Photo Credit: Art Elkon
“It’s weird to be 65 and still doing this,” says Steve Cohen. The harmonica player and vocalist for Leroy Airmaster, the Milwaukee blues band marking 40 years of gigging in 2019, adds, “I’m being more selective of the jobs I take.”
Of course, four decades ago, the city’s blues scene was a more densely populated landscape than nowadays. “Back in the day, we’d play a different neighborhood every night of the week. This was our culture then—people would go to bars and hear bands.”
Leroy Airmaster continues to play regularly and has several festival gigs in the days ahead, plus one night that they created themselves, an event called “Jammin’ with Junior.” It’s part of the annual reunion between the band and Milwaukee expatriate keyboardist Junior Brantley. Despite his moniker, Junior is a veteran of six decades who began playing R&B in Milwaukee clubs in the early 1960s before joining Short Stuff, the city’s legendary blues band. He left town in the ’80s to play with Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Roomful of Blues before settling in Las Vegas.
“I’ve come back to Milwaukee to play with these guys every summer for 15 years,” Brantley says of Leroy Airmaster. “I come to visit people and play with the musicians.”
Work in Las Vegas for musicians isn’t what it once was, but he’s still steadily employed in live shows along with teaching piano. For “Jammin’ with Junior,” Brantley says, “It’s all blues. I’m a blues musician. That’s what I consider myself.”
“He was one of our heroes when we were growing up,” Cohen says. Leroy Airmaster bassist Dave Kasik agrees and organized “Jammin’” as a tribute. Brantley will perform for one set with Leroy Airmaster and another with members of Short Stuff. “I want it to be a relaxed night,” Kasik says. “It’ll be a chance for people to relax and talk as well as play.”
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Cohen recently released a career retrospective CD, Looking Back, featuring a handful of tracks by Leroy Airmaster along with recordings of Cohen’s duets with Jim Liban and Peter Roller as well as his collaboration with Greg Koch.
Jammin’ with Junior takes place at Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall, 1920 S. 37th St., on Monday, July 1, from 6-10 p.m.
