Photo courtesy Brian Dale
Brian Dale
Brian Dale
Ask Brian Dale what he does on a 30-second elevator ride, and he’ll answer: “I play drums and sing and write and do a lot of different styles.” Give him half-a-minute more and he might explain that he performs jazz-influenced pop and R&B—or is it pop and R&B-influenced jazz?
Eclectic tastes came naturally to him while growing up in South Milwaukee. His father had been a jazz musician and choir director; he discovered new music as a kid in the late ‘60s and was especially consumed by Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced, The Who’s Tommy and the jazz-rock debut by the band then known as Chicago Transit Authority.
Dale’s brother was a drummer but becoming a professional musician didn’t occur to him immediately. “I wanted to be an airline pilot,” he says with a smile. “But I was always drawn to music like nothing else.” He studied for a year at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and had his first gig in 1983, filling in on drums with a wedding band. “I was so nervous, but it was cool playing in front of people—and getting paid for it,” he recalls.
His tenure with the prog band Info prepared him for his occasional role since the late ‘90s of filling in behind the kit for Ambrosia, a connection made during the Milwaukee sojourn of that band’s founder, Joe Puerta. However, the gravitational pull of jazz and fusion has been felt most strongly in his own music. Back in the ‘70s, “I used to sneak into a club on Forest Home to see Sweetbottom,” he says. “I was tall enough at 16 to not get carded.” Nowadays Sweetbottom’s saxophonist-keyboardist Warren Wiegratz is a member of the Brian Dale Group.
The Wiegratz connection is pivotal. Dale became a member of one of the saxophonist’s more recent bands, Streetlife, as did two other members of the Dale Group, guitarist Joe Gorman and bassist Dwayne Williams. Rounding out the Dale Group is versatile vocalist Linda Lee.
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A portion of Dale’s sets consist of originals. He recorded a 2007 album, Sticks and Stones, with Puerta producing and a guest appearance by Milwaukee expat jazz trumpeter Brian Lynch. Jazz classics such as Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar” and Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloup Island” are joined by Patricia Rushen’s “Forget Me Not” and Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” Dale has performed recently at Saint Kate and returns regularly to the Packing House and Caroline’s Jazz Club.
“It’s an older crowd, although I’m surprised at how many younger people come to Caroline’s and stay through the set. I think the variety of music keeps them in there,’ Dale says.
The Brian Dale Group will perform on Friday, Jan. 10 at the Packing House, 900 E. Layton Ave., and Friday, Jan. 24 at Caroline’s, 401 S. Second St.
