Richard Sherman’s longstanding gig: bringing the swing to the South Bay
The Richard Sherman Trio with Bili Redd: Jon Stuart, Adam Cohen, Sherman and Redd. It began at a little place called Pat’s Bar on the corner of East 2nd Ave. and 2nd St. in Miami in 1965. Richard Sherman was 19. He was a math whiz who’d been playing the piano obsessively for nearly half his young life – he’d graduated from the ukulele at 10 after an aunt got divorced and, out of the settlement, Sherman got the piano he’d been longing for — when his mother finally put him to work. She landed him his first gig. It wasn’t an easy one. Sherman and his trio played Pat’s six nights a week, six hours a night, from mid-evening to the wee hours. “My mother got us the job,” Sherman said. “It was $15 per night per person….In between sets, we couldn’t stay in the bar. We’d go to a room upstairs because we were too young.” Sherman has been gigging ever since. He arrived in the South Bay in 1972, ostensibly to become a math teacher. But he quickly booked a gig at Tony’s on the Pier and thus launched what has become a four decade career as a resident pianist at an astonishing array of local venues. His list of previous engagements is like a time capsule of South Bay culture; it includes The…
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