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Santa Fe Bassist Steps into NYC Groove

Late last year, Santa Fe-bred bassist Cyrus Campbell took a giant step in his music career. He shook off the desert dust of New Mexico and moved to New York City.

As a versatile, well-educated, and experienced musician whose focus is jazz, he was already playing with some of the best artists in the Southwest, including legendary clarinetist, saxophonist, and Santa Fe resident Eddie Daniels.

But as a talented young improviser, moving within a subway ride of the Village Vanguard and dozens of other New York clubs just made sense.  

Not only are there more venues in which to perform in New York, but those places are open much later, and every-day jam sessions attract some of the best players on the planet. How can Santa Fe compete with that?

“it's hard, especially hard for young musicians. Places like this— Unit B is wonderful. We played at the Outpost last night. Really wonderful. But there's not a lot of infrastructure to support young  artists.”

That’s Cyrus Cambell, talking in the green room of Santa Fe’s popular new entertainment venue, Unit B, last Saturday night, after wrapping up two sets of music.

It was his first time here since moving East only six weeks ago, with a band called However that he formed in New Mexico not long before his departure.

Unit B, by the way, is a much-raved about joint that opened last September- featuring a uniquely designed room with excellent sound and, nightly, packed crowds who tend to listen very carefully to the music.

Campbell hasn’t landed a premiere Unit B-like-gig just yet in New York, but the apartment he recently moved into in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood is just two blocks from Ornithology, a three-floor venue with live jazz and jam sessions every day of the week.

Living that close to a busy music club has been an ear-opener for Cambell.

“It's really inspiring, truly inspiring and exciting to meet new people and play with new people," Campbell said.

"Everyone has a different take on it, and everyone comes from different parts of this big improvised music world."

Campbell is excited about the music opportunities and though he’s aware of the financial challenges of being a musician in NYC, he’s meeting a lot of people who show it can be done.

One challenge might be the fact that he plans to maintain close ties with all of the musicians he’s connected to in New Mexico, especially his However trio, which also features Albuquerque keys player Evan Fort and drummer Jonah Minkus. 

He met his bandmates on a New Year’s Eve gig in 2023 at the Vernon Speakeasy in Albuquerque.

Campbell will leave them behind when he returns to New York tomorrow. It seems pretty likely he’ll back in his hometown before long.

The music you heard in this story was performed and composed by However, from their new EP, Cool Trio.

Rob Hochschild first reported news for WCIB (Falmouth, MA) and WKVA (Lewistown, PA). He later worked for three public radio stations in Boston before joining KSFR as news reporter.