
I think it was September of 1967, the first time I met Joe Mal. I auditioned for his band at a restaurant called DeMaio’s in East Hanover, NJ. I was only 16 years old, so my Mom had to drive me to the audition. I played well enough, I guess, to pass the audition that day, and the following weekend I played the first of a countless number of gigs with Joe that lasted for the next 15+ years.
Joe was an extraordinarily talented musician, playing sax, flute, percussion and singing. Great stage presence, a gifted performer and band leader … 10 years my senior, I’m not 100% sure why he gave me that gig, because I was still pretty young and had a lot to learn. Nonetheless, I was handed a list of 75 tunes and told to “learn these by Friday”.
This was 1967 … no internet, no Spotify or streaming, just an AM radio with DJ Cousin Brucie and the hope that some of the songs would come up in Cousin’s rotation over the next few days.
Joe spent the first gig on that Friday night shouting out chord changes to me as we went through the sets. It’s a very long time ago, but I remember him having a tremendous amount of patience with me over that 1st 3 day weekend. On Sunday night, after we packed up, he said to me something along the lines of “nice job, but learn this s***. I’m not gonna be throwing you changes forever”.
I did “learn that s***” in time for the next weeks gig, starting on a Wednesday. Joe didn’t comment one way or the other about my progress, he just accepted me as the bass player in the band and off we went on a musical trip together.
Traveling on the road with subsequent bands, Joe and I were always roommates as we toured around the country, seeing new places and entertaining Lord only knows how many audiences over all of those years together. When times were great we basked in the fruits of our labor together, and when the hard times hit we shared in the misery of that, as well. Up & down, good and bad, we hung in there together.
