Jazz community loses two of its best!
By CP Christopher Peppas

The jazz community in Greater Milwaukee lost two of its mainstays in music for many, many decades. They not only shared their musical talents with countless audiences over those many years, but they also help foster the next generations of performers.

Sharon Schmidt passed away peacefully this past January. She was proud to be referred to as a “Girl Singer,” which was a holdover from the Big Band Era when many of the renowned groups would have some feminine energy to front those massive, by today’s standards, bands.

Sharon was most recently known for running an uber-successful jazz jam on Wednesday nights at the Historic Red Mill in Brookfield.

That standing gig lasted almost nine years (ending in 2013 when the restaurant was sold) and many of the vocalists and players who perform around town to this day got their start at that jam.

Sharon, accompanied by Jeff Stoll on the keys and Joe Zarcone on the drums, would play the first hour. After a short break, Sharon would invite the cavalcade of vocalists and players to join the fray.

It was an interesting cast of characters week to week, like something out of Damon Runyan. But it was that repetition, backed up by over a century’s worth of professional musicianship, that gave many the confidence boost needed to go out and either form bands of their own or just sit in with others.

There was Cliff Gundersen, who was gracing that stage until he passed away at ninety-six years of age. Signature songs like “Out of Nowhere,” “Just Friends” and “Shiny Stockings” delighted everyone who was there to bear witness.

The late, great frontman from Generation Gap, Wayne (Zim) Zimmermann was a habitue of those Wednesday nights and thrilled the crowd with his sultry saxophone.
His interpretation of “Harlem Nocturne” drew gasps with its raw appeal.

Before that, Sharon was in a variety of different bands, too numerous to mention. Notably, she was a member of “Six Friars and a Monk.” The septet performed on countless cruise ships for years.

She stopped performing the last few years of her life as she suffered a severe hearing loss (she underwent a Cochlear implant). But Sharon wasn’t able to sing up to her standard. But she never lost her love of jazz and attended many of the Jazz Unlimited jams and other shows at the performers she helped at the Red Mill.

Sharon Schmidt was active in Jazz Unlimited for many years. She helped coordinate the high school scholarship competition and helped out as a judge for many years.

Tom Anderson, jazz accordionist and leader/co-founder of Generation Gap, died in late February just two weeks shy of his ninetieth birthday. Tom was as nice as they come and generous in sharing his stage with others.

Generation Gap did what was to be a one-off performance on a Taco Tuesday at Rocco’s, in the basement of the Legion Post on Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View.

Well, one time led to once and month and soon every Friday night for two and a half years.

At the same time, a couple of years were spent holding forth on Wednesdays at The Venice Club in Brookfield. Tom with his fancy imported Italian accordion on his lap and a gin and tonic at arm’s length.

That accordion was at the side of his cremains at his funeral, where folks were half-expecting that he would play something one last time.

After that came monthly appearances at O’Donoghue’s in Elm Grove, where Generation Gap would pack the back room with lovers of jazz and the standards to audiences young and old alike.

But Tom actually started playing professionally at age fifteen. He had met his future bandmate and drummer, Vic Dicristo, at that time and played together for almost seventy-five years when health issues forced them to give up a life-long love.

Tom started a group in the 1960s, The Mello-Dees, that played weddings, proms, homecomings and more.

He ran a string of Dry Cleaners/Laundrys on Milwaukee’s north side for six decades, spending every Sunday taking the quarters from the machines and refilling the changers. He and first wife, Bobbie, had eight children, twenty-six grandchildren and twenty-eight great grandchildren.

He was survived by his business partner and love of his life, Vickey.

It’s a gargantuan task trying to squeeze all the accomplishments and the full, rich lives of many of these giants of local jazz. But at least you get the idea.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CP Christopher Peppas is a Journalist, Jazz Vocalist and Conga Player in the Greater Milwaukee Area and Correspondent at Large for the Jazz Unlimited Newsletter and Content Manager/Chief Contributor to CreativProse, Ltd. (sic), Social Media, Brand Management.