Dennis Irwin Benefit

[chop_1992]

I am re-starting this thread to (1) spell Dennis Irwin's name correctly, and (2) reemphasize Mike Karn's post from another thread about Dennis's current situation. Please attend this benefit, or help if you can:

Dear Friends and Associates;

This email is in regard to Dennis Irwin, the beloved and world famous bass player whom we all know well. If you haven't already heard, Dennis is very seriously ill and will be leaving New York City quite soon to seek other treatments. Right now he needs our support both spiritually and financially.

We will be having a benefit event for him at Smalls Jazz Club on Sunday, February 3rd after the Super Bowl. Even though this may not be the most convenient date, time is of the essence and we cannot wait here. We will begin at 10:00 PM and continue until 4:00 AM at Smalls. Everyone is invited to come down and participate by playing and also by making a contribution. A box will be set up so that the donations will be discreet and anonymous. Everything collected will go directly to Dennis. There will be no cover charge for this event but you'll be expected to contribute something, whatever's within your means. Smalls will be donating a portion of bar sales to Dennis as well (so come and drink!).

Once again, the date is Sunday night, February 3rd starting at 10:00 PM, after the Super Bowl. Smalls is located at 183 West 10th street at 7th avenue, just down the street from the Village Vanguard. Our website is www.smallsjazzclub.com. Any further questions or inquires please send an email to info@smallsjazzclub.com.

If you cannot come and would like to make a tax deductible donation to Dennis, send a check payable to Sixteen As One Music, Inc to:

Sixteen As One Music, Inc
888-C Eighth Ave. #160
New York, NY 10019

On the memo line write: Dennis Irwin.

Please come out, bring your instruments and play and show your support for Dennis Irwin.

Thank you so much!

Smalls Jazz Club

PS: Please forward this email to anyone in your email list you think would be interested.

[Kevin Hsieh]

i'll be there. i have class at 9 the next morning. but dennis irwin was one of the main guys i checked out (saw him at the bakery with arts and crafts) when i started.

hope to meet you all there.

[milomo]

Here's a few clips of Dennis through the years, in some of the different bands he's played in.

Matt Wilson (on a Czech-Ease unfortunately) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW2P8EcGwPs

John Scofield http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cefIMdVBoZU

Scott Hamilton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsbwPl3VMrk

Mel Lewis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE_1zQeILU

[Ed Fuqua]

Is there anything around (I promise I'll do a SEARCH!) of him with Johnny Griffin? THAT was a nice band.

He saw me walking down the street with my bass and struck up a conversation, walked me down to the Vanguard to hang for a minute and made arrangements for me to come hear him with the Little Giant...nice nice cat.

Jon did some gigs with him (Jon's brother Doug was the leader) , he has some funny stories....

[Phil Rowan]

Ed... I have a Griff CD that Dennis is on. I'll have to dig it up as I'm having a tough time remembering who else is on it. I know it's a quartet though.

chop__1992, thank you for making a thread about this. I just spoke to his son, who I've been good friends with since I studied with Dennis, today and found out about it through him. I came on here to post the same thing, and was happy to see it had already been done. Whether I make it or not, I will surely be donating to him. I continue to pray for him every day.

[adbass]

sad to hear the news. when i was a student in amherst, mass, i would drive down to nyc to see dennis play with the vangaurd band almost every monday night. amazing playing. does anyone know what illness he is battling?

[Ed Fuqua]

Originally Posted by Phil Rowan

Ed... I have a Griff CD that Dennis is on. I'll have to dig it up as I'm having a tough time remembering who else is on it. I know it's a quartet though.

chop__1992, thank you for making a thread about this. I just spoke to his son, who I've been good friends with since I studied with Dennis, today and found out about it through him. I came on here to post the same thing, and was happy to see it had already been done. Whether I make it or not, I will surely be donating to him. I continue to pray for him every day.

Sorry to be confusing, I was talking YouTube or DailyMotion or summat. I know I saw some video back in the 80s that was taken at the Vanguard, but that was Ray Drummond...

