Jonny Rosch at the first P&G gig on Sept. 15, 2009
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“Always, the best things happen after hours, by accident, while the cat’s away, when the moon goes behind a cloud and there’s no one else around; certainly the best music in America is made after twelve, deep in the rock and roll dungeons, little clubs in New York and California, when whoever’s in town and feeling restless, a bass player from one band and a drummer from another, a couple of guitar players and piano players from a couple of others, rock and roll strays, they get together and jam, sometimes they collide, more often than not they tempt each other to take more and more risks, always they discover something they’d perhaps had in mind but couldn’t quite bring home before, they dare and thrill each other, and, because there’s nothing to lose that’s not best done without, and there’s no one to please but themselves, these loose, peppery, brief encounters between an itinerant few are where musical suspicions are tamed or run amuck, it can be a rare synthesis, or can be gang-rape, but whatever happens, it’s where elemental rock and roll, and especially the blues, begins and ends. When everybody’s gone home, all but the friends and lovers, that’s when the best things happen.”
by Michael Thomas
(from the liner notes to “Super Session” with Bloomfield, Kooper and Stills)
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Word has come that the P&G Bar in New York City is closing. It was a total shock to me. For the past two years, I have recorded Jonny Rosch and Friends each Tuesday. Those “friends” play on stage in the world’s largest arenas with the likes of Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Steely Dan, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Rod Stewart and Elton John.
But, when off tour, those same musicians who create the sounds for these major acts play small clubs like the P&G. Actually, the P&G Bar is a great dive bar on New York City’s Upper West Side, the kind of place one can hang out, be comfortable and hear the world’s greatest music. For free.
It’s hard to say how much I will miss this place. It has given me a sense of sanity from the daily work of writing and taking the world far too seriously. When it closes after August 16, there won’t be another place like it -- at least for a while. You see great dive bars are getting to be a scarcity in New York City. They are being replaced by Duane Reades, banks and nail salons.
Playing at gigs organized with Jonny Rosch of the Blues Brothers have been too many to list right now. Most memorable were Tony Garnier (music director and bass player for Bob Dylan), Jon Herington and Keith Carlock (lead guitarist and drummer for Steely Dan), Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar (guitarist and songwriter for James Taylor and Carole King), and Steve “The Colonel” Cropper (guitarist, songwriter, producer and member of the Blues Brothers band and former guitarist for Booker T. and the M.G.s).
Tony Garnier on opening night, Sept. 15, 2009
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Others included John Putnam (guitarist for Madonna), Jeff Pevar (guitarist for Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ray Charles and Joe Cocker), Chris Parker (drummer for James Brown, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis), Jerry Marotta (drummer for Peter Gabriel, The Indigo Girls, Hall and Oates, John Mayer and Paul McCartney), Josh Dion (drummer and vocalist for Spyro Gyra), Steve Holley (drummer for Paul McCartney and Wings, Elton John, Joe Cocker and Stevie Wonder), Conrad Korsch (bass for Rod Stewart), Anthony Jackson (bass for Steely Dan, Paul Simon and Dizzy Gillespie), Dan Cipriano (saxaphone for Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Wilson Pickett, Jon Bon Jovi, and the Allman Brothers) and Andy Hess (bass player and former member of the Black Crowes and Gov’t Mule).
There was also Jeff Golub (guitarist for Rod Stewart and many others), Stanley Banks (bass player for George Benson), John Conte (bass and vocals for David Bowie, Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel), Neil Jason (bass for John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Dire Straits), Shawn Pelton (drummer for Saturday Night Live for over a decade), Anton Fig (drummer on David Letterman Show), Zev Katz (bass for Eric Clapton, Bono and James Brown) and Leon Pendarvis (music director for NBC’s Saturday Night Live).
And who can forget guitarist Marc Schulman (B.B King, Celine Dion and Suzanne Vega), Mike Visceglia (bass for Suzanne Vega) and drummer Sammy Merendino (Cyndi Lauper). Finally, sitting in for so many weeks was the extraordinary New Orleans performer Henry Butler, whose move to New York City was one of the only good things that happened after Hurricane Katrina.
If you can, I suggest you come to the P&G on one of the next two Tuesday nights for Jonny Rosch and Friends. It’s an experience you won’t forget.