Tin Pan / Baby Soday did a private party at a bookstore cafe called Rapture on Ave A. (Jared, Patrick, Peter Ford, David Langlois, Jesse) The best part about it was the sound. Their were microphones for the vocals. Everyone could hear each other very well. I had wished we were recording because the first few tunes were some really good music. We were very happy with the sound on stage and were grateful that there weren’t trains coming at regular intervals. It was a fun, hip, LGBT crowd. They dug us, we got paid extra!

Afterwards everyone but David went to Mona’s to hang out. It was right around the corner. The banded sounded SO GOOD! They played two very sedate, calm swinging tunes that made me happy. The scond was “Mood Indigo.” That melody is so strong and pretty and cats we’re so in the groove that when it came to improvise, everyone stuck real respectful and close. It was a nice change from the party we were just at. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have been playing so much, but I was more than happy to just listen and enjoy. I was moved. It was good. Nick Russo on guitar and banjo, Cassidy on bass, Gordon Webster on piano, and Dennis Lichtman on clarinet.

I wound playing some pool with Patric, Jared, and Gordon. Finally got around to playing some music and it was a joy! We played Honeysuckle Rose first with Ehud on piano. I got into a real zone where I was so relaxed. It was like I didn’t need to own any of my decisions on the horn. It was this happy pouring out of sound with a great kind of curiosity about what would happen next. That feeling lasted all night until I felt my lip getting a little tired.

The next day, Wednesday, Tin Pan decided to meet at Union Square because the weather wasn’t happening. I had my little flyers and my mailing list and the new CD’s and the brand new book of music I prepared. I felt like the session was more like a rehearsal for Shanghai Mermaid. We haven’t played as a quartet in a while. Even if we sounded great, 12pm-2pm is not a great time slot to be in such a noisy place in the middle of a rainy day. We made a few people happy but it was no great shakes.

Later, we all met up at the Shanghai Mermaid spot where we did a rehearsal with Juliette and Veronica Varlow. Veronica was so cute in the way she explained every single gesture of how she was going to do her act. “Then I’m going to take my right glove off, one finger at a time with my teeth, like this…” Us four boys were utterly hypnotized!! Stefan came up with a nasty groove and the band fell in. My specific job is to watch and accent every little shimmy shake and glove-pull. Tuba Joe recorded the number for Veronica to practice too and he sent around the mp3 to everyone last night. It kind of put the idea in my head that I should pretend I’m accompanying dancers even if I’m not. The phrasing and spacing of my ideas and the rhythmic thrust of what I was doing (I know) were very strong.

Today, off soon to the park…

While I was earning my double black belt, Stefan and Clifton were on a road trip out to Indiana picking up a Bass Saxophone for Stefan and a Baritone Sax for Clifton. This isn’t the actual one they got but I just wanted you to see the enormity of metal that comprises the Bass Saxophone! Good Lord!

I spoke with Juliette today from Shanghai Mermaid and we’re getting all fired up for the CD release party on 3/22!!

I feel proud and punch drunk like a prize fighter: smiling but weary, prize money in hand… In the last 48 hours my trumpet has been bobbing and weaving through 8 gigs! This included a monster 5 gigs yesterday. Looking back now, I just want to give some impressions.

A few of the gigs are with a band called the Drumadics and this blog is not the space to discuss such activities but occasionally their name will come up so…

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Jonathan Shorr Gallery – Thursday night – Jared Engle-Bass, Gordon Webster-piano, David Langlois-dishes, Jesse Selengut-trumpet. We’re up on a loft balcony area overlooking exactly none of the gallery…only 5 or 10 people at a time can see us even though there are about 70 people there. An incredible obnoxious, loud drunk girl comes up and says “are you the jazz band – you muther fuckers better be nice to me or I’ll make sure no one tips you.” Wow. We laughed right at her. “That’s it. I hate you. Not him (Gordon), he’s got a nice shirt…” etc… Moments later David asks to move because a drunk with crazy foul breath keeps “encouraging” on him! Drunk follows David, David comes back to where he was…