[Clay_Bass]

Originally Posted by adbass

sad to hear the news. when i was a student in amherst, mass, i would drive down to nyc to see dennis play with the vangaurd band almost every monday night. amazing playing. does anyone know what illness he is battling?

He has some type of cancer. not exactly sure what kind.

[Kevin Hsieh]

bump!

[milomo]

Well, last night was the benefit, and it was a great evening. I got there around midnight, and you could barely get near the place, let alone get in. The usual cover charge was suspended in lieu of a donation, and by the end of the night the box was full of cash and checks. There was a excellent civilian turnout, and there were tons of musicians as well. The bass players alone that I saw (that I can remember - I went to bed at 6) were Ugonna Okegwo, John Webber, Essiet Essiet, David Wong, Ari Roland, Joe Martin, Chris Lightcap, Phil Bowler, Paul Gill, Neal Miner, Pat O'leary, John Ray, Tim Givens and Hill Greene, among others. The back room was like a bass showroom! Dennis' son Michael was there, and he was very heartened by the turnout, and by the donation box in particular. Mike said that Dennis is doing and feeling well, and is in good spirits and ready to keep fighting. Dennis' playing and his resume speak for themselves, but the real reason there were so many people there is because he is a one of a kind human being.

[milomo]

This is from Spike Wilner, co-owner of Smalls

Dear Friends:

I personally want to thank everyone involved in the Dennis Irwin Benefit Jam Session last night at Smalls. It was a huge success and the turnout was simply incredible. It was packed to rafters from 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM with hundreds of musicians. Joe Lovano, Tardo Hammer, Leroy Williams and Tal Ronen started the evening off and it just went from there in a parade of cats playing and contributing. I'm very excited to announce that we raised nearly $14,000.00 last night in our collection box! I'm sure this will be very beneficial to Dennis but more important was the show of solidarity behind this friend and great musician. It was wonderful to see the jazz community come together like this and proves that the spirit still lives and is strong.

I want to include this letter from Dennis. His son, Mike, brought it by last night and I wanted to share it with everyone:

"To All The Musicians:
To All The Old Friends and to New Friends Yet Unmet:
To Louis Armstrong smiling on the scene:
To Jazz Fans, and once more to all the Musicians:

Thank you all for coming tonight. Please forgive me for missing the party, but I have a clinic situation early Monday. Some of my best memories are of playing and listening here at Smalls, or perhaps practicing back in the kitchen at 7 AM instead of uptown. We all owe Mitch a giant group hug for what he's let us do here all these years. To Lee and Spike and all the staff here, much gratitude. RIGHT NOW, I wish I could come up with some new ways to say: "THANK YOU VERY MUCH" and "I LOVE YOU"

Dennis"


Once again, thanks! I hope to see you all at the club.

Spike Wilner

[sambamaster]

Just a note to say that I've built and launched a site for Dennis.

www.DennisIrwin.org

will post photos of both major benefits and create a blog. guestbook is there. also a donation button to donate directly via the web.

I've known Dennis 40 years..we were in bands together in high school he played alto sax and sang in our R&B band Hoot Gibson and the White Owls....


mike

[oliebrice]

nice idea about the website, but can I respectfully suggest looking at it in some different browsers and adjusting accordingly? Looking at it in mozilla firefox, which i use, a lot of the text overlaps, or is hidden by pictures.

[fingers]

Thanks for the site. Great idea.

I'm using Firefox too but on a Mac. Everything seems to be displaying fine for me. It looks like it was designed on iWeb though which is Mac only software. Unfortunately there is not much adjusting that can be done if that is the case.

[sambamaster]

yes, iWeb. I've checked it on other machines...DOS(windows) and Mac. I just looked at it in Camino, another Mozilla based browser and it works fine. If my sister can view it on her DOS machine with Explorer, I have to assume most people can see it. And there is nothing I can do to alter the site at this point. I might be able to suck it into Dreamweaver and then re-post. But...this site took about 4 hours to build, short of gathering the materials. iWeb is so easy to use.... let's see how it develops.... thanks for the note, will surely look into it.

[Eric Hochberg]

Just found this nice video.

Best wishes to Dennis!