On weekend mornings, there’s not just the smell of coffee filling the ocean breeze on Bougainvillea Lane. There’s music – soulful and jazzy – drifting out of Grind and Grape espresso and wine bar.
That sound, also heard on Wednesday evenings there, has a lot to do with musician Al Shikaly’s third-grade class in Yonkers, New York.
As Shikaly – a recently added gem to Vero’s jazz scene – tells it, a flyer was handed out to all the students one afternoon in the early 1960s. It listed all the music classes and instruments available to study the following year.
Excitedly, Shikaly came home and showed the list to his parents. “So, which instrument do you think you would like to play, Al?” his father asked the 8-year-old.
Shikaly didn’t miss a beat. “The drums!” But Mr. Shikaly shook his head no. Their apartment building had thin walls and neighbors on both sides, above and below. Shikaly’s dad, a long-time fan of Benny Goodman, quickly suggested the clarinet instead. Shikaly agreed.
So began his life-long love affair with music.
His clarinet studies in grade school led to the flute, the piano and, ultimately, the saxophone in his teenage years. Graduating from Yonkers High School in 1970, Shikaly pursued a degree in music education at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
He declared a major in music education, but Shikaly knew he wanted to perform. So he took every music class Berklee had to offer, required for his degree or not.
“I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to take classes with jazz legends like award-winning vibraphonist Gary Burton, the great trumpeter Herb Pomeroy and saxophonist Charlie Mariano,” he recalls.
Joe Viola, a noted educator and performer, and founding chair of the Berklee College of Music, was his sax instructor. “I mean, wow!” Shikaly exclaims.
Along with the faculty’s superior musical talent, his classmates were a who’s-who of jazz luminaries: jazz-rock guitarist John Scofield, tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, bassist Abraham Laboriel, Grammy-winning trumpeter Claudio Roditi and the renowned American composer Philip Glass, to name a few.
With his increased course load, Shikaly did not perform much during college, though on weekends the band he formed with friends played small venues throughout New England.
“We played all original rock tunes and had a lot of fun. The other sax player in the band, Marion Meadows, and I have kept in touch through the years and he’s gone on to have his own successful career, which has been great to watch.”
Shikaly had to leave Berklee after his third year and return to New York to begin working. He quickly found a job with a six-piece dance band called 20th Century. Performing in hotel ballrooms and dance clubs around the tristate area, Shikaly got his first glimpse of life on the road as a touring musician.
As it developed into a fairly hectic performance schedule, an old high school classmate and fellow musician, Bill Lancton, invited him to Indiana to share a house and try out the music scene. Shikaly jumped at the chance.
Although he found work in music education in Indiana, the Midwestern music scene didn’t match Shikaly’s needs. He did find a match romantically, however, when he was introduced to his future wife, Sandy, a grade-school teacher. They moved back to New York in 1975.
Once back in the New York groove, Shikaly’s career quickened its tempo when he was hired to tour with Latin music giant Tito Puente. Those four years with the Tito Puente Orchestra provided him with experiences that would inspire him musically, increase his industry contacts, and catapult him to an improved level of performance and prestigious venues.
A happy smile of nostalgia accompanies his recollections of playing at Madison Square Garden with Puente’s orchestra, of the nights he opened for James Brown, and of the two times he performed with Carlos Santana at the Roseland Ballroom.
Having relocated his family to South Florida in the ’80s, Shikaly toured with legendary R&B groups The Temptations, The Spinners, and legends Lou Rawls, Melba Moore and Tavares, while teaching music at Broward County’s Marjorie Stoneman-Douglas High and North Broward Prep.
Shikaly joined the Boca Raton Symphonic Pops and accompanied a long list of musical greats including Henry Mancini, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Bennett, Lionel Hampton and Maureen McGovern.
Many years later, it was McGovern who was responsible for Shikaly’s initial discovery of Vero Beach when her saxophonist was snowed in up in New York, unable to play for her show at Riverside Theatre. Shikaly was contacted to see if he could come save the day and perform.
“That was no easy gig to come into, though,” Shikaly admitted. “With no practice, I had to match her complex vocal stylings with a lot of bebop and in perfect harmony, of course. But it was fun.”
During the 1990s, Shikaly created his Florida-based entertainment company, S.E.A. Coast Music, which managed talent for the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Harbor Hotel and large corporations.
Hurricane Wilma did substantial damage to their home in Boca Raton in 2005 and the Shikalys moved back to Indiana. He got a job teaching at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, one of his most challenging and richly rewarding experiences in education. There, he created a student jazz ensemble called the Jazzy Boys, whose accomplishments and rapid success are still a great source of pride.
A few years ago, the Shikalys were back in Florida visiting their daughter Erin in Boynton Beach when they decided to visit Vero again. Having breakfast at a beachside café one morning, Shikaly turned to his wife and said, “Now this I can do!”
Last summer, they bought a home in Pointe West. Within a month, Shikaly was sitting in with local musicians Dave Scott at Blue Star, Kenny Clark at Grind and Grape, the Wiley Nash Band and Ed Shanaphy & Friends (of which I am part) at Riverside Theatre’s Live in the Loop.
It was on one of these occasions that Shikaly met Bobby Tee, a retired New York City police officer and talented percussionist. Along with several mutual musical buddies, they shared an appreciation for smooth jazz, R&B classics and Latin music. With complementary vocal stylings, it was a no-brainer for them to form their jazz duo, S.E.A. Wind, last fall.
Their talents have been in demand ever since, performing private parties for beachside residents, and three weekly shows at Grind and Grape.
Recently and quite out of the blue, Berklee College contacted Shikaly. After reviewing his 1970s transcripts, they offered him the chance to complete his degree online.
He enrolled and is satisfying his final 12 credits with courses in electronic music and music production.
“As a musician, it’s so important these days to stay current with technology because the nature of it changes so quickly,” he says.
Shikaly creates his own tracks in his home studio with Apple’s Logic Studio 9 software, ensuring that his audiences enjoy authentic originals and creative covers.
It’s clear from the response of Shikaly’s enthusiastic crowds that this student-turned-teacher-turned-student-again needs no instruction on how to play to get folks dancing: There’s rarely any room on the dance floor.
