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Westchester
Magazine
And
the Beat Goes On
by Peter Gerstenzang
Back
in the ‘70s, when I first started hanging out, live music in
Westchester’s bars and clubs was almost nonexistent. In fact,
it usually amounted to my date drinking too many mai tais, standing
up on her chair and belting out all three verses of “I Am Woman.”
Thankfully, things have improved. Except for Helen Reddy fans. Our
county, it seems, now has pop, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and
yes, Poindexter, even classical, on almost every Street corner.
After much exhaustive research and a bar tab rivaling Third World
debt, I have compiled a list of the coolest places to hear music
in Westchester.
Let’s say you’re the sensitive type. You love gentle songs
about how hard it is for someone with your refined sensibility to
get along in this rough, boorish world. Such selective types will
find solace at the tiny but lovely Watercolor Café in Larchmont.
This little bistro features mostly singer/songwriters like Sloan
Wainwright and Ellis Paul and others who are on the cusp of national
fame. The stage here is small, but the sightlines are great. And
if jazz or comedy is your thing, they provide acts from these genres
too. Warning: This club is not for people with social phobia. The
tables are pretty tightly packed together. But if you miss the closeness
of the ‘60s, you might like this aspect. There’s usually
no cover (except for the bigger names) and the food is first rate.
I especially recommend the crispy cornmeal calamari and the angel
hair pasta with grilled shrimp. Each is the food equivalent of great
sex.
Just a few miles down the Post Road lies, arguably, the single best
music venue in Westchester: The Emelin Theatre. Whether your taste
runs to cabaret performers, like Melba Moore, “old timey”
institutions like Leon Redbone, or emerging songwriters like Richard
Shindell, this is the perfect little theater to hear your favorite
sort of music. The average price for a “name” performer
is a very reasonable 30 bucks. But more importantly, this smallish
venue (275 seats) has all the charm of a nightclub without the unsettling
sight of an audience gobbling fajitas just as the performer goes
into the dramatic last verse of a song. No, The Emelin is strictly
music with no frills, although, they are toying with my suggestion:
to serve
crispy cornmeal calamari at intermission.
Is jazz your thing? Are you tired of dingy, smoky clubs filled with
old beatniks snapping their fingers and talking in Esperanto? Rye
Brook and Port Chester have solved this problem. They both have
upscale places where you can hear great jazz and dig great eats.
The first is The Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook. On Sundays in The
Tulip Tree, check out the jazz brunch featuring The Peter Lawrence
Trio. While this group sends your upscale heart fluttering to standards
and bebop, you can indulge your baser instincts by ordering the
buffalo wings or the seared fillet of salmon. Reservations are required.
Dress, theoretically, is casual. However, I found that at The Hilton,
the word “casual” is always up for debate. When I arrived,
the maitre d’ looked at me and bent over laughing. When he
was done, he started looking all around, like he was trying to spot
the house detective. But perhaps this was just paranoia. So dress
casual but learn from my mistake: no Ramone’s T-shirt.
For more jazz and a dress code isn’t quite so Republican, check
out Sonora on Rectory Street in Port Chester. This chic, dark restaurant/bar
not only has a super-fine mix of Mexican and Central/Latin American
food (including calamari frito con salsa, which I think they ripped
off from the Watercolor Café), but Thursday nights, they
have the great Gilberto Colon, a brilliant pianist who used to play
with Tito Puente. He plays Latin jazz and it’s majestic. There’s
no cover Thursdays, and the crowd is friendly.
Want to work off your aggression, get plowed and, incidentally,
hear great live rock? Cruise over to Pete’s Saloon (no I do
not have a piece of it) on West Main Street in Elmsford. In this
loud, also very smoky place, you can groove to the hard blues of
bands like Blues Patrol, the rock ‘n’ roll of The Geoff
Hartwell Band and whatever singer/ songwriters can be heard over
the, uh, enthusiastic crowd. Dancing is permitted if not actually
sanctioned. And, as a weird addition, this bar/restaurant also features
psychic Francine Tesler, who will blurt out embarrassing facts about
your personal life, and if that cutback at work will affect you.
