Feb. 6, 1971: Jennifer's Family

 

     Jennifer’s Family apparently broke up almost as quickly as it came together (singer and drummer Mike Piccolo was part of the original lineup in Talas later in 1971), but it was a remarkably talented collection of players, considering how improbably they were thrown together. See note at the end.  

Feb. 6, 1971 

Presto … And a Band Is Organized 

        Dec. 23 – A guy named Wojda (he pronounces it Voy-tah) calls up with the wildest story I’ve heard since yesterday when the guy came in and laid five Brad (The Whispering Organ Sound of) Swanson records on me.

        Wojda’s 33 and he came up from Washington, D.C., to put a band together with $25,000. All right. No name for it yet, but it’s potentially a national group and there’s something about recording with Columbia.

        He’s got a couple horn players from Tonawanda who went to Oberlin Conservatory. Somebody else went to Berklee School in Boston and there’s this chick singer who – well, she’s not exactly Tina Turner, but she’s really good on ballads.

        Some Buffalo attorneys or somebody (Wojda won’t say who) put up money and it’s gone into amps and a big Altec-Lansing PA system. It’s like an investment, see?

* * *

THE BAND is going to start out here, probably Jan. 15, and after a little seasoning they’ll go on the road. Wojda figures they’ll be the best band in the city. It’ll be obvious right from the first time they appear.

        They’ve got about 30 songs already – a lot of Cold Blood, Chicago – and when they get going, songwriters are supposed to come up from Philadelphia to write songs for them.

* * *

WOJDA SAYS he’s from Buffalo originally and used to play bass for a rock group in Washington. Digs performing, but decided managing and promoting groups is what he likes better.

        In the two months he’s been back here, he’s put out ads and auditioned about 100 players. Including part of a group who said they were the best musicians in the city. Too good, they told him, to play with these guys he’d already chosen. Wojda obliged them. They aren’t playing in his group.

        About the time I start to think some of this is for real, Wojda says he wants to meet me. How about lunch in Allentown after New Year’s? OK. Unbelievable.

* * *

JAN. 7 – Wojda’s easy to pick out. Everybody else is grubby-freaky except for this one nearly-trimmed, long-haired, bearded guy in a gray double-breasted suit.

        The group is going to be called Jennifer’s Family. It was Wojda’s idea and besides, they really are like a family, he says.

        “And I can do a lot for Jennifer’s Family promotionally,” he explains. “You know, like Jennifer’s Family needs a home. That’s how we’ll approach club owners.”

* * *

THEY’LL be so versatile, he goes on, that they’ll be able to play a supper club one night, Gilligan’s the next.

        “The first night that the group is up,” he says, “people are gonna want them. There’s not a brass group in Buffalo can touch them.”

        They’ve gotten down 21 songs in 2½ weeks, working up to 12 hours a day on that $25,000 worth of equipment.

* * *

MORE ABOUT Wojda: He bounced around Bryant & Stratton and UB, went to D.C. in August 1963, played with a group called Instant Rush, came back last September with another group called Pickle, which had vocal problems, volume problems and personal problems. They went home, all except guitarist Gary Cohen.

        “I got the group idea when I was promoting Pickle,” Wojda says. “Pickle went back in the middle of November and I started the ads a week later. The hardest thing to get was a female vocalist.

        “Jennifer was the only one I got off ads. Everybody else in that group came in with a friend who was trying out. I found the best route is to get good musicians together so the group as a whole can grow together. You get too many superstars and they’re all ego-tripping.”

* * *

JAN. 12 – Saw Jennifer’s Family in this bingo hall where they rehearse on Bailey Avenue. Big number-board and seven-foot ceiling, but the sound isn’t bad and at least it’s warm.

        Mike Piccolo comes over. Tried drumming for Jennifer’s Family, Wojda says, but his singing got him in. He’s male lead singer, big conga drum over to one side, and he really gets it on.

        Much better than Jennifer, who apparently replaced the other chick. At first it’s hard to tell her from the guys. And she’s so quiet on stage Mike Piccolo overshadows her. He’s amazing. Aside from him, though, the rest of the band is sort of, well, anonymous. I mean, there’s nine of them.

        “What do you think?” Wojda asks.

        “They’ve got potential, but they’ve got to work it out.”

        My lady Laura suggests getting rid of everybody to the right of the post holding up the ceiling. That would be Jennifer and the three horn players. Wojda doesn’t reply.

* * *

JAN. 18 – Wojda calls and says Jennifer’s Family is opening at Gilligan’s Jan. 29. The producer from Columbia Records is supposed to be there. It’ll be a big night.

        “How about me checking with you next week to be sure all this is definite?” I ask him. “After all, this is the music business.”

* * *

JAN. 28 – Interview the group at the bingo hall. Nice bunch of people, very confident, very loose with each other. And they sound a whole lot better.

