Freedom with Rules

‘Cornet king’ Ed Polcer brings his brand of collective improvisation to JazzFeast.

By: Michael Redmond
   The excitement of live jazz, the savor of fresh dishes, the view of Palmer Square and Princeton University — it’s "nice work if you can get it, / and you can get it if you try" (George and Ira Gershwin).
   Thanks to Palmer Square Management, JazzFeast is coming back to Princeton Sept. 16 for the 15th straight year. One can count upon a lively crowd to turn out for it. This is one of the handful of Princeton events that people call up newspapers to ask about.
   It seems safe to say that cornet king Ed Polcer (Princeton University Class of ’58) never imagined back in the day that he would be leading a swing band in Palmer Square sometime after the turn of the millennium.
   A native of Hawthorne in Passaic County, Mr. Polcer studied engineering at Princeton, although music was his first love. He managed to have the best of both worlds here by joining the Nassau Jazz Band and Stan Rubin’s Tigertown Five, one of the hottest Dixieland combos of the day. With Rubin & Co., while still a student, he ended up playing Carnegie Hall, then off they went to Monte Carlo for the wedding of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and his blushing bride, the former Grace Kelly of Philadelphia.
   "My father was an amateur trumpet player. He played in a polka band, and I used to sit on the bandstand beside him. That’s where it all started," Mr. Polcer reminisces.
   "My father had immigrated to the United States from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He found work in the silk mills of Paterson. He was a warper and a textile miller — but he always had his music. I turned up in Princeton a very unsophisticated kid. Princeton opened my eyes to the whole world that was out there."
   Some world. Ed Polcer has brought his vintage of "good, free-wheeling swing jazz" to venues throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He has played the Newport/Kool/JVC Jazz Festival in New York, Lincoln Center (three times), the White House, various gigs with symphony orchestras, and a command performance for the king of Thailand. And he had the high honor of being invited to play during the dedication of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, N.Y.
   Mr. Polcer, who resides in Brooklyn, didn’t go "pro" until some 15 years after he graduated Princeton, but when he went, he went big. He had been recommended to Benny Goodman, who hired him for a U.S. tour of his sextet. "That was the turning point. That’s when I knew that music was more important to me than anything else," Mr. Polcer says. A few years later he became part owner and manager of Eddie Condon’s in New York, the fabled swing club on West 52nd Street, aka "Swing Street."
   "In my years at Eddie Condon’s, we encouraged and hired a lot of players who are now in their prime — (trumpeters) Warren Vache and Dave Bennett, (saxophonist) Scott Hamilton, many others. They learned by hearing us, just as we learned by hearing the older generation. With jazz players, that’s the way it goes," he says.
   And the hot young players are still coming, even though Mr. Polcer admits that he doesn’t "know how they find their way. Some of them say they got the music from their parents, others say recordings — and they realized how good it is. They have to jump over a lot of obstacles. Generally speaking, there are no high school swing bands for them, as there was for me, and they’re not being encouraged by peer approval."
   While upbeat about the future of jazz, Mr. Polcer acknowledges that "young people, the public generally, don’t get this music through the mainstream media. But I have blind faith that this music is so good it will always be rediscovered. This music is collective improvisation. We don’t play with music in front of us — we don’t need it. Man, this music is so American, it’s just beautiful. It’s freedom with rules — the rules are the chords, otherwise it’s a musical conversation that develops as it goes. That’s what brought me to the party."
   Here’s the JazzFeast bill of fare:
   Vocalist Bryan Clark and the New Legacy Jazz Band with a lineup of American standards (noon to 1 p.m.); pianist Derek Smith, a veteran of the Doc Severinsen’s "Tonight Show" Orchestra (1:15 to 2:15 p.m.); Greg Piccolo and Heavy Juice, a blend of blues with traditional jazz, pop, reggae and rock ‘n’ roll (2:30 to 3:30 p.m.); and Ed Polcer with his All Stars (including Ken Peplowski, reeds, Joe Ascione, drums, Matt Hoffmann, vibes, and Jonathan Russell, violin) in "The Magic of Swing Street" (3:45 to 4:45 p.m.).
   Among the restaurants participating are Alchemist & Barrister, Buzzetta Catering, Mediterra, Mehek, Teresa Caffe, The Original SoupMan, the Tiger’s Tale, Triumph Brewing Co. and Winberie’s.
JazzFeast will take place rain or shine on the Palmer Square Green, Princeton, Sept. 16, noon to 5 p.m. The music is free. Food vendors will charge according to their menus. On the Web: www.palmersquare.com.