WEST NYACK — The last time Richard Connolly saw his son, Stefan, they talked about their shared love of music and Richard’s many projects as a writer, publisher, producer and college teacher.
Father and son met at Stefan’s restaurant, Tequila Sal Y Limon in Piermont, above the Turning Point, where Stefan tended bar and was a popular fixture among patrons and musicians.
It was the day before Stefan lost his life in a May 2015 car crash while on his way home to Warwick after work. He was 40 years of age.
Since then, Richard has looked for meaningful ways to remember his son.
One of those ways, a Circumstantial Memorial Concert, will bring together an eclectic mix of musicians in a setting as novel as the program itself.
Blues harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite; folk/jazz pioneer Jim Kweskin; longtime Kweskin collaborator and singer Samoa Wilson; and jazz piano innovator Laurence Hobgood will perform together for the first time in the sanctuary of the Clarkstown Reformed Church in West Nyack on Feb. 8.
Kweskin, whose 1960s Jug Band helped launch Maria Muldaur’s career, has crafted a synthesis of old jazz tunes and traditional folk music that has influenced musicians like Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Dan Hicks and Trey Anastasio. Kweskin and Wilson also will be performing one night earlier during a sold-out show at the Turning Point.
Musselwhite has most recently been performing and recording with Ben Harper during a Grammy-winning career that has included collaborations with Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Cyndi Lauper, Eddie Vedder, Tom Waits and Bonnie Raitt.
The performers will play separately, interspersed with narration and readings by Connolly.
The program ends with a rendition by Hobgood and Musselwhite of “Cristo Redentor,” a haunting instrumental first recorded by jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd in 1964.
Acoustic evening
Richard and Stefan Connolly shared a connection to music that grew as Stefan became a DJ. Father had introduced son to records on the Vanguard label from the 1960s by Kweskin and Musselwhite.
“Many times over the years I would say to Stefan one of the goals in my life was to get Jim Kweskin to perform with Charlie Musselwhite, so one thread in the story of what’s leading to these events is that one,” Richard Connolly said.
The choice of the historic church as the venue for Saturday’s performance carries its own significance: Richard Connolly’s mother, Thelma Stalter Connolly, began to sing traditional Christian hymns and American folk hymns in the church as a young girl in 1923. The concert also pays tribute to Thelma Connolly, who died on May 27, 2017.
The Feb. 8 concert will be an all-acoustic performance in the historic church’s sanctuary. The entire program will be produced with no microphones, no amplification and very little use of anything electronic, Connolly said.
“I want us to remember who we were before we became dependent on (and often addicted to) analog and digital technologies,” Connolly said.
Saturday’s concert is the first in what is intended to be a series of musical presentations, movie screenings and readings. It is presented by Connolly’s Circumstantial Productions, which since its founding in 1982, has published a series of books of non-fiction, fiction and poetry, produced video documentaries, and produced albums and performances by a wide range of musical artists.
Connolly, of West Nyack, has been teaching at Rockland Community College since 1968. He has cultivated a talent for bringing artists from different disciplines together to collaborate on a variety of projects.
Those collaborations have included the Dalai Lama, Bob Dorough, Vaclav Havel, Dr. John, Libby Titus, Luther Allison, Kurt Elling, Robert Pinsky, Doc Pomus and Big Joe Turner.
Longtime Rockland blues fans may recall the series of Chicago-based performers he brought to the Interlude, a popular live music club that was located on the site of what is now Khan’s Mongolian in Blauvelt.
If you go
- Who: Laurence Hobgood, Charlie Musselwhite, Jim Kweskin and Samoa Wilson
- What: A Circumstantial Memorial Concert: A program of stories, readings, and music for Thelma Stalter Connolly and Stefan Milo Connolly.
- When: 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 8
- Where: Clarkstown Reformed Church, 107 Strawtown Road, West Nyack
- Suggested donation: $20 for the Circumstantial Music Fund in memory of Thelma Stalter Connolly and Stefan Milo Connolly. Checks can be made to Circumstantial Productions, 62 Demarest Ave., West Nyack, NY.
Robert Brum is a Rockland County-based reporter and editor. For subscriber-only Rockland County news, visit offers.lohud.com to sign up for a subscription. To subscribe to The Rockland Angle, a nightly email newsletter exclusively for Rockland County news, features and other essential information, visit lohud.com/newsletters, check the Rockland Angle” box and submit your email address.
Twitter: @Bee_bob
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