Gig of the Week: 7/28/25 (plus Substack housekeeping)

The one NYC show I'd recommend most for the week of July 28, 2025

If I were you, I would go see Billy Mintz at Bar Bayeux on August 1st.

Quick PSA up top:

I have turned on paid subscriptions for this Substack. It’s a familiar story: I shied away from doing so for a long time, mainly because I haven’t adhered to any kind of regular publishing schedule thus far. But I’m going to give it a shot and see what happens. I won’t belabor the many valid concerns swirling around right now about the imperiled state of arts writing; instead, I’ll simply say that, as someone currently making my living primarily as a freelance journalist, any little bit helps.

To anyone who pledged a subscription in advance, thank you! I hope you will not be unpleasantly surprised by this development. To anyone who might be considering one, I won’t give you the hard sell at this stage. I really just think of this as setting out a pay-what-you-wish tip jar. At this point, I’ve been blogging (is that still a word?) in one medium or another for more than 20 years. It seems that a few folks are interested in what I have to share on here, so perhaps some percentage of those readers might like to kick in a bit. If so, it’s greatly appreciated; if not, I completely understand, and thank you regardless for being here.

Right now, I have no intention of paywalling any posts here. I reserve the right to change my mind on that point, but at the moment, the most valued commodity is your attention.

Lastly, I have no grand plans for accelerating, regulating or revamping the DFSBP publication schedule. In a given week, day-job-related deadlines are always going to come first. But who knows: If the response to this development is encouraging, it may inspire me to write more regularly on here.

Again: Paid, unpaid, I’m just glad you’re here. Thanks for indulging this modest commercial experiment. Oh, and if you like what you read on here, today or any day, consider telling a friend.

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That said, one thing I am going to do is start recommending New York live shows via this channel. For comprehensive gig listings in the jazz, experimental, etc. space, I would point you to diligently maintained newsletters such as Piotr Orlov’s Bklyn Sounds and Steve Smith’s Night After Night. I have no designs on encroaching on that exceedingly well-maintained territory.

My intended approach is simple: I go to a lot of shows, probably around three or four per week on average, and I maintain a pretty full datebook of what I either plan to see or would hypothetically like to see. So, each Sunday, barring any major time constraints, I’m going to aspire to recommend one (1) live show to you for the coming week and provide a bit of context re: why I’m choosing it. All genres, venues and show types are in play. Really, what I’m hoping to do is offer a heads-up to the effect of, “If I were you and had only one night to spare for live-music attendance during the next seven days, here’s what I would pick.”

So, for the week of July 28, 2025, my Gig of the Week selection is:

Billy Mintz at Bar Bayeux; Friday, August 1

This is an easy choice, because I had the great pleasure of hearing this particular band just last night at the lovely Ornithology in Bushwick. As at that performance, the personnel for Friday’s gig will be: Roberta Piket on piano and occasional vocals, Adam Kolker on saxophones and flute, Eddie Allen on trumpet, John Hébert on bass and, of course, Billy Mintz on drums.

I can’t recall the exact year I first caught this extraordinary musician live, but I know it was in the early 2000s, at Dee Pop’s much-missed series at the CBGB basement lounge, where Mintz was leading his long-running 2 Bass Band. As I detailed in this 2014 post on the old Dark Forces Swing blog, written after one of the many Mintz gigs I’ve attended in the intervening years, there was something in his playing and overall concept that took hold of me that night and has not let go.

I’ve seen him play in both free settings and more “inside.” The current quintet skews toward the latter. If I had to classify it, I’d call it a post-bop band, but there’s a subtle eccentricity at play that sets it apart from anything I’d describe as a straight-ahead. The driving forces are Mintz’s catchy yet offbeat writing — which, to my ear, nods to sources like Monk and Lennie Tristano, but as you can hear on this excellent 2013 quartet release, has its own unique flavor — and his deep and entrancing sense of swing.

Mintz was born in 1947, and has been working steadily since then, so it almost goes without saying that his playing would possess a certain x factor. But Mintz has that x factor in abundance: Plush yet sturdy and almost startlingly propulsive, his beat changes the environmental chemistry of the room, bathing the music in a kind of magical glow. Like Paul Motian, he hits hard and authoritatively when he wants to but is just as content to lay back or, sometimes, recede into a mere wisp of rhythm.

As with Motian, what I love about Billy Mintz is that despite many exposures to his playing over the years, I still don’t feel like I understand it: where exactly it’s coming from, where it fits into the larger story of jazz, how it manages to convey such sly profundity. And this is far from a one-man show: The rest of the band — from Piket, Mintz’s steady collaborator and wife, on down — is truly excellent.

Anyway, go see Billy Mintz. Tell me what you think. Hopefully someday I’ll have the chance to interview him and learn more right from the source, but in the meantime, I could use some help in unraveling the mystery!

PS: If I were you, I would also buy one or more advance tickets to the Dazzling Killmen show (I can’t even believe I’m typing those words…) at the Meadows on September 24. Longtime readers might recognize the Killmen as the band that gave DFSBP its name.