You’ll have a great time at Pete’s, even if you don’t
know when you can get there. Maybe you should just check with Francine.
She probably knows.
Another well-kept secret for rock and Irish music is Dooley Mac’s
on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains. It’s a cavernous, shadowy,
funky place that just screams, “Our patrons drink lots of beer
and that’s usually followed by a bar fight.” Put succinctly:
The place rocks. The bands run the gamut from The Screaming Nudes
(whom you may have figured out, do not do show tunes) to people
like Tommy Byrne, who used to play with the traditional Irish band
The Wolf Tones. A friendly warning: If you
are remotely English, you might want to dye your hair red, or make
up some story about how you used to funnel money to the I.R.A. Otherwise,
you might get some hostile looks from the crowd. Bonus fact: One
of the most amusing things in Dooley Mac’s is its proximity
to Big Joe’s
Tattoos (across
the street). So, don’t get too into your masquerade as a drunken
I.R.A supporter. You might wake up the next morning with the slogan,
“A Nation Once Again!” in blue on your arm—and how
will you explain that to your partners at the law firm?
Of course, clubs and bistros don’t offer classical music, unless
you count the waitress at l’he Watercolor Café, who
sang “The Song of the Volga Boatmen” as she brought my
calamari. For your concerti, divertimenti and all those other words
that sound dirty but aren’t, you just need to swing by The
Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase. The sightlines in the concert
hail are equally good everywhere. The acoustics are primo, and this
fall you can see great musicians like violinist Itzhak Penman, The
Orpheus String Quartet, and Richard Joo playing Billy Joel’s
“Fantasies and Delusions.” After this night, however,
you may have trollble deciding which is Billy Joel’s biggest
delusion: that he’s a rocker or a classical composer.
Certainly, you’re not a real classical music buff—unless
you visit Caramoor in Katonah. At this bucolic institution, you
can bring a picnic basket, misidentify the gorgeous flowers and
trees, and feel like one cultured sonofagun. August at Caramoor
is a hot month, featuring the works of Haydn, Tchaikovsky and Copland.
Do not volunteer that this last name was a great comeback vehicle
for Sylvester Stallone, or the jig is up.
Need a little more name entertainment, something comforting from
the ‘60s, when you wore go-go boots and a mini skirt and, because
your name was Ron, people on the block avoided you? Look no further
than Rye Playland. For free at the Music Tower Stage, you can do
the pony and the jerk to some of the “ginchiest” superstars
of yesteryear. August and September acts can be found on Playland’s
Web site (www.Playland.org), and you can probably expect people
like Johnny Maestro and The Brooklyn Bridge, R.E.O. Speedwagon and
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Being a ‘60s guy, this is where
you’ll find me summer nights. And now that I have come to grips
with my gender confusion, I’ll be wearing my go-go boots proudly.
Okay, you’ve been rocking and rolling all night. Your hair
smells like little men have been smoking and drinking in it for
hours. Where can an adult go to cool out and finish off the evening
musically? Ask your designated driver to take you up to North White
Plains and check out Sweetwater’s. What you get here is a dark
little bar, people sitting at it who didn’t make the cast of
Goodfellas because they looked too scary, and the great Bruce Buono
at the piano, who just happens to be the guy who scored the movie,
A Bronx Tale. It’s probably my film-noir sensibility, but I
think this place is a gas. The drinks are stiff, Bruce plays his
tail off and they also have karaoke several nights a week, which
consists of guys with pompadours and mustaches getting up and singing
like Dion and the Belmonts—after throat surgery. Eerily enough,
once a week, this bar/restaurant also features psychic Francine
Tesler. So, check out Sweetwater’s sometime. You don’t
need to make a reservation (except on Fridays and Saturdays). Francine
knows when you’ll be here, too. She’ll probably make one
for you.
Peter Gerstenzang spent many hours and drank a great deal of
alcohol
researching this piece. He hopes you appreciate it.
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