Tallahassee’s sunday Magazine

Tallahassee.com | sUNday, JUly 31, 2011Tallahassee Democrat

The band names have changed but

Jim crozier remains a

music scene mainstay of the

Page 8 / Sunday, July 31, 2011 Tallahassee Democrat / TLH

Jim Crozier works day job, but music feeds his heart

When Tallahassee singer-songwriter Jim Crozier was in

his early 20s and working as a musician in New York City, his parents called and told him they were moving from his child-hood home in Warren, Pa., to Tallahassee, and they had room to take only one thing of his with them.

He chose his very first guitar, a $13 Silvertone that he got for his birthday in 1963.

Crozier has been a musi-cian for as long as he can remember. He took pia-no lessons from his aunt in second grade, started learning the trumpet in the school music program in fifth grade, and played guitar and bass in the junior high school band. As a teenager, he took every opportunity to per-form — in the local the-ater’s orchestra pit, with his high school’s jazz band, at church and in the com-munity orchestra.

In his junior year of high school, a sum-mer stock theater group opened up in a barn 10 miles outside of town. Cro-zier started working with them, playing bass at first, then later becoming their musical director. Every summer they did six shows in 12 weeks, and he had never been happier.

“During my freshman year of college, the pro-ducer introduced me to a guy named Kenn Long, who was up from Texas to work with the company,” remembers Crozier. “He was also a playwright, and had written a show called ‘Touch.’ He had never written music, though, so

I started writing music for it.”

“Touch” moved to New York that fall, and ran for a year Off-Broadway at the Village Arena The-atre. To Crozier’s aston-ishment, the original cast album was nominated for a Grammy Award.

“My 21st birthday party was the Grammy Awards Show at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden,” says Crozier. “I was sit-ting right behind Cheech and Chong and Roberta Flack. We didn’t win, of course — the winner that year was ‘Godspell’ — but then again, Henry Man-cini didn’t get it that year either.”

Crozier left college in his sophomore year to move to New York City and become the music director for the 13th Street Reper-tory Company. He lived in the basement of the the-ater, spent a lot of time in rehearsals and perfor-mances and drove a cab to make ends meet. After the show closed, he fell on hard times and decided to take a break and stay with his parents in Florida.

“I arrived in Tallahas-see in 1976, at a really tough time in my life. I thought I was just going to be passing through,” says

Crozier. “One day I stum-bled into the Leon Coun-ty Food Co-op, and saw a notice that Bill Whar-ton was looking for a bass player — this was before he was the Sauce Boss. So I met him, and played with the Wild Blue Yonders for a while.”

He has been a signifi-cant part of the Talla-hassee music scene ever since. Crozier auditioned for, and was accepted into, the FSU School of Music

program, and graduated with degree in music com-position and a certificate in performance on the dou-ble bass.

“I studied with Bill Ken-nedy, who had just arrived in town and was getting the FSU jazz bands start-ed, and played with him and sometimes with Lind-sey Sergeant, who was just getting the FAMU jazz program going,” says Cro-zier. “It was a great time. I met a guy named Jimmy

Lohman in Bill Kennedy’s class, and we formed a trio — Jimmy, me and my brother, who plays the sax-ophone.”

The Lohman-Crozier Trio played three to four times a week at a now-defunct pub right across the street from the Capitol building.

“We were the happening scene,” he laughs. “It was my first real moment of fame in Tallahassee.”

Crozier was also a

founding member of ACME Rhythm & Blues, as well as one of the earli-est members of the Talla-hassee Swing band, with which he still plays regu-larly.

“My mom was the direc-tor of the brand new senior center back then, and the swing band was looking for a place to practice on Tuesday nights,” says Cro-zier. “And then it turned out that they needed a bass player and a sax player, and mom said she just hap-pened to know some peo-ple.”

After years of concen-trating on playing bass, Crozier recently took up the guitar again. He is now performing solo (and sometimes with friends), and he calls his style “edgy blues and twist-ed Americana.” He has a standing gig on First Fridays on the Athena’s Garden Stage in Railroad Square Art Park, and he occasionally plays at Bar-nacle Bill’s, the Downtown MarketPlace and about once a month with the Jones Brothers Band at Food Truck Thursdays.

“I hadn’t played guitar in public since high school, but I’m enjoying it,” he says. “I’ve always been a composer/songwriter of a sort, but my output is usually about one origi-nal song a year. So I play a little Tom Waits, Leon-ard Cohen, Bob Dylan and even a Beatles song here and there.”

Though Crozier makes ends meet by working in IT for the state, he looks forward to the day when he can put his music career center stage.

“In less than two years I’ll be 62, and then I’m going to retire and get back to concentrating on music,” he says. “Both of my daughters will be married by then, and my house is paid off, so I plan to travel and tour and just play music full-time.”

