A Name For Music

We signed a lease. We came down here, lit some sage, cried. We said a prayer to Maureen and to Brianne’s mom and dad, and... You know... Had a couple tears. And I gotta tell you, man. I honestly did not know how this was gonna happen. I was actually thinking, this could be a real big mistake.

I sit at a small table in the very corner of Maureen’s Jazz Cellar, fiddling with a candle. The chatter dies down as David Budway’s voice comes through the sound system: “Welcome to Maureen’s Jazz Cellar, the hottest new jazz venue in Rockland County!” With that, he introduces Kim Hawkey and the Swingaroos. The group begins with a jazzy show tune about Hollywood. Leading the band is the singer, a smiley and glamorous 20-something woman in a yellow dress, and five male musicians. The singer begins her patter. “Who’s been to Maureen’s before?” A couple of regulars raise their hands; the rest are newcomers. We sit back and listen.

Maureen’s is a sanctuary, a getaway, for music lovers. Upon entering the cellar, you first walk down a flight of stairs, face a wall, and turn 180 degrees. Then you may be seated at the bar or a small table to have drinks and watch a show. The space is the size of two large bedrooms, with eggplant purple walls and no windows. Soft violet light glows down from the ceiling. Maureen’s mostly hosts local musicians, who grace the cellar with genres including, but not limited to, jazz. There is a Grateful Dead night and an open mic night every week. A curly-haired woman named Fiona is the regular waitress. She serves the hors d’oeuvres and cocktails: hummus, assorted olives, and grape leaves, plus flatbreads from the popular pizzeria that sits above the cellar. A prominent painting of Maureen rests on the wall, on the right side of the “stage”- which is really just a grand piano with a little bit of floor space and some microphones. Maureen, according to her portrait, has dark eyes and shoulder-length hair. A slight smile brightens her angular face. She seems kind. There are a few other tasteful decorations, mirrors and a large photograph of Jerry Garcia.

After the show, David Budway, the owner of the club, joins me at another small table. Budway is a musical virtuoso. He’s intense, passionate, and brimming with frenetic energy. He has a serious yet unthreatening countenance, even when he’s joking around. Budway and his wife, Brianne, opened this space in his sister’s name after she died from cancer.

Born in 1958, David Budway grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. He was a music lover from the time he was a toddler. “When I was three years old,” he remembers, “my parents say that I used to sit in a rocking chair and rock to the nutcracker.” He speed-hums the tune. “Dee de de de de de dee de deee. That’s the second movement of the nutcracker suite. They say I used to just sit there and watch the record player go around a 33 and a third.” Budway’s dad worked at the Carnegie Mellon campus barber shop. On a barber’s salary, he bought a piano for their home when Budway was five. “I would say I was always studying the piano from five years old. A couple lapses in there ‘cause we would just have teachers who never showed up.” Finally, when Budway was nine, his dad started putting up ads around Carnegie Mellon and the barber shop that read “Piano Teachers Wanted.” A young man saw the ad and became Budway’s piano teacher through his first year of college.

Budway’s sisters took lessons alongside him during that time; Marianne, who died from pneumonia in 1991, Maureen, who died in 2015, and Cathy. Throughout all of this, he also became proficient at drums, singing and guitar. But his heart always remained with piano. In 1970, he played his first classical piano competition—and won. He started studying at Duquesne’s piano conservatory in 1977 and graduated with his master’s degree in ‘83. When in college, he was berated with the questions that students know all too well, like what he would do when he got out. “I mean I was always like, I don’t know. All I know is that music is in my DNA. And it’s a gift. I’m not saying I’m this amazing person, it’s definitely a gift.” Budway went on to teach at Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon for the next 15 years. All the while, he regularly performed at the Balcony Jazz Club and made appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, among other musical groups.

Budway shared a musical bond with his sister, Maureen, who was five years younger. She would often join him and his trio at the Balcony. Like David, Maureen was a talented musician. She had perfect pitch and could sing gracefully in several different languages. Though she studied vocal performance, her simultaneously light and warm tone could not be fabricated through any number of voice lessons; it sounded as natural as speech. While she enjoyed a successful career in music, Maureen fought breast cancer for 20 years.

In 1997, after the Balcony closed, Budway decided to move to New York City. He played at a trendy piano bar on the Upper East Side called Brandy’s for about ten years. That’s where he met Liza Minelli: renowned actress, singer and daughter of Judy Garland. She hired him as her accompanist for a few years. At this point, Budway was also making music with names like Brandford Marsalis and Stanley Turrentine. He notably appears on a Jeff 'Tain' Watts record. He was also releasing his own albums, sometimes collaborating with Maureen.