PS Two-Fifty-Something – Flatlands, Brooklyn – 2 shows – Sean Condron-guitar,banjo Peter Ford-Box Bass, Jesse Selengut-trumpet, flugelhorn. Sean is such a great ham and absolutely wonderful with the kids. We start the show from the back of the hall playing “St. James Infirmary.” Condron starts wailing and crying. He falls down on his knees and is walking up the aisle moaning and carrying on. The kids love it. The music is so sad yet he’s getting them all to laugh and laugh. He’s wearing a tuxedo with tails and a rainbow striped shirt!! What a clown. He did great!

Bathesda Fountain – Friday noon – Blue Vipers of Brooklyn – Billy Nemec-guitar/vocals, Chris Pistorino – Bass, David Langlois-dishes, Jesse Selengut – trumpet. As I’m leaving the schools Billy calls me and invites me to the park. I’m thinking, “I already have four hits today and I can probably go home right now and grab some sleep.” But the Vipers are good at making money! And I am free so… I make it on time and 2 hours later we sold a whole mess of CD’s and its time to go.

Forever 21 – Friday 3pm – Baby Soda – Jared, Adrian (reed man from Australia) – Peter Ford (twice in one day – sweet!!) – David Langlois, and Jesse. Highlites include the woman who flags me over to her Lexus to buy a CD. The bedraggled strung-out punk teen who watches us for a good hour with a vague stare and then does an awesome mosh-out thrash dance in front of the band. Sell out of CD’s Lowlights – the construction noise, and ambulance noise and the dude who threw a few pennies in our case and said that he hates this music.

Times Square – Friday 6pm – Drumadics – We play until we are out of CD’s. It took about two hours. Love the MUNY banner. Some controversy about the dude that wanted to record us with his high end little set up.

Bathesda Fountain – Saturday Noon – Blue Vipers of Brooklyn – Billy, Jesse, Jared on Bass, and Tom Abbot – tenor sax. I got about 9 hours of sleep but was still so frickin’ tired when Billy called me at 9:30am, God bless him. Sure, yeah, whatever, let’s do it! Tom shows up in a tux with a hoodie over it as a disguise. That guy can play some tenor. He was swinging his ass off from the very first beat! Dang! I was not even close to cutting it as poorly as I was feeling. But we got through it and sold out of the cd’s we had in about 50 minutes!!

34th Street – Saturday 6pm – Drumadics – 30 seconds into the first tune a steroidic cop and his German Shepherd shut us down. His dog is barking. The guy is completely not caring that we have a permit. Will calls the Desk Sergeant and k-9 knocko goes away. The whole thing takes 45 minutes but do maintain our right to play in that spot. Will is the guy who will get the officers badge number and talk to the man’s supervisor. “Oh, they know me down at the station. I file complaints all the time.”

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So there’s my tale of three days of gigging here. I finished strong and now today, Sunday I am just doing nothing but watching a lot of TV and eating take-out Thai food. I’m a fortunate dude.

3/11/08 – 14th Street near University Place – Baby Soda – Patrick (Buttons McPeck) Harrison, Jared Engle, Peter Ford, Aiden ??, David Langlois, Jesse Selengut on Trumpet.

Spring Time it Would Seem
Here to tell you, we were unable to take over the mezzanine again today so we braved the 50 degree weather. It was so worth it.

A pretty competent guitarist and his wash-board buddy were finger-picking and grinning their way through some music that I didn’t recognize. It seemed of our style however. When everyone assembled we figured we had a few options: a) Trade sets with them b) wait it out (one hour) c) play with them and kind of absorb them – they would probably make more money. d) Go elsewhere. I was kind of into playing with them but 2 washboard players would be bad, apparently. David said in his wonderful french accent, “I played with another washboard player once.” “Oh yeah, how did that go?” “It was intolerable.”

