Few things better evoke the memory of Trenton’s entertainment past than the image of folks dressed smartly for the evening and entering the doors of a nightclub that is pulsating with the sounds of a jazz trio.
These days, when Dick Gratton takes his guitar and sits down to begin his first Wednesday presentation at Trenton Social Restaurant, he brings part of that tradition with him. Gratton, 78, has attracted quite a following. But he also remembers the old places and the talented musicians who once played around the capital city. The names come easily, and he rattles them off as though reading a hall of fame plaque.
“The Downtown Club, Club 50 on Hanover, Joe’s Mill Hill Saloon,” Gratton recalls. “I played a lot in the area starting in the ’60s. I played at the Canal House in New Hope, Rush’s Tavern on Johnson Avenue, the Eagle Tavern. One of the biggest that I worked at was the Greenwood Grille on the corner of Greenwood and Johnson. Sunday nights there were always a good time.
“Trenton has always been noted for having very fine musicians. But very few of them were nationally known, except for Richie Cole, the saxophonist,” he says.
Gratton has the easy-going manner of one who is satisfied with where life has brought him. His story is familiar to those who have heard him play over the years. His family settled in the Whitehorse section of Hamilton Township, and as a young child he began playing guitar while listening to jazz and big band records in his father’s collection.
“You have to have the interest,” Gratton says. “The best time for a kid to start would maybe be about eight years old. Unfortunately, eight-year-old kids want to do other things. I started playing when I was seven. The first nightclub I played was in a bar in Dunellen, and a family friend invited me up and I played ‘Lady of Spain.’ I was 12, and I do remember being scared to death.”
As the 1960s approached, his high school band was into Chuck Berry and Bill Haley and the Comets. Just when others plugged in their amplifiers and decided they were born to be wild, Gratton veered into a different direction.
“It was probably around 1962,” he says. “I went to the Downtown Club on Passaic Street in Trenton and saw Dick Braytenbah’s piano trio. He played a lot of standards, and that’s when I started thinking that was something I wanted to do. It was a little more creative.”
He drew inspiration from musicians like Les Paul, Gene Bertoncini, Tony Mottola, and Wes Montgomery, and started performing in the Trenton area and in Atlantic City.
“There were a ton of clubs when I first started playing. Some are still around, but not many,” he says. “When work thins out you move on somewhere else.”
Times were good for Trenton’s cultural scene but not good enough to make a living. Gratton’s father worked on the railroad when it was still known by its name on the Monopoly game board — the Pennsylvania Railroad. Soon the idea of a full-time income beckoned.
“I think I’m successful at what I do, but I don’t think I could ever make a living at it,” he says. “Once I started working on the railroad, being a musician for a living sort of went away. I was playing in New Hope one night right before I went on the railroad and thought, ‘Man, you have to go get a real job. How much longer can you live on peanut butter sandwiches?’”
He managed to arrange his work schedule to allow regular gigs and along the way honed impressive musical chops while always playing close to home. By the time he had retired in 2002, he had acquired quite a resume: the Jazz and Blues Showcase Series in Medford Lakes, annual dinners for the American Federation of Musicians of Trenton, Trenton Heritage Days, and the Bordentown Cranberry and Iris festivals.
In 1998 he performed in a six-piece jazz group with saxophonist Richie Cole at the Trenton Jazz Festival at Waterfront Park. In addition to his work in all the area clubs, he has opened for pianists David Benoit, Eddie Palmieri, and Alex Bugnon, and he once played alongside guitarist Tal Farlow.
Playing for restaurant crowds and others whose attention may be divided is okay by him. He put out a CD in 1998 that suggests an ethereal, ambient musical approach. But he says he plays for attentive diners.
The temptation might also be to think that a railroad engineer’s music would be richly steeped in the blues, perhaps with the devil waiting at every crossing. Not so with Gratton who works in jazz arrangements of popular songs and standards.
An important figure in Trenton’s cultural history, Gratton says he could work more but enjoys home life with his wife, Joan.
And while the music venues have changed, Gratton is still on track and making music in Trenton.
Trenton Social, 449 South Broad Street. First Wednesdays, 6 p.m. 609-989-7777.
Dick Gratton performs every first Wednesday at the Trenton Social.,