It was at Brandy’s where Budway met his wife, Brianne, in 2003. “One night Brianne came in with, like, three of her girlfriends. And she said to her friend, ‘I think he’s cute, blah blah blah.’ So… my girlfriend at the time was the waitress there, but Brianne didn’t care and came back again one time, and we went outside and I think we had a cigarette and she planted a kiss on me.” At the time, Brianne lived in Florida, but the two stayed in touch. His previous relationship with the waitress, which was entering its eighth year, was wearing out. Even though he was hesitant to jump into another relationship, he liked Brianne a lot. They got together. “But then after that,” he adds, “we broke up a million times, you know. Cause I didn’t wanna jump into another relationship after being with someone for 8 years! So, we would break up, break up, break up. And after a while, it was kinda like… why am I resisting her? I really like her. So, we ended up staying in touch. Then she moved from Jersey to Queens. We stayed in touch. Broke up some more.”

Then one day, he proposed to her. “I really liked her all the time. But that’s the thing though... You can ask, “Oh, do you love her?? Do you love him??” “Like” is important. “Like” is more important than love. I mean, just getting to meet her and see what kinda person she is, you definitely love her. But man, to “like”… “likeness” is really important.”

Budway certainly does like Brianne—a lot. It is clear that the creation of Maureen’s was a team effort driven by Brianne’s desire to make something special out of a hard situation. “She knows what to order, how to fix a keg, how to put a keg in, how to order wines, what to do, how to install a Pepsi machine, if a keg changes, how to do that... What glasses to have, how to greet people when they come down the steps. Brianne’s the smartest. I get all the credit for it. People think,” —in a voice that sounds like a deranged Elmo— “‘Oh Dave, what a great club!’ It’s just so stupid because I just smile and wave my bald head. It’s like they all think it’s me, but it’s Briaanne! She... she just… I mean, Brianne like…” he looks off to the side, searching for words. “You know, everything from like, “Dave, I think we need a floor…”

After marrying in 2006, Brianne and David ended up living in Nyack. Maureen died nine years later. “I’ll tell you what man, it’s crazy. I’m bad at dates, but I know it’ll be five years ago this coming January 2020 that Maureen died. No, that’s not true man…” He pauses, for as long as David Budway ever pauses (about a millisecond), to gather his thoughts. “Yeah, I think it is five years.” As Maureen passed away, Brianne was coping with the recent loss of her mom and dad. Between selling her parents’ condo and Maureen’s house—the house where the Budways grew up in Pittsburgh—there was a little bit of money. Brianne told David that she wanted to do something with it. Brianne is not only an actor and comedian but is also a carpenter. She’s made sets for many theater productions. Of course, sets are temporary. After Maureen died, she said to David, “I want to do something lasting,” and she discovered the space that would soon be Maureen’s Jazz Cellar. Budway was hesitant at first. “I was really reticent,” he explains. “I wanted to just sit at home and practice the piano and swim and meditate and walk the dog and play music… but you know, I said one thing. If you build a jazz club, I want to do one nice thing, and that’s put a great piano in the club.” That, they did. And underneath the glass bar are the keys from his childhood piano that his father had purchased decades ago.

At first, the space was ugly. “It was nothing like this,” he remembers, shaking his head vigorously in disgust. “It was a piece of crap, man. Wires hangin’ out of the building, out of the walls, it was old, it was worn, there was a fake chalk board that was half ripped up, no floor, it was horrible, really stupid looking.” Nevertheless, they decided that this was the spot. They lit their sage, cried, and prayed. David knew a few things that he wanted, besides the piano. He wanted the room to be purple and gold, and to be able to tell people to shut up at the beginning of a show.

Before the place opened, Budway’s first cousin, Joey, sent him the portrait of Maureen. Budway was unsure whether the painting would be a good representation of his sister. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, I hope it doesn’t look like a Martian.’ But he actually captured her.”

David Budway still struggles with late nights and the constant influx of emails about booking gigs and sound checks. His favorite thing is being able to sit back and present amazing artists, “and just be happy that people come down and say, ‘I love your space, thank you for bringing this to Nyack.’” From a portrait on the wall, with a knowing smile, Maureen seems to share that joy with him.

References

“About Maureen.” Maureen's Jazz Cellar, www.maureensjazzcellar.com/about-maureen.html.

Beltran, Victor. “Maureen Budway at Cabaret at Theater Square, Pittsburgh.” YouTube, YouTube, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=un9tQQ3ry6k.

“David Budway - Pittsburgh Music History.” Google Sites, sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/jazz/modern-era/david-budway.

Tutter, Adele, and Leon Wurmser. Grief and Its Transcendence: Memory, Identity, Creativity. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.