By Dean Wells
Friday night. Todd Singleton unlatches a giant case and pulls out an upright bass and sits it next to a piano in a wine bar. He’s getting ready to play a two-hour set of jazz with pianist Deena Winters in front of a big crowd.
Twenty years ago, setting up for a gig on a Friday was a whole different story for Singleton. He would show up in the morning at his restaurant in Pennsylvania before heading out to his second restaurant, Forte, in Jamestown, NY for dinner service.
“I was the clown in the circus with the plates on the stick,” Singleton says. “It was an 8am-2am. kind of day.”
next time you are in Key West, FL. and tell the crew
he says “hello!” (marquesa.com). This is where he
made his stomping grounds as a chef before he
came back to Warren, PA to begin The Liberty Street
Cafe and eventually, Jamestown, NY, where he founded Forte and began his family.
How did Singleton get from working 18-hour days in two restaurants that he owned to playing jazz on an upright bass in an intimate wine bar on a Friday night?
It’s a long road that began at the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona in the 1980s.
Singleton played trombone in the marching band for the University of Pittsburgh until he decided it was time to take a break from music.
“I remember it was our last game at the Fiesta Bowl. It was my sophomore year. After it was over, I packed (my trombone) and I knew that was it for a while. At that point, music was ingrained in me. I wasn’t done. I just needed to take a pause of unknown length to see what was next.”
Singleton earned a degree in business administration at Pitt. He was selling mutual funds when he took a hard turn into the culinary world after attending a cousin’s wedding.
“He catered his own wedding,” Singleton said. “I thought that was incredible. A week later, I found a culinary school in Pittsburgh.”
The newly minted chef worked in Key West at several restaurants after graduating culinary school before he eventually made his way back to his hometown of Warren, Pa., where he opened the Liberty Street Café, followed by Forte in Jamestown.
In between, he married his wife, Alexis.
Shortly after, he realized it was time for a change.
“I (worked in the restaurant industry) for 30 years,” Singleton says. “It’s a lot of wear and tear physically. I was kind of reaching the end of that career. I was a new father at the time, starting a family. The time was perfect (to move on). You can’t own a restaurant and have a family. You’re married to one or the other. I remember thinking about Stavros (his oldest child) and leaving for work and he was asleep and coming home and he was asleep.”
Singleton sold both of his restaurants and quickly settled into the domestic life of a stay-at-home parent—which, unknown to him at the time, would be the catalyst for his return to playing music.
Singleton’s children joined Jamestown’s Suzuki program, an all-ages stringed instrument instruction program, which was being taught by one of his wife’s high school instructors, Nina Karbacka.
“Everyone has got their mini violins and they’re sawing away,” Singleton said. “And then Alexis’s mom decided she wanted to try the cello. So I decided I wanted to get a bass. It was fun. It was good.
“One by one the kids dropped off, but I still want to play. Someone mentioned that Jamestown had a community orchestra. I sat in on that and it was a lot of fun.”
Enter renowned Jamestown jazz musician Ralph “Raz” Rasmussen.
“He played at (The Liberty Street Café) a few times and I knew him on that level,” Singleton says. “He needed a bass player and asked me if I wanted to sit in. It was something completely different, but it was a lot of fun to play again. I had a great time.”
Rasmussen contacted him again when he needed a bassist for his 5-piece ensemble. “He asked me if I wanted to join and I said ‘absolutely.’ I was terrified. He handed me a stack of music and I didn’t even know where to start. The first gig was sort of crash and burn. But without that sort of failure, I wouldn’t have known where to go next.”
That’s when he discovered Ireal pro, an application tailored for jazz musicians for rehearsal and learning songs.
“It was my savior,” Singleton says. “It was everything I need to learn the music, to play in this style and environment. It rescued me. It’s really everything you need to play ensemble jazz. I think a lot of it is just knowing your chords and how to get between them, how to move.”