Paul Carlon, center with gray hair, leads Rhumba Is a Lovesome Sound in Catherine Cummings Theatre.
It’s been awhile since he’d played his saxophone in his hometown, Paul Carlon said while we corresponded about his trip up from New York City with his band La Rumba Is a Lovesome Thing to perform Friday night at Jazz-N-Caz.
Yes, Carlon grew up in Cazenovia. Well, to be technical about it, his family’s home was four miles away in the farm country of Fenner. But still …
He sent me a Facebook message alerting me to this trip back, and I got back to him because, well, we’ve got that kind of relationship since the first time I wrote about the musician and composer before and a Syracuse show more than a decade ago.
Carlon sent me a note answering some questions when I told him I’d be at his Caz homecoming show to report about it later for my weekly commnity blog for Syracuse media site waer.org and yes, right here, too.
My favorite of his As to my Qs:
Tell me your very favorite story about playing music in Central New York, any age, any time.
“I love that you’re asking me about Central New York. I get so tired of hearing New Yorkers call everything above Yonkers ‘upstate.’ In thinking about this question, at first I couldn’t recall all that many times playing in CNY, but as I went over it in my mind I started remembering quite a few. So … I have to take this in two parts.
“The first doesn’t involve me actually playing, but rather touring. In 2011 I was on a North American tour with drummer Tony Allen and his band. We were driving to Toronto after opening the tour in New York City, and just happened to be getting hungry as we approached Syracuse on (I)81. Immediately I thought, these guys need to experience Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. So we got off of 81 and rolled up to the BBQ, only to find that it was packed as usual. We ended up at Empire Brewing Co., and I just thought it was so cool to be sitting in a restaurant in my ‘hometown,’ the city both my parents grew up in, eating with this legendary Nigerian artist. It was a great connection between where I’d come from and where I’d gone.
“The second part is actually about playing. In 2008 I received a grant from the NY State Music Fund to bring my group up to Utica for a week of Arts in Education shows for local schools. Playing for those kids was phenomenal. During the week we did a workshop at Donovan Middle School with the jazz ensemble there. In talking to the kids I was able to say, ‘I know that what we’re doing and how we play can seem very far from where you feel you’re at, but you can do it too. I grew up just down the road from here; I was you when I was younger.’ After our final concert at the end of the week, a couple of these students were so excited they were saying they wanted to do this with their lives, too. So it felt like full circle.”
The set by Carlon and his band, 11 musicians hitting on all cylinders, brought all that magic to mind, as he led them through a tribute to the music of Billy Strayhorn with an Afro-Cuban flavor — the intention behind the project and the album he recorded last year with the ensemble — and a handful of quite wonderful original compositions.
Mentor Karen Oberlin and former student Marissa Mulder share the stage in Cazenovia.
You can see read more about the night, including the inspiring opening set providec by a pair of vocalists from Central New York, Melissa Mulder and Karen Oberlin, by clicking to the link for my waer.org blog below. As a special treat, my post on that site includes two photos taken by top-notch photographer Tom Honan, worth a click over for their own sake.
http://waer.org/post/homecoming-show-excites-fans-jazz-n-caz
Have you attended a show in your hometown by musicians who’ve gone on to success elsewhere but were invited back to celebrate, and if so, who were they and how did the homecoming turn out? Have you enjoyed the music of Billy Strayhorn, who co-wrote many songs with the great Duke Ellington, and if so, which are your favorites? Would you rather catch the vocal music set or the Afro-Cuban music set or would you try to sit through them both?
Mark Bialczak 
We have some A listers here and it’s always fun to see who they bring with them when they come home.
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That must be a blast, Apple Pie. 🙂
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I love how you love so many different types of music! 😀
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It speaks to me, Rachel! 🙂
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I am hoping to see Morgan Treni make it big-time, since she is one of my daughter’s friends. I love African and Cuban music, but tend to like vocals better. I am one who loves a saxophone but wish to include a variety of the different instruments to accompany them. You always have me interested in your wide variety of music you embrace, Mark!! Lucky to have them locally, too!
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OK, now I am rooting for Morgan Treni to make it big time, too, Robin! It is a lot of fun to have a personal connection to somebody who is on the national stage. It makes you realize that behind every “celebrity” there are a whole bunch of regular people like us. 🙂
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No local hometown musicians in Nebraska, Mark, but that would be so cool if we did. I live a stone’s throw away from hometown locals here in southern Houston. A few boys from a band known as ZZ Top live around the corner from me. We apparently shop at the same Target…. fingers crossed that I come across a stunning beard one day. 😉
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That would be cool. If you hear somebody humming “She’s got legs” as you strut-shop in Target, Aud, turn around quick!
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Don’t tease me, Chum. I’m likely to go running up and into his arms. 🙂
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He’s spin you like a guitar, Aud! Just like the video!!
