if i ever buddy welcome to talking jazz and other episode where i get a great chance to talk to people that are actually making a difference in the world of jazz and today i am really honored to have the brand new owner of shanghai jazz and madison new jersey tom donahoe who is going to tell us all about what brought him into the world of jazz but beyond that what you know what will drives him  to bring jazz to the masses so tom thank you sir thank you for coming thanks to have you here tell us about your upbringings i know we just met like a few months ago and i got to say thank you for being on the show and you know for our viewers what i want to try to do is i'm always trying to educate the public on on jazz now shanghai jazz obviously has been an institution in madison new jersey for many years but tell us a little bit about your upbringing like your beginnings so to speak i grew up in marist town you're right next door ok and i started working in restaurants when i was really young actually twelve years old while there's a bus or an dishwasher and i've always just had a passion for hospitality in restaurants and food and all of it worked through college in providence rhode island as a restaurant tour as a bartender and server and then moved to montana to help my uncle and cousin it's just been it's been a really fun great career for me and about four years ago three years ago i started coming into shanghai jazz because i had heard the food was very good  with my then girlfriend now wife and me and just kept noticing that there was just a great crowd and a great vibe it changes every night we are there now were you a jazz fan  prior to that i've always enjoyed jazz yet i've never been deep into it until recently right but going to shanghai jazz as a patron for the food and really quickly came to this realization that jazz is kind of the best music i've identified to have a dining experience to like a broad range of music's well prob range music because we were just saying that you know jazz is a melting pot yes so you've got a melting pot of different styles in jazz which kind of like coincide with a dining experience for different choices say you know on the menu exactly right yeah w right so you're so you're creating that and so your years now so your years prior to this now so you were in montana for eighteen was eighteen years and in montana for ten for ten years ok that that was from when to went from  hundred nine to two thousand and nine and you credit waited heis a college in in providence into providence college ok graduate with a degree in english and did you like go right into that business like right after you got out of college yes i never i worked at a restaurant through college through high school through college u k and moved to montana so it's always been a part of you also see that this is what i love about and this is how this program coincides with with people like you because it's like it's the passion you know it's like early on as a jazz musician myself three or four years old i was always around music i was fortunate enough to have music in the house so for a restaurant tour like yourself you had that experience at a very young age which is positive they were they were probably all positive experiences i would think grass definitely some some might not have positive experiences and may switch careers then but that's you it sounds like you had the the positive experiences but you also had the fire in the belly because you knew that's what you want to do yes see is when i found jazz that's what i knew i wanted to do and that's to me i like i love that that idea of when we find those passions in our lives that there is something that it's an almost a higher calling it is you know bruce springsteen writes about it in his book you know he says i'm really grateful that i was well compensated for what i do  but i didn't have a choice i had to do what i do and that's how i feel about cooking and hospitality and i'm sure how you feel about yeah absolutely now so now let's fast forward to shanghai so you went into shanghai jazz and you had this incredible experience and how did you had you connect with the owner like david knew at the time yes martha david and martha we share i learned over time that the the three of us really share a common vision in what hospitality is and david has an uncanny ability to remember people and names yeah it's just a photographic memory sir he's really he's just the nicest guy and so he recognized  myself and i me coming in and started asking what our story was we got to know each other and ike continuously noticed that the place was busy every night regardless of what night we were there tuesday wednesday for sally's biz always busy and i started kind of picking his brain about because we lived in the same area the market the restaurant market liquor licenses madison morris town all this stuff and just got to know him because i started to kind of really recognize the different values of jazz as a dining experience  and it's a kind of a thought of really been developing over the last seven months and then i started asking him questions about restaurants we would have we had a couple lunches together and one day we got up from lunch and he stopped and said martha and i are ready to move on to different projects if you would like to buy shanghai jazz and i think while what he had learned about me and the people i surround myself with my brother is a big part of it i mean my wife is a big part of it my family in general just really care about each other and about what we do and he recognized i think that i saw the value in jazz in continuing jazz at shanghai jazz continuing shanghai jazz the traditional edition yeah and that became more apparent to me over the last seven months and it's almost it's it's become actually a responsibility to the madison community the jazz community the musicians and our patrons that the the people who