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When young Peninsula musician Clint Baker and his band began performing at Menlo Park’s Cafe Borrone in fall of 1990, it was the start of a gig that would evolve into a tradition in its own right.
Barely a year out of high school, Baker founded the longstanding monthly jam, now known as the Cafe Borrone All-Stars. Over the years, the group, which plays traditional jazz from the 1920s through the ’40s, has welcomed well-known musicians from that scene, as well as young artists just getting their start.
The All-Stars will celebrate their 35th anniversary at their longtime home, Cafe Borrone, on Jan. 23.
Baker is a Peninsula-based multi-instrumentalist and jazz historian. He hosts a regular show on area jazz radio station KCSM and is a guest lecturer at San Mateo Community College. He has also taught at the Community School of Music and Arts and Stanford Jazz Camp.
He plays trumpet in the band’s current lineup, which also features Robert Young, saxophone; Jeff Hamilton, piano; Mikiya Matsuda or Tom Wilson, bass; guitar and banjo player Bill Reinhart; and Jessica King, vocals and washboard.
“Cafe Borrone (has been) the nucleus and the place where we learned how to play together, you know, and that tradition, we just try to keep it going,” Baker said. “It’s amazing to me. As you get older, you get to a point where you start having people come up to you and say they saw the band when they were kids.”
Cafe Borrone owner Marina Borrone, whose parents founded the cafe, was around the same age as Baker when the band began playing at the cafe.
“That was a very different time. The cafe was open seven days a week, and we were open till midnight, and we were so busy. Clint fell into playing on Friday nights, and that was just another feature that Cafe Borrone offered the community,” she said.
In the band’s early days, Baker recalled that there were many students from Menlo-Atherton High School hanging out at the cafe. The crowd at shows these days is a broad mix of generations, including older adults from Baker’s jazz history class, families and students. Performances often also draw swing dancers.
Borrone said that her parents, who are in their 80s, still come to shows sometimes.
“It brings a great energy, and it is a real way to bring the community together. It’s fun to see all the ages mixed. But that’s what’s special about the cafe and that’s what draws Clint to there,” she said.
The pandemic has had a significant effect on both the cafe, with hours scaled back, Borrone said. The band used to play every Friday night throughout the year except for the holidays, then shifted to twice a month, and now shows are monthly. Borrone said that she hopes to get the All-Stars performing there more this year.
Oakland-based vocalist and washboard player Jessica King has been performing with the band for six or seven years. King is also a swing dancer and befriended Baker at one of his regular gigs at another venue.
“Eventually I decided with a group of dancer friends that we wanted to play music also, and (Baker) mentored us,” King said.
The All-Stars started off as an ensemble of young musicians and in keeping with that, has continued to welcome new generations, including Baker’s son, Riley. Other recent young members include Peninsula clarinet and saxophone player Nathan Tokunaga, who began playing with the group in his early teens and left last summer for college.
“One of the things that’s been important to me over the years is getting younger people playing. Nathan was probably the youngest All-Star. I think he started playing with us when he was 14. We weren’t much older when my band started at Borrone, I think my youngest guys were probably about 16, 17,” Baker said.
“It’s in the New Orleans tradition to help the younger generations of musicians play this stuff because it’s the only way it gets taught. Because you don’t learn this (music) in school. This kind of stuff you have to experience. In the last couple years, Clint has brought through a couple amazing young players that wound up (playing with the band). So another great thing about this is spreading the knowledge,” said Bill Reinhart, who currently plays guitar and banjo with the group. He has been with the All-Stars since 1999, helping to manage the band and bring aboard musicians.
Baker himself was in middle school when he formed his very first band, bringing together musical friends for what he calls a “kid band.” That band served as the foundation for the one that would go on to play at Cafe Borrone.
“I started my first jazz band when I was 13, I’ve had a band continuously since 1984,” he said.
Baker grew up in Mountain View and began playing music in fourth grade, as part of an elementary school band program, starting with clarinet, but after about six months, the band director switched him to trombone due to his tall height. He also took up tuba in school.
