A Place for Jazz Kicks Off with Skip Parsons Tribute on April 21st at SUNY Schenectady

A typical jazz gig may last a few hours, but Skip Parsons’ regular gig lasted for decades, while his influence as a traditional-jazz stalwart echoes past his death last year.

On April 21, Tim Coakley leads the Skip Parsons Memorial Riverboat Jazz Band in a kick-off for the 35th season of A Place for Jazz in its new home at SUNY Schenectady. The show is also a fund-raiser and membership-drive event for the all-volunteer jazz-presenting group and a tribute to Parsons’ contributions to the area jazz scene.

Some jazz bands have continued on after their leaders have passed, including the Count Basie Band and Glen Miller Orchestra, the Mingus Dynasty Band, and even a British combo playing Miles Davis’s fusion explosion Bitch’s Brew. The continuation of Skip Parsons’ lively traditional jazz style scores big for authenticity since every player on the April 21 event played for years with Parsons.

In his Times Union obituary of Parsons (published April 22, 2022), reporter Steve Barnes estimated some 250 musicians had played with Parsons in his Riverboat Jazz Band and smaller Clarinet Marmalade combo.

For 40 years, Parsons celebrated early jazz in weekly shows at the Fountain restaurant on Albany’s Madison Avenue. When Parsons and his Riverboat Jazz Band played Albany’s Riverfront Jazz Festival in September 2019, Mayor Kathy Sheehan proclaimed it Skip Parsons Day in an onstage presentation. Coakley played that gig; then, last fall, reunited a crew of Parsons regulars to celebrate his birthday at WAMC’s The Linda.

As president emeritus of A Place for Jazz and a still-active drummer at 80-plus, Coakley recalls his departed bandleader with fond appreciation.

“I first heard of Skip’s band through a teacher at Utica College who heard them on a trip to Albany,” said Coakley. “We later hired the band to play at the college, and I got to hear them in person.”

The traditional jazz that Parsons played for 60-plus years is often called Dixieland everywhere but New Orleans, where it was invented. It sounds deceptively simple. Its relaxed feel, like a conversation among friends, which it is, actually, disguises how intricately all its pieces must fit to swing properly. Swung correctly, it has a lighter-than-air glee that makes it great fun to hear. An antique sound, maybe, but its pleasure is as immediate as it is durable.

When Coakley played drums in a 1970s show with traditional jazz trumpeter Doc Cheatham, Parsons – then about to lose his regular drummer – asked Coakley to play with his band “to see how we suited each other.”

Very well, as things turned out. Both grew up listening to and loving the same old-school jazz.

“We had a lot of the same records in our collections,” said Coakley. “We hit it off right away, also sharing a few bad jokes,” he added. Nobody loves bad jokes more than Coakley, but I digress. “I was happy to actually be playing the kind of music I had been listening to for so long.”

Coakley knew Parsons’ repertoire before they ever met. “Skip knew what he wanted and basically just counted off the tempo, and we started playing.”

In addition to playing the Fountain and other area bistros and regional festivals, Parsons also occasionally took his band out of town. 

“Once we all rode to a gig in someone’s van,” Coakley recalled, “only to find on our return that all our cars had been towed from the grocery store lot where we had parked.”

Now, can any shared experience bond a band full of gig-tired jazz players more strongly than visiting the police station together to ransom their impounded cars in the middle of the night?

No such bad luck plagued Coakley’s birthday party last fall at WAMC’s The Linda. Spry and swinging, Coakley led the band from behind his drum kit. Up front, Richard Downs, trumpet; Ken Olsen, trombone; Ron Joseph, clarinet; Crick Diefendorf, banjo and guitar; and Pete Toigo, bass, played happy and strong.

All are back with Coakley on April 21 in a 7:30 p.m. multi-purpose show in the (new, last fall) home of A Place for Jazz.

While one-time tickets are $20, A Place for Jazz also presents the show free to those who sign up for $100 memberships to the five-show fall season. Higher-level memberships are also available. www.aplaceforjazz.org.