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Pianist<br />
Mintel Takes<br />
on Brubeck’s<br />
Model, Life<br />
Lessons<br />
Pianist Eric Mintel devoted<br />
his new album, the selfreleased<br />
50 Years After ... A<br />
Tribute To Dave Brubeck, to<br />
his mentor’s repertoire. But<br />
the Philadelphia-area pianist<br />
looks to Brubeck for more<br />
than just musical inspiration.<br />
Brubeck worked tirelessly<br />
to raise the profile of jazz. He<br />
performed at college campuses<br />
during an era when such<br />
bookings were uncommon,<br />
and so he relied on himself to<br />
make the tours happen.<br />
“This is another thing I<br />
learned from Dave Brubeck<br />
early on: You’ve got to create<br />
the environment that<br />
you’re going to thrive in,”<br />
Mintel said. “So if they’re<br />
not going to come to you,<br />
you’ve got to go to them. So<br />
I wound up trying to find creative ways to get<br />
my music out there.”<br />
Those creative ways have led Mintel’s quartet<br />
to play at a wide range of venues away from<br />
the regular club circuit. He’s performed at the<br />
Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing<br />
Rock, N.C., the University of Vermont at<br />
Burlington, the Second Congregational Church<br />
in Greenwich, Conn., and Hunterdon County<br />
Library in Flemington, N.J.<br />
“By going into churches, libraries, colleges<br />
and universities, this is how my career all came<br />
to be,” Mintel said. “The final result is the<br />
music, and we’re getting an incredible<br />
response.”<br />
Mintel’s new disc strikes a balance<br />
between Brubeck’s classic tunes like “Take<br />
Five” and obscurities such as “Nomad,”<br />
“Unisphere” and “Elana Joy.” “We’ve forged<br />
a great friendship over the years,” Mintel said.<br />
“But even more so, Dave has been a positive<br />
role model in my life.”<br />
Brubeck not only expressed admiration for<br />
Mintel’s commitment to his career, but also his<br />
ability to perform technically challenging compositions<br />
like “Blue Rondo À La Turk.”<br />
“He’s the most determined person I’ve ever<br />
known about making it,” Brubeck said of<br />
Mintel. “He has a marriage of talent and hard<br />
work. I first heard Mintel as a teenager, and I<br />
saw promise there. He’s tackled a lot of my<br />
hardest pieces and these are tunes that I had<br />
written and had almost forgotten. I was<br />
impressed that he’d been doing things that I<br />
INDIE<br />
Life<br />
was no longer doing, and that’s a good feeling.”<br />
Mintel, 41, has carved out a niche without<br />
the benefits of management or formal training.<br />
He learned to play the piano by ear during high<br />
school while focusing on Brubeck’s recordings,<br />
notably Time Out (1959), Jazz Impressions Of<br />
Japan (1964) and Jazz Impressions Of New<br />
York (1964). Mintel worked as a house painter<br />
and an advertising salesman before he began<br />
pursuing music on a full-time basis in 1999.<br />
The pianist has appeared at jazz festivals in<br />
Philadelphia, Hartford, Conn., and Savannah,<br />
Ga. He performed during a White House holiday<br />
dinner reception for President Bill Clinton<br />
in 1998. In addition, Mintel has earned an<br />
endorsement deal from Yamaha.<br />
Mintel’s daily commitment for booking and<br />
publicity exceeds 40 hours each week. “I’m on<br />
the phone 24/7,” he said at his home in Bucks<br />
County, Pa. “I have a list of venues to call<br />
every day. I’m working on bookings weeks,<br />
months, sometimes a year or so in advance. I’m<br />
wearing so many hats.<br />
“It starts with making that phone call,” he<br />
continued. “You’ve got to talk to that person<br />
who’s in charge of booking the entertainment.<br />
Then you’ve got to send them your information:<br />
either send them a press kit in the mail,<br />
or send an e-mail message with a link to your<br />
web site. Then follow up with that person; it<br />
could be over two weeks, it could be over two<br />
months or it could be over six months. And<br />
finally, you hope to get a gig and then you go<br />
on to pitching the next venue.” —Eric Fine