NY Times
SIDE MAN...is...a tender, deeply personal memory play about the turmoil in the family of a jazz musician as his career crumbles at the dawn of the age of rock-and-roll...It's a gentle reminder of bygone days, when a new play by Tennessee Williams or William Inge would stir up the public and fill seats for months.
NY Daily News
SIDE MAN...is an elegy for two things—a lost world and a lost love. When the two notes sound together in harmony, it is moving and graceful...SIDE MAN evokes their loss with sweet, but never sentimental, poignancy. Framed as a memory play narrated by the son of a skilled, passionate trumpet player, it has, at times, the depth of feeling of an exile longing for home.
Variety
An atmospheric memory play, SIDE MAN spans three decades in the life of a Manhattan musician. Playwright Warren Leight, whose father was a sideman, incisively captures the pulse and climate of the New York jazz scene, with crisp dialogue and clearly drawn characters. What appears on the surface to be a familiar domestic drama subtly reflects the passing of an era with persuasive insight...The joy and despair of the musicians is skillfully illustrated.
DECEMBER 2011 - AudioFile
SIDE MAN is an elegy for a dysfunctional family and the end of live jazz as a musical force. Jazz trumpeter Gene, who is distant from everything but music, and his volatile wife, Terry, live through decades of poverty and turmoil, with son Clifford, the narrator, as go-between and family adult. The play has powerful moments as well as humorous lines among its wrenching incidents, black comedy, and harsh swearing. But some performances are too broad, exaggerated, or strident even for this emotionally raw play, while Frank Wood's Gene seems unrealistically impassive. We sometimes miss out by not seeing expressions and actions, and are left to wonder during silences between characters. Nonetheless, some powerful scenes and readings make the experience worthwhile. W.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