He credits his junior high music teacher Linda Snyder and parents for early support in encouraging him to start a band. One of that band’s biggest gigs was a traditional jazz festival in Sacramento.
“There were a couple of people who started with me who were playing with me when I graduated high school and became a professional musician,” Baker said. “I was playing gigs on the side, and I was taking the money that I was making from my gigs and putting it towards funding my band. We were able to get Cafe Borrone at that time, thanks to Roy Borrone, who was the founder of the cafe. He was very encouraging to us.”
All-Stars bassist Tom Wilson has been performing with Baker since he was in high school in the early ’90s. They met when Baker filled in as a trombone player with Wilson’s high school traditional jazz band.
“He had already been kind of working in the Bay Area and got to know people, and he found the Cafe Borrone gig, and then hired a handful of us to play with him. That all happened when I was a senior in high school,” Wilson recalled.
Not long into the band’s tenure at the cafe, the musicians had a chance to visit and perform in New Orleans, the birthplace of traditional jazz, at the invitation of one of the city’s most well-known music groups.
“We ended up having the gig at Cafe Borrone for about a year, and then we got invited by one of the guys at Preservation Hall to play the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Huge deal. I was just 21 years old. A gentleman named Dr. Michael White (of Preservation Hall) brought our whole band to New Orleans, and I still don’t know why he did it, but I’m not disappointed he did, because it was a huge thing for all of us,” Baker said.
In its early years, the group was known as the Clint Baker New Orleans Jazz Band. Around the year 2000, some of the band members began moving on and the group took the name the Cafe Borrone All-Stars. The group has had a somewhat fluid lineup since then.
“It’s been cool that Clint has brought in so many of the old guards, the guys that played jazz in the ’50s and ’60s, with some of the greats that we always looked up to,” Wilson said.
“We even had (cornet player) Leon Oakley, who played with us for a while — I want to say a decade, something like that. He was part of Tuck Murphy’s band in San Francisco for a long time in the ’60s and’ 70s. We got to learn, and play with some really cool players that had been at it for a long time.”
The substantial size of the band is unusual these days, Reinhart said. Where it’s more common to encounter jazz duos or trios, Baker is still regularly bringing together a larger ensemble.
“The core group, I think is basically a five-piece, but six pieces sometimes, and that’s fairly large, sometimes Clint will get a seven-piece. That’s pretty big for a traditional jazz band anymore — that’s big for any band. Clint can keep a five piece or six piece band going there, I think that’s fairly unique today,” Reinhart said. “And the other thing is that the musicians are all like, basically world-class players. The people who come to hear it kind of know that. You can tell.”
A number of the band’s regular members aren’t based on the Peninsula at this point, but commute to All-Stars shows from around the Bay Area.
King notes that the group’s longevity is unique.
“They have been there for so long, but a lot of the same guys are still playing and that is amazing to me, because being in a band is like being in a relationship with multiple people, right? For that kind of relationship to last for that long is amazing to me.”
But King also describes the band’s community spirit in supporting each other as working professionals, such as ensuring they can get to gigs. A band member gave Baker his car, and Baker then gave King his car when she needed transportation. Recently, King was able to pass the car onto another musician who needed it.
Looking ahead as the band marks this milestone, Baker said that he aims to keep doing what the All-Stars have been doing all along: just keep playing together, mentoring younger musicians and keeping the fun evenings going at Cafe Borrone.
“It’s a cliché, but it is very much like a family. One of the things my banjo and guitar player friend who’s helped me manage the band, Bill Reinhart, says, you know, it’s really about a certain kind of fellowship. The thing is, there’s so much stuff that transcends music. Yeah, the music is the reason we’re all there. But so much of what actually makes things click there is the music, plus the community, plus the fellowship that we have as a band working together all these years,” Baker said.
The Cafe Borrone All-Stars perform Jan. 23, 6-8 p.m., and monthly on Friday evenings at Cafe Borrone, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; free admission. For more information, visit clintbakerjazz.com/allstars.html.
