What a great lineup the Queen City Jazz Committee has assembled for the 8th Annual Queen City Jazz Festival this Saturday from 12 noon to 8PM. It is free, and easy to get to. Just get to the downtown Buffalo library, where Thursday at the Square used to live and breathe (sob), and take Broadway down to the outdoor stage right next to the Colored Musicians Club at 145 Broadway. It’s just a five minute walk from there, between Elm and Michigan. And lots of free parking if you choose to drive or bike there. The Committee is led by Walter…
Author: Rimas Musteikis
Near 90 degree rain-free weather dominated the 30th year of the Taste of Buffalo, the 2nd largest such “Taste” gathering in the United States. Chicago is larger, but it has quite a few more folks than Buffalo right now. Also, Buffalo’s Taste is the only one in the country that requires each restaurant to have at least one healthy option (600 calories or less) out of their four menu items. How is that for giving us the option to help fight America’s obesity epidemic? One trend I see is that folks that go to the Taste mostly go with either…
There was lot of rain and flood warnings in and around Buffalo this past weekend (but perfect running weather!), and slopping around Ring Road in North Buffalo on Thursday reminded me of the muddy conditions at this year’s Kentucky Derby. I wore my worst sneakers, and could not avoid the muck when I went tent-surfing. My running shoes went into the trash once I got home. Buffalo entrepreneurs take note: watch for a spike in running shoe sales in the coming weeks from many of the participants! Carolyn Evert, Media Relations Manager of the event, told me she was impressed with…
One solitary runner carrying our American flag, seen here around the 19th mile mark, on the way to 26 miles and 385 yards, at our Buffalo Marathon. Volunteering under John Grandits command in North Buffalo at the hot corner of Starin and Hertel, I am part of an army of volunteers that try to make it as easy as possible for the runners to navigate a distance that dates back to ancient Greece. It is called a “hot corner” because if they miss turning left on Hertel from going north on Starin, they will suddenly be off the course, and…
Twilight Zone. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Batman TV show. Godfather. Wayne Newton’ s Danke Schoen. Enter the Dragon. Cincinnati Kid. Recognize any of those tunes? Then you have heard the work of Niagara Falls, NY born Tommy Tedesco with the Wrecking Crew.When I first heard that the movie “Wrecking Crew” was coming to the Market Arcade in downtown Buffalo, I thought of quarterback Paul “Wrecking” Crewe of the Mean Machine football team, the inmates’ team in the movie “The Longest Yard”. Instead it was about the 50s and 60s LA-dominated music scene, where the same 20 studio musicians “helped” fix…
Welcome to Launch NY. Notice how the green and blue logo is comprised of a series of boxes that form the telling “up” arrow? The blue stands for management, and the green for money. The boxes are the 27 counties in its geographical area, whose largest cities consist of Buffalo on the west, Rochester on the center, Syracuse on the east, and then south toward Binghamton and also Ithaca. Key here is that it is the area of central and western New York State. John Seman is the CEO of Launch NY, which is a non-profit venture development corporation. He recently…
Singer-songwriter Caroline Jones, from New York City, has trained with Andy Anselmo, and has been managed by Tommy Mottola. Caroline returned to Buffalo and spoke recently at the Community Music School right here in midtown Buffalo. I’d like to tell you about some of her insights that she shared with a mostly under-21 Buffalo crowd. I love that she is already giving back to the community by encouraging young adults to take a musical path. I believe it is so important to encourage music and arts at as early an age as possible. Caroline started out by having everybody introduce themselves,…
Above, Bernie Kugel, Buffalo’s “Godfather of Punk”, with his band The Good, performing Walk Around the World. Boy, do they still bring it! The night is about the inductee’s stories, and their introducer’s stories. But what makes this a special music night in Buffalo every year is having most every live inductee perform for us, many a time the rarest of performances as some folks just don’t play out too much anymore. I love the trend of there being an effort to have them perform with their own original bands whenever possible. Bravo Bravissimo! I enjoyed Mary Louise Nanna, from the…
Frankie Scinta and his family act originally broke out in Buffalo, rose to fame internationally, and these days continue to headline in Las Vegas. But Frankie has been coming back every year for the Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival. Frankie told me that he thinks he may have raised the most funds ever for the festival this year, and wanted to make this the best festival ever. Scinta, the musical director of the festival, thinks that this year we had a better main stage (now called the Frankie Scinta stage at its new location Hertel and Tennyson), a better band lineup,…
What a great session this is turning out to be! What a rare opportunity for rising Buffalo musicians who got to hear how to succeed in the ever-changing music business by the best in town. Also, if you listen carefully to what these industry people say, and you follow their advice, how can they not help you to succeed? This is the real secret to networking and how it works. And for so many young musicians that think it is about the “music” in the music business, it is really about the “business” in the music business that can springboard…