“Don’t let Polott fool you, a humble gent off the bandstand, the bass player is cooking in the pocket – plying glissandos, double stops, countermelodies, solo breaks, and grooves on his crisp, resonant Sadowsky Jazz.”
-Tom Semioli KNOW YOUR BASS PLAYER.COM
Some of the artists I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to open up for, or share the stage with: Paul Butterfield, Little Eva, the Chambers Brothers, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Rod Stewart and Faces, Savoy Brown, Buddy Miles, Black Sabbath, Rare Earth, Mungo Jerry, Manfred Mann, Eric Burden and War, Blue Oyster Cult, Rory Gallagher, Lee Michaels, the James Gang, Howlin’ Wolf, the Elvin Bishop Group, Steve Forbert, Cactus, Ohio Players, Graham Central Station…
It all started with saxophone lessons in Fifth grade which led to a love of music and performing. My first band was the Long Island Sounds. We were four Junior High School friends from Queens, who played whenever they could and were the highlight of parties, sweet sixteens, dances and an appearance at the NY Worlds Fair in September of 1965 at the NY State Pavilion. I was on tenor sax and vocals. This Conn 10M horn, which now resides in my closet, was a gift from my Dad. He purchased it shortly before the show at the Sam Ash music store in Hempstead, Long Island. It replaced the alto sax that I began on, and seemed a natural move towards my future in rock music. I remember having to transpose all my parts, including the famous solo from Sam the Sham and the Pharoah’s “Wooly Bully,” in the few days remaining before our appearance in Flushing Meadow.
My ambitions were further fueled by several summers working in rock bands up in the Borsht Belt of NY’s Catskill Mountains. The Innovation Umbrella, fronted by the beautiful and talented Lila, was the house band at the Aladdin Hotel in 1967. We were discovered during a short stint at Ruben’s Maple View and received an offer we couldn’t refuse to “upgrade” to the Aladdin in neighboring Woodbourne. We were 16. It was the Summer of Love. We won several Battle of the Bands and the big musical highlights were opening up for the Chambers Brothers in concert and an appearance onstage with Little Eva playing the mega hit, “the Locomotion.” She found me in my room and said, (and I quote)…”I need a bass!” There were other highlights in that magical summer that will not be mentioned here.
The Beatles had taken the world by storm and by necessity someone in the band had to be on bass and this would be my calling and a life changing decision.
In several configurations we played together for a few years and then another watershed moment…
The Innovation Umbrella Boys...49 years later!
Showtime!
Always a snappy dresser!
The seventies. photo by Joanne Russo Bryde
Haystacks Balboa toured the country opening for acts as diverse as Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Rod Stewart and Faces, Savoy Brown, Mungo Jerry, Elvin Bishop and Eric Burden and War. We opened up Black Sabbath’s first US gig in Glasboro, NJ. We were 19, had a blast, heard ourselves on the radio and did everything but sell records…
Sticky Finger
“I could a’ been champ, I could a’ been a contender.”
19 years old… it’s been downhill ever since…
If only…
Undescribably great times, the formative years. I have often joked that my career has been downhill since I was 19. In reality, this was the spark that gave rise to the creature I am.
In 1974 we were signed again to Polydor in an unrelated deal. We found top management and a producer, recorded an album at Electric Lady Studios and thought this might be it. We toured again, opening for Blue Oyster Cult at the new Artpark venue near Niagara Falls. The great Larry Graham made a lasting impression on me in his warm-ups backstage when our group opened his bills in Upstate New York and we had a memorable night revving up the crowd for the Ohio Players at the Louisville Convention Center when our singer fell off the very elevated stage. We were surrounded by a great bunch of guys from very diverse backgrounds. This was reflected in the record… half funk and half rock. The band was named Mercury, a moniker chosen by management. We wore silver suits, uncomfortably. Sadly, on the brink of release, there was a shake up at Polydor and we were one of it’s victims. A well crafted and eclectic collection of our original tunes would not reach the public. Singles were pressed from “ the forthcoming album” but success eluded us again. Potential hits such as “Aw Shucks, Ain’t Got the Bucks” and “Lila” would remain underground. This tune would resurface 30 years later on another one of our projects, timeless, at the least. Some of these bass lines should have been on the airwaves. It was some of our best writing and we even flew to some gigs!
King of Broadway
Aw Shucks (Ain't Got the Bucks)
Lila
Keep Doin'
The Music Box was a record shop located between my school and my home. It was owned by Keith West, a singer and a larger than life personality. Many of the Queens rockers would congregate there and some solid friendships were born. Paul Stanley was a regular. We would hang and talk music, girls, and guitars amidst a mixture of band competitiveness and cameraderie. Keith was the founder of the Brats. They were a very popular group at the very beginning of the Glam era in NYC. Kiss got their start at a Brats loft party. The rhythm guitarist, a neighbor of mine, was an original NY Doll, before their meteoric rise. The bassist cut my hair. I worked briefly with the drummer. Keith and I were good friends, still are.
If You Can't Rock
The club scene in NYC was exploding. There seemed to be a million bands playing out and everyone looked for their gimmick to help separate themselves from the rank and file. Lack of musical skill was often overcome by a great image, crazy name or just plain charisma! Far from being a “pretty boy,” I had to rely on good songs and technical skills to get and keep gigs. This dilemma gave birth to Murder Inc. Mayo and I gathered a great group of musicians and developed the Murder Inc. show to help us create some buzz and secure many shows upstairs at Max’s Kansas City and down on the Bowery at the Great Gildersleeves. We appeared on the Gildersleeves album and it was here that I met my wife, Pat. Maybe it was the gangster suits, maybe the slide show or the dueling lead guitarists. Whatever it was, we had a good run as outsiders surrounded by the world of Punk and New Wave.