So we decided to go upstairs to Washington Square Park maybe. But the spot in front of Forever 21 was open so we decided to just be ballsy and do it there. Plenty of foot traffic on a busy street. It worked out fine.

Peter Ford was demonstrating his tremendously talented, one-string box-bass virtuosity. You must witness this and hear it to believe it. We were up against a big glass store window and he pointed the whole of his box towards the window and the sound everywhere was just huge. Far louder than a regular bass. As always his pitch and time are so boingy, round, fun, and interesting. A real joy. Patrick said we had the A-team players today!! Ha Ha. Glad to be counted in.

The other treasure was Aiden on clarinet first and then Tenor. He had to put the clarinet away because it was still too cold for the wood. The tenor sounded great though. He had a great sound and wonderful thoroughness in his licks. He knew his horn real well. We had a good time making music that’s for sure. It was fun to have a totally new person around to include in what we were doing. It added a great freshness and sharing to the performance.

Good crowds, good money. Mojo has returned for the day.

And now the award for most convoluted crowd address:

Alway remember and never forget that we are for you and we are paid only by the City of New York… and… FYI, you are the city of New York.

Runner up.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, if you like what you hear, and I believe that you do, you can take us home with you for just $9.99. That’s right, you can take us home in a round, plastic sort of form. You know what I mean. Yes, Yes. Cd’s for just $9.99. Step right up.

3/7/08 – 1st Ave – Baby Soda – Patrick, Jared, Debbie, David Langlois, Stefan, and Jesse.

Some times no matter what you do it’s just a lot of moving around and jivin’. We got to the mezzanine spot but it was taken by the saw lady and some documentary crew that was filming her pack up. Group Wayno – Music from the Andes was next… Banners, banners, banners.

I just want to be able to show up for work and be able to work. 6th ave. was taken by an old street buddy, Don Juarez from Brazil – great tambourine player in the Brazilian style. It had been years and it was good to see him but still no spot. Over to 1st ave.

We set up and started to play and the music was actually pretty happening but after 20 minutes the cops shut us down. It’s F$@#n frustrating. Jared said, “You kind have to count on the inconsistency of this kind of thing.” Wise temperate remarks that did not match my emotions a bit. Patrick: “It’s a mojo thing. And when you ain’t got the mojo you really ain’t got the mojo.” We have had pretty good luck till the last few times so I’m sure it will turn again at some point.

One very positive thing I can mention. I gave Stefan the “Bunk Johnson – 1944″ album so he could check out how George Lewis sounds. He came back today getting much closer to the sound that I’m always hoping for. It’s great that he could latch on to it so easily. It sounds great and it is just so helpful to me, personally, as a trumpet player. With that much going on while I’m playing, I can play shorter phrases lower in the register. I can also stick closer to the melody and do small rhythmic variations without having the improvisations sound boring. I feel like with the clarinet going like that, my stamina increases almost two-fold.

We played a couple really great numbers and I am definitely latching on to “Bring it on down to my house, mamma.” I’ll be able to write oodles of good lyrics for that one! Ha ha.

• I got the tracking numbers from UPS today. The new disks are in the mail!

Just a quick note to say that we’ve scheduled our CD release party for our upcoming disc for MARCH 22, at Shanghai Mermaid. The disc is called “Alice McNulty” and we recorded it last month down in Philadelphia.

Shanghai Mermaid is turning into a great venue. Excellent performers, beautiful dancers, good drinks, great vibe. People are really turning out for these parties. I’m impressed by how everyone really dresses up and looks all fancy and 1920. It a gem and we’ve been loving being the house band there. On the new packaging of the CD, I give a shout out to Juliette Campbell. She’s the loving, wonderful mastermind behind the whole thing. Go Juliette!

Check out Shanghai Mermaid’s Web Site to get all the info and get on the RSVP list!! March 22. Be there with us!