Zinnia’s Dinette: Brig-a-jazz? Jazz-a-doon?
Chef Amy Lawton hosts Tuba Skinny in an upstate New York field once a year
New Orleans-based trad jazz standouts Tuba Skinny will make their annual visit to Zinnia’s Dinette in Craryville, NY, Tuesday. The outdoor show can draw 500 fans or more to the small hamlet (photo courtesy Zinnia’s Dinette)
Back in the day, Craryville, NY, would have been one of those hamlets known as a whistle stop, the kind of small cluster of houses and little stores and farms at which the daily train would halt briefly to pick up and drop off a passenger or two and a couple dozen milk cans bound for processing.
Alas, it’s been demoted from even that modest designation ever since the railroad halted services in 1976, leaving only NY State Route 23 as its artery with the world. Craryville lays on a long flat straightaway between the Taconic hills, flanked a couple miles to the east by Hillsdale and a dozen miles west by Hudson; both communities have gentrified in the past 20 years or so. But Craryville, well, it’s still easy to drive right through it in the space of a couple minutes.
But once a year, right around Labor Day, Craryville, like the fabled Scottish village Brigadoon, wakes up and becomes a center of some of the best trad jazz in the country; Amy Lawton, who bought an old small-town drive-in restaurant on the state highway called the Dutch Treat and turned it into a whimsically appealing seafood restaurant called Zinnia’s Dinette, hosts New Orleans’ Tuba Skinny under a big tent right outside the building.
This year’s show is on Tuesday (Sept. 9) at 6 pm; if you want to partake of the wonderful serendipity of how one of the world’s best trad bands can show up in a field in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, you owe it to yourself to go. And pro tip – if you want a convenient parking space and your food in a timely manner, show up early. Upwards of 500 people can show up for the show and to try out Amy’s take on seafood classics.
As one might expect, the Tuba Skinny Zinnia’s shows aren’t formally booked (though the band plays the Zinnia’s show around other dates on its annual Northeast swing). No, they’re a manifestation of Amy’s long-standing friendship with the band’s vocalist and bass drummer, Erika Lewis.
“She’s my closest friend – for 25 years,” Amy told 8495Jazz. They met in Berkeley, CA, around adopting some puppies from a shelter. And, life being what it is, Hudson Valley native Erika and Rhode Island native Amy’s paths have crossed and re-crossed time and again.
“We used to live together in Rhode Island where I am from, then she moved back here so I moved out here, then she moved to New Orleans,” Amy said.
Of all the bands and musicians who flocked to New Orleans in the years after Hurricane Katrina, perhaps Tuba Skinny represents best what can happen when talent meets the combination of the DIY stick-to-it ethos and the power of the Internet. The band, which formed from a loose nucleus of musicians around 2009, has become a worldwide avatar of the trad style, be it jazz, blues or ragtime. They still busk; in fact, their European tour this year was a bicycle tour of the French countryside.
Amy’s journey to the dinette has some of the same elements of whimsy, kismet, and wanting to bring some happiness to people as Tuba Skinny’s music. She began thinking about opening a place in the depths of the Covid lockdown in 2020.
“It was sad,” she said. “People were sad. It was the beginning of the disconnect when people were feeling lonely. I planted all these zinnias in my front yard while I was trying to figure out how to feed people.
“And then, you know what happened? Those zinnias got pollinated. There were hummingbirds. There were walking sticks. There were bees. Wasps. Everything, all the types of birds and bees and bugs just congregated there on the zinnias in the front yard as I was on the computer trying to figure out how to get a building. And I said, ‘Well, if I open as Zinnia’s, all the birds and bees will come and pollinate it, and that’s what happened.”
And she started looking for a home for her dream. The Dutch Treat had a very small for sale sign out in front.
“This building felt sad to drive by – it felt like when you have chipped a tooth and it’s missing a piece. I’d drive down this road and think, ‘Oh, this building had so much life in it’ – but I put the life back in.”
Indeed she has. She purposely leaned into the seafood angle in a region beset by the “farm to table” trend of heirloom poultry and pork. She gets fresh fish deliveries six days a week, and, in another example of eclectic pursuits, boasts what might be the largest selection of tinned fish in the world. She opened in the late summer of 2021 – the first Tuba Skinny show was actually just before her grand opening.
The restaurant has received stellar reviews from foodie professionals and regular folks alike. And when 8495Jazz visited, on a mid-afternoon Monday well past the usual lunch rush, a steady flow of customers in cars from Massachusetts and New Jersey as well as locals kept streaming in.
