Amy and I had the pleasure of streaming “The Jersey Sound” on the smart TV app Tubi last weekend. This film is a rocket ride through New Jersey's passionate and multi-faceted music scene, packed with personalities, interviews, performance clips, and must-visit locations for music fans. This movie is also a time machine to venues of decades past. “The Jersey Sound” explores many genres: jazz, rock, punk, metal, hip-hop, country, disco, blues and fusion. It's especially fascinating to see artists of one genre comment expertly and passionately on another genre, like when country singer Reagan Richards of William's Honor shares stories of sitting in with jazz guitar and multitrack recording innovator Les Paul.
I enjoyed seeing my hometown of Montclair so well represented with multiple Grammy-winning jazz bassist Christian McBride extolling the virtues of Frank Sinatra's contributions to the uniquely American form of music.
It was a special experience getting to hear from so many artists I'm connected with on this scene, including those I've shared the stage with like Rory D'Lasnow and William's Honor, and those I know more through social media circles, like Glenn Burtnik, JJ French of Twisted Sister, Uncle Floyd Vivino, who has featured many of my songs on his recent radio show for WFDU, Jarod Clemons, the talented singer/songwriter/bandleader whose dad was Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fame, Karyn Kuhl and Richard Barone, mainstays of the Hoboken music scene, Bruce Tunkel, a solo artist originally from the band Red House and, of course, the movie's narrator Mike Greenblatt, who recently reviewed one of my music videos.
Hearing from Kool Bell (Kool & the Gang founder from Jersey City) brought back an outstanding memory of a band rehearsal I had in Fairfield, NJ where we were leaving our rehearsal studio room and we heard an amazing version of “Celebration” blasting from the rehearsal space next door. The studio manager told us that was Kool and the Gang rehearsing next to us for their upcoming tour. This was in the 90s when I was the keyboardist in Jim Kilby's band.
We get lots of insightful talk from Southside Johnny about the way the Asbury Park scene evolved and what that meant for his career with the Asbury Jukes. This film is densely packed with the Jersey attitude, the sense of community between artists and audience, even amid the stiff competition and the changing of musical tastes. Though I'd heard about Metallica's NJ connection before, this film brought the legendary metal band's role in developing New Jersey's metal scene into sharper relief than I had imagined. I came away with the impression that this small but densely populated state truly contains multitudes.
This documentary certainly left Amy and me wanting more – and it left me hungry to earn a role in the sequel. I highly recommend it.