        The drummer, Brian Brothman, says the horns really have a lot of drive. The horn section works out its own arrangements, trumpeter Ron Mendola says. Big thing with them is “taste.”

        Bass guitarist Gary Cohen, who runs rehearsals, calls the music jazz-rock. It has more versatility. They dropped most of the Cold Blood numbers, he says. Didn’t want to sound like Chicago.

        They’ll play Keystone 90s near Lockport Feb. 8 and 9, Wojda says. Satan’s Roost Feb. 12 and 13. A week or two at the Yellow Monkey depends on how Gilligan’s goes.

        The new plan is to not to conquer Buffalo, but to get to Pittsburgh and record promotional material “sort of like The Glass Bottle sometime early in March.

        I was toting up what the equipment must have cost. “Did you really spend $25,000?” I ask Wojda. He says he did.

* * *

JAN. 29 – There it is. The Altec-Lansings, the GBX amps, the new Hammond B-3. Jennifer’s Family, all on Gilligan’s stage. Wojda’s done it.

        The group looks nervous, but do they ever sound tight. No mistakes. Here’s “Them Changes.” Piccolo’s coming to that long note. Wow, can he scream. And Jennifer. She’s a lot stronger, a good match with Piccolo.

        Wojda’s father, Edward Wojda, head of Tree Pickles, is in the projection booth next to the klieg light. The producer was snowed out, but he’s pleased with how his son’s venture has progressed.

        “What you have to do,” he says, “is develop a good product, then develop the market. You have to communicate.”

        “Well, then, how do you communicate pickles?”

        “Taste,” he replied.

 

The box/sidebar:

 

One Girl and Eight Men

 

Pertinent and impertinent information about Jennifer’s Family:

        Jennifer Miller, 20, singer, East Aurora High School, graduate of Bradford, Mass., Junior College, played guitar and sang folk songs in the Plaza Suite last summer, single.

        Mike Piccolo, 18, singer, Kenmore West High School, Navy about a year, former drummer in The New Breed, Blue Cheer, The Misfits, single.

        Gary Cohen, 25, bass guitar, native of McLean, Va., attended Shenandoah College, Southeastern University, playing bass in D.C. area since 1960, lead guitarist in Pickle, single.

        Bob Meier, 19, trombone and piano, South Park High, sophomore at Villa Maria College, played commercial jazz with Progression 70, single.

        Brian Brothman, 19, drums, Kenmore West High, attended Genesee Community College, lived around the corner from Piccolo, played with Covinwood Blues Band, single.

         Sam Sperazza, 20, organ, St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, graduate of Niagara County Community College, playing organ five years, married.

        Dick Froy, 20, tenor sax, flute, Kenmore East, Oberlin, Ohio, Conservatory of Music, played with commercial groups, Ron Mendola in group called Opus One, married.

        Ron Mendola, 19, trumpet, Kenmore East, Oberlin, “straight orchestra since high school, but then I got into Miles Davis,” single.

        Jim Kuhns, 20, guitar, Lafayette High School, attended Villa Maria College, formerly with Okra, married, one child.

* * *        

        The Buffalo Music Hall of Famer here is trombonist Bob Meier. He’s been inducted three times, once by himself and again with United Sound and the Hernandez Brothers. What he’s best known for, however, is his work with the Hitmen Horns, our answer to the Tower of Power Horns. He also writes all their arrangements.

        Trumpeter Ron Mendola should be in a Hall of Fame somewhere. After he got a master’s degree in music performance at UB, he lit off to Atlanta and became a professor at Georgia Tech. Not only did he lead the orchestra at the home of the Bulldogs, but he also rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest in the business. According to his Georgia Tech bio, he’s toured with Henry Mancini, Johnny Mathis, Burt Bacharach, Tom Jones and with his own Atlanta Metropolitan Orchestra.

Drummer Brian Brothman stayed in Buffalo and played the clubs with the Boomers and the Dogghouse Band.

Jennifer Miller kept singing. As Jennifer Miller Higgins, she became a teacher in Holland, N.Y., and is part of a musical family in East Aurora. A 2009 story in the East Aurora Advertiser spotlighted her and her siblings in the Miller Family Band performing Beatles songs.

Only other one I could find online is Mike Piccolo, who I heard from regularly. Son of Buffalo swing band leader Tony Piccolo, he really, truly played with the heavy rock group Blue Cheer out in L.A. After Talas, he had a stint with Cock Robin before he went to Nashville. There he was a session musician, adopted the stage name of Mike James and toured with second-level acts.

After he married Ruby, who he met on tour in Winnipeg, he decided the grass was greener in Canada. He settled in Fort Erie, wrote songs, released records and performed over there. I wrote a feature story about him in 1990. Though he died in 2018, he plays on in videos on his memorial page at blueshamilton.blogspot.com.