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i love his central new york memory, and you were right on it with the proper name for it. as for locals, i saw a female singer, vienna teng at a music festival here years ago, thought she was amazing, just starting out, now she is touring internationally, has a number of cds, moved to ann arbor, went to u of m and got a double masters while still making music, moved to detroit permanently, and still sings in ann arbor at the small venues to thank the city. as for which set i would have sat through, i would have tried to be at both )
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I hope the smart people who bring us our music here schedule Vienna Teng, Beth. I just went to her page, and I love her voice! I know she’s not jazz, but I’d love to see her at our big jazz fest because the director, Frank Malfitano, always books young artists to break them into the market and takes chances with different genres. Hey Frank, bring in Vienna Feng of Ann Arbor and Detroit.
Of course you would have sat through both. They were different and cool sets in their own way, Beth.
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i do think you would love her live, mark. (listen to her song, ‘blue caravan’ if you have the chance, it’s haunting. i first saw her at what was called a folk festival, though it included all genres, so you never know….
her last appearance here before jumping into those masters programs, she came on stage in a um cheerleaders outfit and you can imagine the response )
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There were 10 songs on her page and I listened to them all, but ‘Blue Caravan’ was not on the queue. I’ll have to go looking for it. Wow, I can imagine when she showed up on stage with the university cheerleader’s outfit on, although I do find that rather odd and a tad discomforting in an artistic sense after hearing those 10 awesome songs.
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find it if you can, it’s worth a listen. as for the outfit, she also has a great sense of humor )
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Yes, humor, OK. I shall loosen up a bit, my friend. ))
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You have amazing and fun connections 🙂 I don’t know the answer to any of your Qs this time. I enjoy music very much, but don’t seem to make much time for it outside of listening on the radio. Which is why it’s fun to read your music posts–I can live vicariously.
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oh oh oh–I do have a musical comment! Pertaining to the sax: My 12-year-old has started lessons as she can’t play her flute in the jazz band and apparently the fingering is much the same. I love a good jazzy sax solo as much as anyone, but man that instrument is squawky in the early days. Want to be supportive, but it’s all a bunch of honking right now. Do you play instruments, Mark? If you’ve already mentioned and I forgot, my bad…
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I do not play instruments, Liz, thanks for asking. My stock answer, and believe me, people asked the music critic for the big daily that quesiton ALL the time, used to be that I play the stereo, the most important instrument for the music critic. Funny me, huh? Anyway, back in my school years, I started with the flute, and also advanced to the saxophone, but never got much past the early squawking stages. Sadly. And I did a year of accordion, me the son of the father drummer in a polka band that played at wedding receptions. squeezing away to my dad’s dreams. That didn’t take, either. Truth be known, I had a hard time learning how to read music.
Nowadays, I’m fantastic at keeping the beat to anything. I can sing fairly at karaoke nights, more beer, braver, the better I think I am.
You got my story.
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We are kindred, you know Liz, so climb aboard the music train. You know, my friend, with my diabetes, I cannot indulge in the desserts of which you write and photograph so well (today’s bourbon post, for instance) but for only a nibble from my sharing dear wife Karen’s plate, so, there, I live those sugar dreams vicariously at your place. Even-Steven. 😉
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that’s a great story! If you can recognize good music, Mark, that’s all you need. Keeping the beat is over half the battle. And I trust that Clare will move beyond squawks eventually.
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If you like Saxophone have a listen to “O Rio Amazonas” from the album Manaus Where Two Rivers Meet by sw08 Blues Jazz. It’s one of my favourites.
Leslie
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Yes, I do like saxophone. Thanks for the suggestion, and for dropping by my blog, Leslie.
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My pleasure.
Leslie
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Twisted Sister in your hometown MB. Harry Chapin, Billy Joel, Don McClean, Patricia Benatar.
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Did you see Dee and the gang at The Mad Hatter of Stony Brook or Tuey’s, MiCa? I know I saw the Good Rats at both places, but they’re just legends to us Long Islanders. (RIP Peppi.) I saw Harry in our Ward Melville High School audtiorium, so yes, that qualifies. Hey, maybe not. It probably seated more than 1,000. I saw Billy Joel giving one of his just with plug-in-keyboard solo conversations with at the Smith Opera House in Geneva, about 1,000 people. That was really cool. I saw Don McLean here in Syracuse’s Landmark Theatre, 3,000 folks. I”ve never seen Pat Benatar, I don’t think. Wait. NY State Fair … ??? Champions Tour moment. The PGA is onto something. I’m using that phrase to replace the more offensive “Seniors” in my vocabulary.
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Nice sax photo. Thank you for sharing his memories. Music is creativity!
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I really enjoyed his pleasure of being back playing where he grew up. It was a nice thing. Thanks, Kerbey. And this man is a monster jazz composer. Smoking stuff.
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