48-year musical bond has reached its coda
48-year relationship ends after “incidents”
Skip Parsons’ Riverboat Jazz Band has decided to end performances at the Fountain Restaurant in Albany.
After 48 years, Skip Parsons’ Riverboat Jazz Band — one of the region’s most enduring and popular ensembles — has dropped its regular gig at the Fountain, the venerable restaurant on Albany’s New Scotland Avenue.
The move, announced by the longtime clarinetist and sax player in an email Wednesday to friends and supporters, comes less than a year after the Dixieland jazz band’s Fountain shows were cut from one weekend a month — the second Friday and Saturday nights — to one Saturday. The pared-back scheduling came as a business response to increased competition among eateries along the strip after
the restaurant’s management shifted from the original owners, Bonnie Romano and her late husband, John, to their son and daughter.
“It’s just the end of a pretty good era,” said Parsons on Thursday, noting his long association with the Fountain and his mutually rewarding relationship with the Romanos. “That’s the way the mop flops, you know.” He said he informed the restaurant of his decision in a letter.
Also reached on Thursday, Ginger Romano Van De Wal and her brother, John, expressed surprise at the news of Parsons’ decision.
“We’ve always supported him, and he always supported us,” she said of Parsons. Regarding last year’s cutback in shows, she said: “Of course we didn’t want to let him go, but there was no tension on our part — we just couldn’t afford it.”
John Romano emphasized both the long business association and the personal ties between Parsons and the Romanos, including the late, elder John. “We just want to thank Skip and his band for the many years that they’ve played at the Fountain,” he said, adding that the restaurant would welcome Parsons’ return.
“The Fountain would never want to rule out the jazz band coming back to play on special occasions . . . . We would always keep communications open with Skip to see if there was a time he’d like to come back and play,” he said.
In his email to fans, Parsons noted “uncomfortable incidents” at the restaurant as factors in the decision to end the relationship with the Fountain. “It was sure a good run, with a lot of good memories. I am thankful for all that, but things finally reached the end of the road,” he wrote.
Commenting on the phone, Parsons spoke of the band’s long history, its nearly five decades at the Fountain and its performances elsewhere — including, for a two-week stretch in 1980, the Lake Placid Olympics.
Now 82, he’s been coping with health issues in recent years, including five-way bypass surgery in 2014 and vertigo that prevented him from playing the Fountain in February.
But he still hopes for a future for the Riverboat Jazz Band. “We’re just trying to figure out what comes next . . . . We do have a lot of arrangements and equipment and stuff like that,” he said. “It would be a shame to just dump it off at the side of the road, or something.”
Referring to tensions with the restaurant, he said, “I’m sorry it ended the way it did, but I guess all good things come to an end. And as I said, it’s been a good run — I mean, 48 years. It’s gotta be a Guinness record somewhere.”