Peggy Haine and the Lowdown Alligator Jass Band return for benefit concert

It’s time to dust off the feather boas.

Peggy Haine and the Lowdown Alligator Jass Band will perform a benefit concert on Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m., to kick off the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts (TCFA) 2023-24 Capital Campaign.

The band last played together during a “going out of business” concert in February 1992.

Haine was unsure how her former bandmates would react to her proposal to perform again, but she said they were excited about the prospect. Most original band members will be present at the upcoming benefit concert.

Supporting the arts is important to Haine, and she is eager to help the TCFA in its revitalization project.

The TCFA has been awarded a matching grant of $279,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts to restore and improve its building. 

The project has many components, including  restoration of the exterior wood façade, doors, and historical details;  construction of a fully ADA-compliant outside entrance and ADA-accessible restroom,  renovation of the lobby and main hall, interior finishes and lighting; restoration of the original windows, foundation pointing and drainage, and finally, improvements to safety and sustainability..

Haine has consistently advocated for making music and arts centers accessible to all, recalling her childhood as a young musician.

“It’s really important. I mean, not just as a member of the community, but as a kid, my mother dragged me around to the various settlement houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for music lessons,” she said. “I don’t know that my parents would have been able to afford all the music and dance lessons and music theory. It was an important part of my musical education. I think it should be available to every kid who needs that sort of support and adults, too.”

The musician grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, but said she’s become a “country bumpkin.” 

“I love looking out at the fields and the forests and I find when I go to New York City, even though I’ve been there recently, I just find it so crowded. Sometimes I will smile at people in the streets just to freak them out,” she said with a laugh. 

Haine made her way from Brooklyn to the Finger Lakes Region to attend Cornell. 

“I studied everything that I could get away with, but I was a terrible student,” she admitted. “It took me 11 years to get a degree.”

However, she found time to return to New York City to perform music.

“In between my start and my end there, I moved back to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was peace, love and brown rice. It was pre-hippiedom, it was beatnik-dom,” Haine recalled. “I did a lot of music there. It was fun.”

When discussing the musical style of the jazz band, Haine refers to it as jolly and, at times, very sexy. 

“Tough mama stuff,” she said, describing the band’s vaudeville style. She has been nicknamed the ‘Red Hot Mama’ of the jazz band, best known for her voice, costumes and vibrancy. 

The band came together organically. Haine had been playing in a bluegrass band, and she started playing with Dane Marion, a tuba player who graduated from Ithaca College with a master’s degree in tuba and education.

“I was not as good a piano player as he was a tuba player,” she said. 

Little by little, other creative musicians joined, coming and going.

“Brian Earle was added on clarinet. We had Dave Davies come on as trombone. We decided we needed a drummer and Mike Wellen was available and happy to do it,” she said. 

“Johnny Russo came on as trombone and cornet. People came and went. I played piano for a long time and when we finally found somebody (Dan May) who really could play, I was very happy to step away from the piano,” she said.

Once May left the band, Molly MacMillan took over as his replacement. 

“She is a fabulous jazz pianist,” Haine said of MacMillan. “She has the best ear of anyone I have ever known.” 

Harry Aceto also joined the jazz band on bass, guitar and banjo, and Dave Frumkin joined on the violin and banjo. 

“It was a moving target,” Haine said of the experience. 

“I play feather boa. That’s my instrument,” she joked. Aside from piano, Haine has also played second jug in the Even Dozen Jug Band, guitar in a string band and string bass in a bluegrass band.

When the band retired, they donated all of their costumes to be auctioned off by Sciencecenter  in Ithaca as a fundraiser.

“They made $7,000 from those costumes,” Haine said. “All of the feathers and all of the costumes had their own room in my house, and they took up a lot of space.” 

Tracy Thomson, who designed most of Haine’s attire, relocated to New Orleans to create costumes for Mardi Gras and other events. She will soon visit Haine to get her ready for the upcoming benefit concert.

“She’s coming up here to make more costumes for me and I’m so thrilled,” Haine said. “She’s fabulous. She has such a creative spirit.”

Along with the special touch that costumes add to the jazz band, Haine has always given her musical performances careful thought, conducting research at libraries in New Orleans and New York City.

“It was fun doing research and figuring out what was going on during the Harlem Renaissance, what was happening in Louisiana, what was happening in Chicago and New York. There was just the whole jazz age, the 1920s and up through the 1930s was such an exciting time for music,” Haine added.

Aside from a historical component, Haine said the band is also known for its crazy antics that are best enjoyed live.

During the pandemic, with her calendar unusually empty, Haine said she spent her time listening to a lot of music and cooking. Now that the pandemic has subsided, Haine says she looks forward to having more fun. 

“I’m about to turn 79 and those nine years really kicked my ass,” she said. “Because I say, what have I done with my life and what do I want to do? Every year you have less time ahead of you and this year I looked at 79 and I said it’s time to have more fun. You’ve worked your ass off all these years.”

Haine has held two or three jobs at a time and, even now, remains active in the community as a Trumansburg Rotary member and volunteers at the Gemm Shop and history center.

“At one point, we had the band going full time. We had 140 gigs one year,” Haine said. “It was a lot and I was working full time at Cornell and I was on the Common Council. So, you know, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of stuff and I don’t think I did justice to any of them. I’ve always worked a couple of jobs from the time I was a kid and I decided it was just time to have more fun.”

Haine has kept her promise, recently taking a road trip to New Orleans. She also plans to visit St. Louis to get together with her stepdaughter. A trip to Kentucky is also in the works. 

She also relishes simple moments and hopes to take in a few shows.

“You know, there are all kinds of things that I want to do. I want to see more movies. Who has time to go to the movies?” she joked. “And on the big screen, you know, like being totally overcome by whatever is going on on the screen. So that’s my plan.”

She also dotes on Ralph, her Goldendoodle, who enjoys her cooking. 

“We named him Ralph because he threw up all over me on the way home from where we got him,” she said. “I had to get totally undressed in the garage, my clothes on the floor because they were full of puppy puke. He’s a character.”

Haine added that she loves entertaining in her spare time.

“I try to have friends over when I can,” she said. “I love having a bunch of people sitting around my table, eating, talking and fighting with each other.”

Tickets to see Peggy Haine and the Lowdown Alligator Jass Band are available online at www.tburgconservatory.org.

Some of the band’s vinyl and CDs will be available for purchase at the benefit concert.

All proceeds will go directly to the Capital Campaign Match.

Trumansburg Connection appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com or courtney.rehfeldt@gmail.com.