Brisket paradise: Remembering Rose and Jack Zawid
You could smell the unmistakable aroma of simmering brisket, roasted chicken and matzo ball soup all the way up and down Kingston Avenue in Atlantic City. Around 1985, I began writing a monthly column called “Backstage” for Frances Freedman’s much-missed Atlantic City...
Swinging through 2025: The year in jazz and a look at what lies ahead
With rare exceptions, jazz has been absent from the main stages and lounges of Atlantic City hotel/casinos since the mid-1990s. Artists with name value have aged, retired or passed on. Tastes and demographics have evolved, and the age and tastes of those in charge of...
Headliners who became lounge acts
There’s an old show business adage that says casino lounges are either for performers on their way up, or on their way down. There was a time in Las Vegas and Atlantic City when that was true. Comics Don Rickles and Shecky Green first worked the Vegas lounges, then...
Eddie Bruce rocks with Stockton’s ‘Big Band in Residence’
Vocal artist, bandleader, broadcaster and cabaret performer Eddie Bruce has done just about everything there is to do in the entertainment business since he first broke in as a youngster over five decades ago, except to record with a really swinging jazz band. But...
