East Village singer/songwriter Jesse Malin is an incredible inspiration, but not in any way that he had planned.
A few years ago, he would walk the streets of Alphabet City (usually with a phone to his ear), heading to rehearsal for an upcoming tour, checking in on the bars he co-owned, and thinking about the next songs that would roll off his guitar. But fate, or something like it, struck him hard.
Malin was the victim of a rare spinal stroke, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. This is the guy who “ran five miles a few times a week, ate plant-based organic, drank a little, and never smoked cigarettes or did drugs.” Faced with a new reality, he did what not everyone in that position would do: he stood up, first metaphorically and then for real.
“It was like, all right, you survived all these things that you think were so hard, and now this happens to you”, Malin says. “You can’t walk, you can’t pee right. You’re in pain, you can’t feel your legs, you can’t take care of yourself in the same way. You can’t, you know, get up and lift something. So it was like, all right, now you got to really dig deep into what we learned in the hardcore days of reggae and the Bad Brains and that positive mental attitude to help you through this. You’re the guy that always told everybody, be positive, make s#!t happen! And then I’m hit with this and it’s like, how do you navigate that?”
What he wanted most was “to get my life back or at least my music back and get up on stage.” After three months in the hospital, visits to Argentina for stem cell therapy, and many hours of physical therapy, Malin was looking for a way to get back on stage on a regular basis without having to deal with the impossible rigors of touring.
Then his friend Jonathan had an idea that got him thinking: “He suggested a residency in New York,” recalls Malin. “He said, you know, you can’t tour right now, your body needs to find a way to make a living. Think of Les Paul at Fat Tuesdays, think of Bobby Short at the Carlyle, Woody Allen, Buster Poindexter or, the biggest example, Billy Joel, in the Garden every month.”
“But,” Malin continues, “I didn’t want it to be like Storytellers, which was great, or City Winery, or some acoustic songwriter, singer, songwriter, you know, and she left me, and then I wrote this, and then blah blah blah, and that’s all beautiful, but I’ve been there, done that, too.”
Malin, a natural storyteller who has told some great tales onstage in the past, decided to get ambitious.
“I had this whole idea of a play that would use the band,” he explains. “So we’d have a band element, but it would be theatrical, but it would also tell the truth and hopefully would be inspiring to people or somewhat relate to their lives. Like going through something really tough and turning your lemons into margaritas somehow. Or the best you can, lemonade, maybe bad lemonade, but at least it’s not lemons.”
Malin knew it wasn’t going to be easy – after all, just doing the things that we take for granted every day are, as he explains, not so easy.
“Everything that used to take, you know, two minutes, takes a long time. Everything now is a whole deal.”
If, as Albert Camus said, “sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement,” then Malin has gone way beyond superhuman status.
The result of his endeavors, “Silver Manhattan,” is an emotional, funny, and ultimately uplifting production that ignores self-pity while mixing dialogue and live music in a way that is engaging from start to finish.
With the support of his band – Derek Cruz (guitar), Paul Garisto (drums), James Cruz (bass), Rob Clores (keyboards), Bree Sharp (vocals, guitar) – Malin rocks out with a varied setlist that includes “Everybody Wants to Rock and Roll” (written for his first band when he was twelve), and somewhat more serious fare such as “You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start To Pray” and a couple of covers that fit in perfectly. And it doesn’t shy away from the night of the stroke, as he painfully recalls the events that transpired in an East Village restaurant, surrounded by friends.
The show was written by Malin with Lauren Ludwig and Harry Greenberger and directed by Ellie Hayman. There are a few more shows at the Gramercy Theater before it moves a new residency location (not yet announced) in February.
Singer-songwriter Dina Regine, a longtime friend of Malin’s, has been following the show’s progress and was happy to offer her assessment of its current state.
“Silver Manhattan” is on a journey of its own as it evolves from show to show, and Malin and crew “hit a sweet spot,” she said of the Nov. 22 performance.
“Even though the Gramercy Theater was packed, once Jesse began sharing his intimate journey taking you through a range of emotions, stories and songs, there were moments when it felt like it’s just you and Jesse in the room. It’s that personal,” Regine says.
Malin admits that it’s not all sunshine on his uphill climb.
“Sometimes I feel very trapped, and I’m in a lot of pain still, and I worry about the future,” he says. “I can go down a rabbit hole of anxiety. I think I’m still coming out of the trauma of such a life change. There’s a lot of other stuff that people aren’t really aware of, and then there’s the nightmares, you know. But hey, there’s other people worse than me. I’m lucky, I’m under a roof here and I have an outlet, which is music. I miss touring, I miss just skipping down the street and just spontaneously doing this or that or just going out at night or not needing help. But, I’ve got my music.”
Show and ticket info are available at Jessemalin.com. Follow him on Instagram at @jesse_malin.
Also, watch for his book “Almost Grown: A New York Memoir,” which chronicles his early years.
