Straightlife and The Catskill Hotel Scene

    In 1972 I split from Glassboro, Larry and Bob. I then spent a couple of months at my folks homestead in Iselin NJ and hooked back up with Tom Sayek and another H.S. bud, Trumpeter Al Fossa. Al introduced me a pianist friend of his, Frank Weber.  I introduced Frank to Tom and we went to work as “Straightlife”.

L to R ... Frank Weber, Tom Sayek and Me

     Our card read "Straightlife A New Musical Concept"

Spiffy ...eh!

     We were working  5 or 6 nights a week mostly at the bars up on Rt 17 and Rt 4 between Teaneck and Paramus NJ.

     There were lots of places to work in those days. If we weren't at a club we could get booked for a 4 week stint in any of the lounges in the Holiday Inn Hotels which were all over the place. Everyone of our friends were working in the same area and every once in a while we would hook up with other players at the Rt. 3 Diner or the Tik Tok Diner.

     The most popular late night meal was some kind of eggs with french fries and "Brown Gravy".   Never really knew what constituted "Brown Gravy" but, it tasted great!

     After working together for a few months in the North Jersey music scene, Frank made contact with an  agent named Sammy Maslin who booked the entertainment in all the Catskill Hotels.  We then made the life altering decision to get with Sammy and move to the next level of work and move to the Catskills.

          Gilbert's Hotel Lobby

At least I think this is Gilbert's

     Sammy first gave us a kind of audition gig at Gilbert's Hotel which had an Italian clientele from Brooklynn.  I think it was a 4 night gig starting on a Wednesday. They put us up in one room that was in a reconditioned chicken coop.

     The first night there Tom rolled over onto a nail that was sticking up in his mattress. The first morning we were awakedned by some crazy nasty sound that none of us recognized but, it was very loud. I got up and opened the door and was greeted by a cow about 2 feet in front of me! There seemed to be about 20 cows walking around Moo-ing right outside our room.

     Now, on our second night the lounge manager let us know that we were going to backing up a performer. Ok, no sweat ...

     After our second set a nice young  gal  comes over introduced herself and handed us her charts and went over the highlights of her ecdysiast peformance with us.  Ecdysiast ... from Greek ekdusis meaning ‘shedding’.

     Well, let me tell you ... her act sent those Italian Wives into a real tizzy! But, hey we had successfully played our first Catskill Act!

     After Gilbert's it was on to the Big Time at Grossinger's.