When I got to New York, the "Downtown Scene" was in full-bloom. In what seemed like no time at all, I was playing at CBGB, Great Gildersleeves, The Mud Club and pretty much everywhere that mattered. It was so happening that I stayed in NYC - whether I had a place to sleep or not. I just went from rehearsal to gig to jam session to diner and repeated. Sometimes I'd crash on someone's couch or in an all night movie - they cost $1 to get into back then - wherever. I eventually ended up sharing a place with my aunt on 43rd and 3rd. Right across the street from my favorite building.
In the midst of it all, I happened to attend a Jazz Vespers all-night Jazz festival at St. Peter's Church. It was at that gig that I first met Ken Simon and Daniel Carter. I started playing in Ken's trio with Todd Capp on drums. We played Ken's compositions which were in the style of music commonly known as "Free Jazz" - of course, being that we were doing compositions and rehearsing extensively and intensively, the music was anything but "free". Liberated, yes. "Free" - not at all. With Ken I played everywhere from the usual Jazz stages to public libraries and geriatric homes. Ken was (and still is) a driven performer and worked incessantly to book gigs. Being out with him so much, I got heard by and got to meet a lot of musicians. I was still playing in and auditioning for any situation I could get myself into. One of these auditions took me to New Brunswick, New Jersey where I got into a mainstream Rock band that was playing out locally. I rented a room in New Brunswick and started getting acquainted with what was a vibrant, diverse live music scene. At that time, Rutgers University Livingston College had a remarkable Jazz program. On the faculty were legends like Kenny Baron, Ted Dunbar, Larry Ridley and others. The student body was full of future legends like Thomas Chapin, Steve Conte, Ralph Peterson, Terrance Blanchard and many more. I found myself among a group of students and alumni which started an organization that we dubbed "The New Brunswick Jazz Musician's Collective". This was a very active institution that presented a mini-Jazz festival type concert event every month. Inspired by the prospect of having a platform to present my music to an audience on a regular basis, I put together a band that I called "The Revolver Project". This started as a quartet consisting of bass, drums, classical guitar and voice. It was basically a workshop where I refined my composition methodology ("The Enlightened Rhythmic Concept", a method of composing/improvising based on Arnold Schönberg's Twelve Tone Technique) and my work with synthetic language - all of the song lyrics were written in a language that I had invented which was optimized for singing by using only the features of human language that lent themselves to singing. It was also a way to abstract song from unwanted allusion.) As everyone in the group was in school at Rutgers, we had plenty of time and resources to rehearse. We became a mainstay of the Collective's concerts. It was at one of these concerts that I met the drummer Bil Bryant for the first time. Bil was a student in the Jazz program at Livingston College and a working drummer in the region playing everything from Jazz to Rock and beyond. He was playing with a local guitarist and former student at Livingston of Ted Dunbar, Dani Petroni who had become something of a "star" with Luther Thomas' band Dizzazz. Dani had a band called "DP AND THE GREYS" which Bil managed to get me into. Also in the band at that time was Tony Scott whom I had played with in Germany before moving to the US. Our first rehearsal together with the band was a true "Fancy meeting you here." moment as no one knew that we knew each other and of course, we had no idea that we should end up in the same Rock band - much less a Rock band at all. It was an intriguing band. A Funk/Punk trio augmented with a five piece horn section and Dani's Jazz-informed, clever Pop songs in the midst of "New Wave" and Punk bands. We were a popular band in New Jersey and played all of the big clubs there and New York City. We eventually got a "development deal" with CBS and went into the studio to do what would be our only album. Featured on that album was Frank Lowe. It could have been a great album if not for the internal conflicts and strife that resulted in the premature conclusion of the production. The album eventually got finished. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the standard that CBS required and Dani ended up borrowing money and putting it out himself - not a trivial task in the early 80s. He even managed to produce a video for a single from the album. Needless to say, not too much happened for the band after that. Bil and I, on the other hand, had a bit further to go together.
To be continued...
