Sept. 22, 1978 Gusto music feature: New York Transfer

 

Now, 45½ years later, I’ve just written the Buffalo News obituary for the guy who led this band.

Sept. 22, 1978 

One of the area’s most successful

Bands does it without nightclubs.

        If there’s a musical equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, then it must be New York Transfer. They’re one of the most successful bands in the area – their books stretch all the way to New Year’s 1980 – but don’t look for them in nightclubs. The lounge life doesn’t allow for getting up with the dawn’s early light and New York Transfer has to. All six members of the group also have full-time occupations during the day.

        Trumpeter Ken Mack is a draftsman for the county. Saxophonist John Hill can be found at Buffalo’s Visual and Performing Arts Academy, teaching music. Guitarist Steve Michaels sells wholesale auto parts. Drummer Jimmy Edwin spent 13 years on TV’s “Dialing for Dollars.” Now he heads the Kent Drum Co. and is vice president of his family’s business – Edwin’s Music Store on Broadway.

        The two newest members of the group, who joined this summer, find the arrangement suits them fine too. Pianist Dave Kalota is studying at Erie Community College to become an optician, while bassist Carl Cedar is putting together a new jazz-rock band called Taxi, which will play when New York Transfer doesn’t.

        Essentially, that gives Cedar Sunday night through Friday afternoon, depending on the practice schedule. Weekends, however, belong to New York Transfer. Strictly private engagements. They’re likely to be someplace like a company picnic or a wedding reception or a country club social or in the new Buffalo Convention Center, where they’ll play the Philharmonic Ball Nov. 3 and return the next night for the Buffalo Savings Bank’s annual ball.

        The only chances the general public gets to see them are at open dances, like the one Saturday in St. Gerard’s Church, 2515 Bailey Ave., or next Friday at Daemen College or Oct. 8 in Cheektowaga’s Highland Hose Company fire hall. Sometimes they do two shows back-to-back, one Saturday afternoon, the other Saturday night.

        “No matter what,” says Hill, “we’ll go in and do a professional job. Every job counts and our future bookings are dependent on every job we play.”

        That’s no idle boast. Mack, who keeps the scheduling book, estimates that 80 percent of the group’s dates come from word-of-mouth reputation and repeat engagements. One thing that helps spread their fame is a record album they produced two years ago. TV announcer Nolan Johannes provides the commentary as the band ushers the listener through the decades musically. Only three of the current group are on it, but it sells two or three dozen copies each engagement and it stands as a reasonable representation of the variety of the New York Transfer songbook, which includes more than 200 numbers.

        “We’re out to be the band to hire for all occasions,” says Mack. “The reason we can do it is because we cover all kinds of material and it comes out sounding authentic. With the sextet now, I think the sound has blossomed. Everybody’s singing. It’s a case of trying to use everybody’s capacities to the fullest.”

        Since all read music fluently, picking up new songs is a snap. With six voices to choose from, the group can tap Michaels for country tunes, Mack for the soulful pieces and Kalota, who has extensive commercial band experience, for the rock numbers. All can play several instruments (Cedar earned his music degree from UB on clarinet), though the sextet permits them to do without the switch-off the quintet used to do on bass.

        Mack started the group in 1972 when he was looking for a way to keep playing music and maintain a day job. This he saw as an alternative to the pickup bands that ordinarily play private dates. Michaels has been with him almost since the beginning. Edwin came aboard in 1975 and Hill has been with the group slightly more than a year.

        Though their former pianist departed this summer to start his own business, they didn’t miss a date. It took a month of auditions, however, to find Kalota and Cedar.

        “Their attitudes have got to be right for doing this kind of music,” Mack explains when talking about the search for new members. “If they’ve got the playing capabilities and they’re in the right head to join us, then all we’ve got to do is show them that book full of engagements.”

        Cedar, whose background includes the soul band Equinox, the jazz of Emil Palame and the folk-rock of the Dillon-Brady Band, is intrigued by his new assignment and his new audience.

        “This is the first time I’ve played weddings regularly,” he says, “and I think of this sometimes as a ‘folk’ group. What I mean is that we relate to a lot of different ethnic groups, and seeing what goes on. It’s like it’s the most important day in these people’s lives and we’re going in and helping to create it.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Kind of blurry, this reproduction of the photo from 1978, but here they are, left to right: Steve Michaels, John Hill, Dave Kalota, Ken Mack, Carl Cedar and Jimmy Edwin.

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FOOTNOTE: Offstage, Ken Mack used his given name, Machelski. When New York Transfer was winding down in the 1990s, he helped start the Buffalo Touch, one of the area's premiere polka bands. Steve Michaels is in The Touch, as well.

Ken was the emcee and featured vocalist, noted for his resemblance to the great Marion Lush, and in addition to his trumpet, he played trombone, concertina, keyboards and drums. Offstage, he  became an architect for the Erie County Department of Public Works, overseeing work on Erie Community College South and other county buildings, and headed the junior hockey organization in suburban Hamburg for many years. He was still booked for more performances when he died March 6 while wintering in Florida.

I suspect that Jimmy Edwin is around somewhere, but Google can’t find him. Meanwhile, Dave Kalota went on to become an optometrist in Niagara Falls. And if the Internet has shown me the correct Carl Cedar, he wound up in L.A. He was music supervisor for the TV show "Knightrider" and for more than 30 years he's been a music producer for Walt Disney Live Entertainment at Disneyland.