“We’re a very busy restaurant, packed most of the time,” Amy said.
So for now, we can count on an annual visit from Tuba Skinny. How long, though?
“If you said ‘Should I open a restaurant?’ to me right now I would say do not open a restaurant,” she said. “Not now, not in the past, not in the future – don’t do it. And this place will not be here forever. It is finite. It has the character of the real living human beings within it and it was here to bring people together. And at some point people will have to find another way or their own way to bring people together. It has an expiration date. For now, it’s proudly here.”
Here’s a POV video of what the annual Tuba Skinny show at Zinnia’s Dinette is like. Check out the cars parked along Route 23. The show is a big deal, maybe the biggest deal in Craryville all year.
The tip jar is open
I have activated paid subscriptions, at the moment for $6 a month or $60 annually. If you would like to support 8495Jazz with a little jack, I am most grateful. But there will never be a paywall here regardless.
Top 10 With A Bullet
Whoever counts stuff about readership and clicks and stuff at the Substack mother ship tells me 8495Jazz is now the eighth-fastest rising music publication on the platform. THANK YOU!
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gig of the Week
Cafe Nine, New Haven, CT
David Chevan 65th birthday show/jam, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 7 pm. The renowned New Haven-based bassist will play original compositions, arrangements and transcriptions with long-time collaborators and friends, Will Bartlett, Warren Byrd, Alvin Carter and Saskia Laroo, in the 7-8 pm featured set of the regular New Haven Jazz Underground Tuesday night jam. Jam session runs from 8-10 pm. Free.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
New England Conservatory, Boston, MA
Contemporary Musical Arts open house (improvisation, songwriting klezmer), 2-6:50 pm; student open mic (folk, rock, jazz, world, and more), 7-10 pm. Free.
Other Shows This Week
White Plains, NY (various locations)
JazzFest White Plains, Sept. 10-14. Free and ticketed shows, see link for details.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Caelan Cardello Trio album release show, Friday, Sept. 12 and Saturday, Sept. 13, 8 pm. GA $49.16, student $22.68 including service fee.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
Jeb Patton (piano, combo) Thursday, Sept. 11, 7:30 and 8:45 pm. GA $10.76-$20.76, student/vets $15.76 for 7:30 show.
Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
Tuba Skinny (trad jazz), Thursday, Sept. 11, 8 pm. GA $49 in advance, $51 day of show, all-in price.
Talcott Mountain Collective, Weatogue, CT
Low Key Trio (alto sax, combo), Wednesday, Sept. 10, 6 pm. Free (donation suggested).
Center for Arts at the Armory, Somerville, MA
Aardvark Jazz Orchestra 53rd season opener music by Duke Ellington and Mark Harvey, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 7 pm. GA $27.25, front section cabaret seating $32.50 including service fee.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
Blues On The Corner: McCoy Tyner Legacy Band, Friday, Sept. 12, 7:30 pm. GA $41.79, students $30.15 including service fee.
The Falcon, Marlboro, NY
Tatiana Eva-Marie (trad gypsy vocals, combo), Friday, Sept. 12, 7:30 pm. Free ($30 suggested donation).
Elicit Brewing Co., Manchester, CT
Hartford Jazz Orchestra, Monday, Sept. 8, 7:30 pm. Free.
Towne Crier Cafe, Beacon, NY
Meraki Trio (eclectic jazz/folk/world), Friday, Sept. 12, 8:30 pm. $34 including service fee (dinner price additional)
Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT
Darius Jones Trio (saxophone, combo), Friday, Sept. 12, 8:30 and 10 pm. GA $20 for 8:30 show, $15 for 10 pm show.
Rhinebeck, NY (various locations)
Rhinebeck Porchfest, Saturday, Sept. 13, 11 am - 7 pm. Free.
United Theatre, Westerly, RI
Swing Band Benefit Concert (for local public school music education programs), today, 5 pm. featuring Time and Changes Orchestra, As Time Goes By, and Sean Nelson New London Big Band/Sean Nelson Jazz Orchestra. GA adult $22, under 18 $12.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, 3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Park City Music Hall, Bridgeport, CT
Jam sessions first Wednesday of the month, hosted by Scott Cushman. Free.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
You can help make 8495Jazz better. Subscribe – it’s FREE! Share it with your music-loving friends. Like and follow us on Facebook and Bluesky. Share gig information and story suggestions to 8495jazz@gmail.com