VILLAGE OF MANLIUS – Seneca Street Brew Pub is hosting a jazz concert series until May 19.
Located at 315 E. Seneca St. in the village of Manlius, the farm-sourced craft brewery has lately been presenting the series from 1 to 4 p.m. every Sunday.
The concerts take place in the brewery’s upstairs event room, which seats about 60 people with overflow accommodations. It’s free to pull up a seat and enjoy the tunes, and the acts all hail from different parts of the Central New York area.
This past month the brewery celebrated Women’s History Month by spotlighting local women in jazz through the ongoing live concert series.
“I really wanted to emphasize the women in this area and the talent that we have,” said Heidi Menikheim, the manager of the brew pub.
The establishment’s “Women in Jazz Month” kicked off the “Brew Pub Jazz” series as a whole, bringing in the Jill Minyé Trio to start things off on March 3. Minyé is a pianist and singer of jazz standards who lived in California for 25 years before moving back to her native city of Syracuse a few years ago.
“She’s so talented,” Menikheim said. “She had her debut at our brewpub the month before this and she just attracted so many people. She’s an amazing singer and an amazing keyboardist as well.”
Next, the pub welcomed organ trio MG3 as part of the series on March 10. That trio showcases as its leader trombonist Melissa Gardiner, a woman Menikheim said “rocked the house” and “floored everybody” with her trombone playing.
On March 17, the pub had Julie & Rick’s Jazz Asylum featuring percussionist Jimmy Johns as a way to spend this most recent St. Patrick’s Day. That performance of old-school jazz was followed by an appearance by 2024 SAMMY nominee Vanessa Vacanti and The Jazz Mafia in the event space on March 24.
Menikheim said the excitement she felt recognizing the musical prowess of area women extends from the fact that Seneca Street Brew Pub is an entirely female-run business in an industry she sees as male-dominated.
“Our brewer is female, I’m female, and we have a lot of female employees working alongside us,” she said.
On April 7, the jazz series will be moving to the downstairs section of the brewpub, which will host the Paul Merrill Quartet showing off their chops, with the band’s namesake on trumpet.
The “Brew Pub Jazz” series will then feature Taj on April 14, the Michael Passarelli Jr. Trio on April 21, and Trés Guitars on April 28.
On May 5, the Jimmy Johns Quartet will give attendees a tribute to the Latin jazz great known for his work on the vibraphone, Cal Tjader, and for the closing weeks of the series it will be the Seth Carper Trio on May 12 and the Ryan Peterson Trio on May 19.
Camillus resident David Kaspar was responsible for curating the current grouping of shows at the Seneca Street Brew Pub. Kaspar has also been the curator for “Jazz in the Burbs” at the Green Gate Inn restaurant in his hometown of Camillus and “Jazz by the Lake” at the Oswego Music Hall.
In addition to getting the performers together, Kaspar also promotes and takes photos of the performances while using the hashtag #BrewPubJazz for posts on Facebook.
Menikheim was connected with Kaspar through another Dave, the jazz percussionist Dave Donley from the group Simpático, which played at the brewpub earlier this year.
“He tells me, ‘There’s a lot of jazz musicians in this area, and I think it would benefit you and them if you started jazz here,’” she said.
Menikheim said she was never into jazz all that much until her brewpub started hosting this series, but she said she’s now fallen in love with the genre.
“Ever since we started live music at Seneca Street, I’ve met some really talented musicians, and we just keep on creating and trying to build something,” she said. “It’s a peaceful way to spend a Sunday because the music is just really chill and cool and fun, and you just get into the groove, plus I like having a different genre of music besides the same old pop music.”
Though she hopes to see a greater amount of younger jazz appreciators show up, Menikheim thanks the returning faces she sees for their “overwhelming” support and added that she enjoys bringing the local community together every week for the music series.
If the weather warms up enough for any of the Sunday afternoon jazz concerts this month or in May, the brewpub intends to relocate the series to its outdoor patio.
Either way, as long as the weather cooperates, in June the Seneca Street Brew Pub will be bringing the music outdoors more definitively for the aptly named Jazz Al Fresco series set to begin the first Sunday in June. That series will continue from 1 to 4 p.m. every ensuing Sunday for the rest of the summer, and there will be food trucks to go along with the pub’s grilled cheese menu, bloody Marys and mimosas.