SlippingAway-Feeling is Right
And the Wave was big. We morphed into a tight, groomed pop band. We added some friends who had the right vibe and an MTV look. The pompadours grew and the tunes were commercial. There was some reggae ( a genre always visited by us), some cool instrumentals and a polished set of shorter catchy tunes. Through it all, we played our hearts out and had many memorable nights on stage. The name came about when we decided during a naming marathon, that the next name suggested would be it, no matter what! Someone said the Eskimos and after we regained our composure and our breath, we landed on Igloos. Original, if nothing else.
Just a Little Bit
The simplicity of our sound coupled with a complexity of chordal structure led us to pursue a new challenge. We always felt that our songs were our most marketable commodity. We craved a way to embellish our creations. We decided to take a leap and form a big band. We added a horn section. Initially it was two trumpets, a trombone and two or three saxes. This line up varied during the life span of Raccoon Lodge, but was a dynamic live unit and really fun in the studio. We played out a fair amount, the highlight being the Hard Rock Café uptown. Our undoing was the complexity of running an eight piece band… too many scheduling conflicts, too many phone calls and too many egos. The recordings live on as a testimonial to our power and energy. It was a blast singing in front of the massive sound coming off those seemingly tiny stages. We would also meet some great sax players that would influence our sound, even up to today.
No Walls
Living in the Street
Here to Stay
The 90’s were winding down. We needed to scale it down and just have some fun. What followed were a series of groups built around Mayo and myself, Ken Plum, the hot tenor sax player from the Lodge and Jim Taormina, a keyboardist we met through an old drummer friend of ours from the early 70’s known as Dippy. This core was augmented by a series of female vocalists. Blue Zone became Blue Lagoon when we added Val Kinzler up front and our old friend, the great Joe Franco sat behind the drum kit. Joe had left us in Haystacks many years before to join the Good Rats and remained a good friend of ours for decades. His career has been stellar with stints with Leslie West and Twisted Sister just to name a few. And he owned a great recording facility in town. We recorded a nice demo at Avatar and played several gigs around town. This didn’t quite work out but we remained blue.
One of the defining characteristics of a Mayo-Polott project is diversity. We never seem to know exactly what we should be so we just write and play whatever we feel at the moment. We’re funky one moment, heavy the next, and we have a comfort zone within almost any genre. That being said, we always were children of the 60’s and grew up on the blues of the original masters and more importantly, on the sounds of Clapton, Beck, Hendrix and Page. We never were a pure blues band, that might be my doing, but the blues was always a big part of our set.
Urban Blue was born out of this “problem.”
We added Dave Painchaud on trumpet and a new saxophonist, Senien Hicks. Backed by our drummer Doug Sako, we let it simmer. We played out a lot at some great venues.
In 2004 we recorded our first cd, “It’s Different Today.” We were helped out by Lloyd Landesman who co-produced and engineered. Lloyd was the keyboardist in Haystacks Balboa, over thirty years before. It’s fourteen songs including our reggae influenced cover of ‘Crossroads” and the title cut, our post 9/11 ballad. The music is available on iTunes and CDBaby.
Middle of Nowhere
It's Different Today
We became a great party band that could, and did, play late into the night. We mixed a great variety of original material with the cover tunes we grew up on and loved. At our shows you could “expect the unexpected.” Urban Blue became a regular draw at Lucille’s Bar and Grill inside BB King’s in Times Square.
Upstairs Sleeping
A Thousand Stories Never Told was released right as 2016 began. On it, the power ballad “Waiting for the Real You” contains the line “Can’t see the future, whatcha gonna do?” That about sums it up. I don’t know where I’m heading but with this new release the adventure continues…
She's Not There
Waiting for the Real You
FULL CIRCLE
Back in the seventies, I had the great pleasure of playing the upstairs venue at Max’s Kansas City as a member of my own band, Murder Inc. and also as the bassist for the Brats. In June 2019, I was invited to reprise that role with the Brats at the Max’s Reunion Show. It would be 30 bands in 3 nights at a location on New York’s lower East Side. I rehearsed out in Brooklyn and armed with my ’75 Fender Jazz Bass, I took the stage on a magical Friday night and let it loose. It was the same axe I used with them back when I was a wee lad. They performed two Mayo-Polott compositions which had places in their set for all these years…
When the Brats call, I answer.
a,bassist Hopefully, this story will continue for many years. In an era of Youtube and Selfies, everyone seems to find their spotlight. The concept of Fame has become somewhat trite and maybe a little irrelevent. Ego aside, I simply felt this is a story that could, and should be told. More so than even the music itself, the people I have met along the way give the tale relevance. They have been sources of energy for me as important as the songs and performances. My path has been crossed by characters like Jett, Stix, Frummy, Zootland, Weasel, Mush, Fat Eddie and a dancing dwarf known as Bullet. Through bassist Tone Forrest, I made my way into the vibrant music scene in Santa Fe, New Mexico after my retirement from the “day gig.” I’ve had the great pleasure of sitting in with Joey Kelly’s “Dive Bar Romeos” in NYC. During the Covid era, I’ve added my bass remotely to recordings and video projects that helped push me forward. Sometimes the adventure resembles a Damon Runyan fiction, sometimes a Fellini film. Along the way I’ve made lifelong friends, memorable acquaintances and most importantly, in a backstage encounter, I met my wife. I feel good with the fact that I have given it my all every time I am onstage, at a rehearsal, or in the studio. Many of you reading this are players in the saga. You know who you are!
A short film featuring original music and visuals.
A lazy P ranch production. ©2018
A funky soundtrack accompanies a short film shot in New York and London.
A lazy P ranch production. ©2018
A short film documenting mysterious events during monsoon season in New Mexico.
A lazy P ranch production ©2019