By Randi AtwoodSpecial to the Democrat

He’s been a music man around town since 1976

If you go What: Jim Crozier & FriendsWhen: 6 to 7:30 p.m. Fri-dayWhere: Athena’s Garden Stage, Railroad Square Art ParkAdmission: FreeContact: For more infor-mation about Jim Crozier and a schedule of gigs, visit www.jimcrozier.com

Jessica M. Gaboury/special to the DeMocrat

JIm Crozier has taken up the guitar again and can be found playing at Athena’s Garden in Railroad Square on First Fridays.

TLH / Tallahassee Democrat Sunday, July 31, 2011 / Page 9

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TLH / Tallahassee Democrat Sunday, July 31, 2011 / Page 5

Rabbi sings and acts, but wishes he could play guitarA few artful questions

for Rabbi Jack Romberg of Temple Israel.

Q: Can you play a musi-cal instrument?

A: No, but I do sing and did a fair amount of acting in summer theater through college.

Q: Do you own any origi-nal art?

A: Yes, a number of Israeli artists. (I’d have to check the names. My wife is more of the art expert.)

Q: What was the first concert you ever attended?

A: In Fairmont, W.Va., where we were living when I was a child. I was 6 and

went to a performance of the Heidelberg Symphony, which was touring small U.S. towns at the time.

Q: What book is on your nightstand right now?

A: Two, actually. “The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness,” by Dacher

Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith, and “A Feast for Crows,” book four of the George R.R.

Martin fantasy series, “A Song of Ice and Fire.”

Q: When was the last time you danced?

A: My niece’s bat mitz-vah about a year ago.

Q: What was the last live performance you saw?

A: “Bedroom Farce” at the Tallahassee Little The-atre in June. Before that, the last concert of the Tal-lahassee Symphony. As we lived in New York City for a bit, as well as the Phila-delphia area, I have seen LOTS of concerts, and the-

ater of all kinds, includ-ing many Broadway shows with their original casts.

Q: What movie has most affected you?

A: “Schindler’s List.” It is so tied to my own fami-ly’s history. But the clinch-er is the end when the real Schindler survivors are putting the stones on Oskar Schindler’s grave — by that time I am a snivel-ing mess. I also cry every time I see “The Color Pur-ple.”

Q: What was the last thing you made by hand?

A: When I owned our cabinet factory, I did a lot of experimentation with different kinds of finishes,

especially faux finishes. While I never built some-thing from start to finish, I used to work a lot with fin-ishing, as part of our busi-ness. It has been close to 18 years since I have done any of that.

Q: When was the last time you were on a stage?

A: I am on the pulpit every week, so I guess you can say I am always on stage. The last formal play I was in was a com-munity theater production of “Once Upon a Mattress” in 1979.

Q: What artistic talent do you wish you had?

A: I wish I could play the guitar.

Special to the DemocratCONTACT COCAVisit COCA’s websites at www.cocanet.org and www.morethany-outhought.com. Send suggestions for artist pro-files, news items, story ideas or fun facts to COCA at cultural@cocanet.org.

Jack Romberg

Make new neighbor feel welcome

M oving into a new neighborhood can be stressful and

getting a bearing on your new surroundings can be a challenge. Making new neighbors feel welcome is an ideal way to start things off on a positive note.

Dear MSB: Last week a new family moved into the house next to mine. The last homeowners were hardly ever home and we never got to know them very well. I’d like to actu-ally become friends with the members of this fam-ily but I’m unsure how to approach them without seeming weird or pushy. What is the best way to welcome new people into your neighborhood, how long should I wait before I go over and introduce myself, and is it necessary to take them something as a gift? — Nice Neighbor

Dear Nice: Knowing your neighbors and hav-ing good relationships with them can make living on your street really special while providing support

and companionship just a few steps away. It is nice to be able to ask someone to pick up your mail or water your plants when you go on vacation or be able to borrow some ice when your ice-maker dies right before a dinner party. The key to having good neigh-bors is being one.

When a new family moves in near you, give them a few days to settle in and get the boxes and furniture into their home. Going over while the mov-ing truck is still there will

just distract the new home-owners and they proba-bly won’t be prepared to receive you as they nor-mally would at a less hec-tic time.

Once you’ve given them a couple of days to accli-mate, you can just go over for a brief visit. If you want to take them a gift, you may consider tak-ing them an item such as a binder of takeout menus from local places you fre-quent so they can focus on getting their house in order and not locating the pots and pans as quickly.

Also, remember to leave your personal vendettas and neighborhood squab-bles at the door when you introduce yourself. Mov-ing from one place to another is hard enough and the family is most like-ly trying to find the posi-tives in the experience. Unleashing the issues of the neighborhood on them in your first conversation will just make you look bad and potentially affect any future relationship you form with them.

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