If you’ve ever eaten dinner upstairs at Hermanos Cocina Mexicana, you’ve likely been treated to pleasant jazz music to complement your margarita and burrito.
If you’ve been there on the second Sunday or Monday of any month for the last 20 years, you’ve definitely heard the State Street Combo.
The four-piece Concord-based jazz band just celebrated two decades of entertaining the dinner crowds at Hermanos last Sunday and Monday, almost 20 years to the day since they played their first gig there.
“In ’97 we heard they were doing jazz at Hermanos,” said Jock Irvine, the group’s bassist. “Hermanos first started with a folk thing, but I guess that didn’t work out, so they went to jazz.”
The group, which began as a spinoff of sorts from the State Street Rhythm and Blues Band, had started playing jazz a few years earlier, and when they heard that’s what Hermanos was looking for, Irvine picked up the phone.
“I contacted the owner of Hermanos saying we’re a rhythm and blues band but we’d love to play,” Irvine said. “So that’s how we started playing there – I think we’re much better players (now) than we were back then.”
Since that first show on the second Sunday of September, 1997, the band has almost never missed their gig in that same slot – they also have always played the next day.
Ironically, though, they won’t be there on Oct. 8 – the second Sunday of October – due to a commitment in Laconia. It will be the first time in 10 to 15 years the State Street Combo won’t play at Hermanos on the second Sunday of the month, Irvine said.
Fear not, though, because they will be there for the Monday show on the 9th, starting at 6:30 p.m.
They like to mix things up from show to show, but we stopped in last Monday and heard a lot of recognizable and fun instrumental tunes, including a clever, bass-driven rendition of “If I Only Had a Brain” and a version of “Smooth Operator” featuring pianist Tim Wildman on the flugelhorn, a brass horn that’s like an oversized trumpet. The music set a nice mood and it was the perfect volume to still be able to have a conversation.
The guys – BJ Steinberg, Ed Raczka, Wildman and Irvine – love playing there and hope to keep it up indefinitely.
“We’re really grateful for the owner of Hermanos for sticking with music for so long,” Irvine said. “Jane (Valliere) made the commitment that this is gonna be a place to hear live music six nights a week.”
Here’s to another couple decades of jazzing up dinner.
