By Mary Ann Bourbeau
DEAL PARK – When he’s not on tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, “Mighty Max” Weinberg needs to keep his drumming skills sharp, so he often performs with a variety of musicians.
“With the E Street Band, we have long tours and then time off,” he said. “As a musician, you have to keep playing.”
The Atlantic Highlands resident will help keep his skills sharp when he takes part 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, in a benefit concert for the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal Park. As part of The Max Weinberg Quintet, he will play with a talented combination of jazz instrumentalists, including pianist David Kikoski, who won a Grammy Award in 2011 as part of the Mingus Big Band. Also in the band is Cameron Brown, a jazz bassist known for playing with the Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet, as well as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. John Bailey on trumpet has an impressive resume, having toured with Ray Charles and played with Ray Barretto, Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan and the Buddy Rich Band. David Mann has played saxophone with Pat Metheny and Ray Charles.
“It’s a wonderful group, the best jazz musicians in New York,” Weinberg said. “It will be a 70-minute show for people who really like the post-bop era with a wide variety of music by Art Blakey, Charlie Parker and Lou Donaldson.”
In addition to the performance, Weinberg will discuss the music that inspires him, talk about the highlights of his career and take part in a Q&A session.
“The Axelrod is well-recognized and does some pretty incredible programming,” he said. “I’m happy to participate in this.”
Weinberg, 63, began playing drums at the age of 5. After seeing Elvis Presley perform on the Milton Berle show, he was enamored by Presley’s drummer, D.J. Fontana. He was also exposed to music at home. His attorney father played violin and his sister was a vocalist and pianist. But Weinberg credits his love of show business to his late mother, who took him to Broadway musicals nearly every Saturday, seeing the likes of Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Yul Brynner and Zero Mostel on the Great White Way.
“I saw some incredible performances and it made me want to perform,” he said.
At the age of 7 – at what he recalls was a wedding or bar mitzvah – Weinberg’s mother asked the bandleader if her son could sit in on a song or two.
“There I was in a three-piece black mohair suit with Buddy Holly glasses, and I launched into a drum solo,” Weinberg said. “The guy got such a kick out of it. He hired me as a novelty act, paying me $2 a gig.”
Weinberg performed with that band until he was 14, and credits much of his success to that experience.
“It made me very versatile,” he said. “I was also making decent money for a teenager and having fun.”
Over the next few years, Weinberg played on cruise ships, at circuses, in the Borscht Belt in the Catskills, and spent a year in the orchestra pit for the Broadway show “Godspell.”
“It was fun. I met a lot of great people and it was steady work,” he said.
In 1974, he answered an ad in the Village Voice. It was a singer named Bruce Springsteen in search of a drummer for his band.
“He saw something in me and I certainly saw something in him,” Weinberg said of the audition. “I also saw something impressive in the way the other guys related to him.”
Weinberg was attending Seton Hall University at the time with plans to become a lawyer, but he dropped out 15 credits shy of a degree to join Springsteen’s band. (Years later, he went back and got his degree.)
“Meeting Bruce was obviously life-changing,” he said. “As soon as I played with Bruce and Clarence (Clemons) and Danny (Federici), I knew this was the band of my dreams. Hooking up with someone who has become so culturally important to the American conversation, to be a part of that, is really rare. I thank my lucky stars that connection happened in 1974.”
Weinberg has spent much of the last 40 years touring and recording with Springsteen. He also served for 17 years as band leader and comic foil for the television shows “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” a dream come true for a kid who grew up revering Doc Severinson.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be on TV leading my own band,” he said. “I got to play with great musicians every day. I also had two young kids. I commuted from Monmouth County every day and was home in time to read them a story.”
Occasionally, Weinberg took time off from late night to tour with the E Street Band. His wife Becky, an animal rights activist and a former teacher, came along with their children, Ali and Jay, as did other band members’ wives and kids. Becky schooled their kids and took them to some of the world’s finest museums in Europe.
“It was a fabulous opportunity for all of our children,” Weinberg said.
Like any parent, Weinberg loves to talk about his children. Ali, 27, is a digital journalist and producer for ABC News in Washington, covering the White House. Jay, 24, is an artist and a drummer who has filled in for his father in the E Street Band.
“Becky and I are so proud of them,” he said. “They followed their dreams and are wonderfully independent.”
When he’s not working, Weinberg and his wife enjoy browsing in bookstores and spending time at their house in Tuscany, where he also participates in an annual fundraiser, the Cortona Mix Festival.
“I hope to take the quintet to Europe this winter,” he said. “I’m doing exactly what I hoped I would be doing back when I was 14, and it’s still unreal to me. I’m enjoying my children’s activities and enjoying life, lucky to have a partner to go through it with for the last 33 years.”
Tickets for the Axelrod Performing Arts Center start at $25. Tickets for $100 include VIP seating, a dessert reception and autographs.
Additional information is available by calling 732-858-8106 or visiting www.axelrodartscenter.com.
Vibe writer Mary Ann Bourbeau can be reached at mbourbeau@tworivertimes.com.
