Frank Critelli is spending lazy summer Sunday afternoons not hitting the beach or barbecuing in the backyard, but serving up live independent music in a Ninth Square corner bar.
Last Sunday a guitarist and keyboardist Johnny Nicholas was the guest of honor, a longtime blues sideman to greats like Son House and Robert Lockwood, Jr. Before 20 or engaged listeners, Nicholas, backed by a stripped-down accompaniment of a drummer and second guitarists, kept the sound mellow but the beat chugging along with originals like the one in the above video.
Nicholas, who also played a stint with Asleep at the Wheel back in the day, was the latest performer in a “Sunday Buzz Matinee” series organized at Cafe Nine by Critelli, a local singer-songwriter, and the volunteer online indy music station he helps run called Cygnus Radio.
Like other Austin-based singer-songwriters to perform successful shows in New Haven (following in the steps of Slaid Cleaves and Betty Soo), Nicholas works hard at crafting “storytelling” numbers that need to be heard live to be appreciated fully. The songs he played this past Sunday evoked John Hiatt and, on keyboards, Professor Longhair, a mix of tenderness and salty world-weariness that washed down as smoothly as the local $5 Black Hog Granola Brown Ale on tap.
The week before, the headliner was Jeff Przech and the Outfit, a country rock band that also kept it just mellow enough for a warm Sunday afternoon with Marshall Tucker-ish originals spiced with the occasional cover (most compellingly, Little Feat’s “Willin’.”) In July, the reunited Naomi Star’s set made the Cafe Nine crowd into a multigenerational family affair, affable and free-spirited.
That was Critelli’s intent this past March when he began staging the Sunday afternoon showcases at one of musicians’ favorite nighttime spots to play live in New Haven. No rush. No hullabaloo. “Put on a cool band” you might not hear elsewhere, at a time of the week and a time of day when people don’t think of venturing out to clubs. Most of the shows (unlike a touring act like Nicholas) are free.
“A lot of people do brunch on Sundays,” Critelli said. He figured he could give them something else to do “on a Sunday afternoon before you go back to work.” This week’s act is the local Ebin-Rose Trio. Doors open at 3 p.m.; show starts at 4.