come in that you know as a new guy in the building it was really important to me to show first the guests and the musicians that i care about what they do and i value and i see what they do for the business and for that those communities yeah and not to mention what you know david and martha built over the last twenty two years for a small little club it's an a t c club it was like one of the top one hundred clubs in the cut in the world  u two you know that's the that's anything the jazz musician wants to also have a good experience of playing so that's you're creating that and for that we thank you for that and that's you know when all the elements are right it's it becomes this unbelievable i've had some unbelievable nights playing there yeah and people are just like i mean you give a standing ovation and it's like in a restaurant you know it's like but that's a that's a good thing though because that you're creating that atmosphere you're creating that the vibe and you're continuing the vibe which is really important and you know the other thing is talk about i guess some of the things like maybe some of the visions you have for what you're doing because i  seen some of the pictures and i'll tell you you know you are doing some really really cool things i mean it's like it's it's this it's the same as shanghai but it's it's a little bit you know it's expanded a little bit more  started with this shared vision of hospitality that i got to talk to david in martha's talk tell us about that what is your vision what is your it's taking care of people and making them feel like they are every aspect every minute of their experience in my home i spend an ungodly amount of time in this restaurant so i think of that as my home in the apple i work with whether the servers are cooks even though none of my cook speak english and i don't speak chinese you know we have a form of communication that you know i i can i try and demonstrate to them how much i value what they do and so david martha and i just do conversation i think we all realize that we we share a common vision and to your point about taking care of musicians i think you can speak to the experience of a musician going into a another club and maybe i'm wrong maybe i don't take as good care of you as i think i do but you go in and you you're handed a musician's menu and you get a turkey club when everyone else is eating yeah whatever i'm here and they're here to see you whatever we want on the menu you know but actually we get like a five or six course meal which is like unbelievable you know and it's and it's always like impeccable it's so so good so yeah and anything to drink so it's a that's really and we're appreciative that because that's that makes us wan more there to you know bring our game so to speak to ireland to all it's all working together to create a better experience for effectively in essentially the diners who are here to have a meal and listen to this great music and bringing that together is really special experience for me and my our staff my coworkers i think you know the fact that they've all been there for several years it's an it's another testament to again david martha building this place and creating a place that's got a work environment that's so comfortable and you know everyone gets along and everybody works well together it's now had you have you ever owned any other restaurants but you've worked in restaurants have you ever owned in a rather is the first of first first one ok and do you what's this what's the back story do you know when whenever whenever  the musicians are starting or being in are introduced if you've been to shanghai jazz you'll know that they have the gong that they they they ring before and then tom will introduce the bands so what's the background on that you know is that something that's always been done is that just to give good vibes or it's always it's something that's always been done and it's clearly very asian of david and martha were yeah you know the chinese and they created shanghai jazz because  as they were starting to kind of formulate the idea of buying this restaurant from martha's parents martha this story i've been told martha had done  her thesis i believe as a fulbright scholar at harvard on one nine hundred twenty s shanghai ok and at that time most of the world was in kind of a bad spot and shanghai was this  very multicultural international city where a lot of people came together from the both hemispheres from all over the world eastern europe america australia all over the place and they came together and they were so there was  of course and now you know i've i've kind of been handed this again huge responsibility of carrying on this tradition  the first goal when we took over was to not change anything for a couple months you know to see what the people who were trying to take care of the guests and the musicians  a new sound system so that things sounded clear and we're going to add we started evolving the cocktail list to kind of just draw some new people ok who like i four years ago don't know about shanghai jazz maybe they hear about a cocktail list or a new beer list and they're going to come in and are going to say yes it's incredible here we're here you know and i hear it at least once a week we've never been here this place is the music's incredible here yeah it's very good is credible so it's a very fun to have a steady supply of people who come here every week or every ten days and you're probably seeing new people come in all the time because it's you know you're you're almost like you know even though it's been the institution for many years you're still yes reintroducing yourself that's the other thing with even with music i find myself being twenty five years in as a bandleader i'm still reintroducing myself wherever we go i mean people we play shanghai jazz i might people might not have ever heard of my group before or here but then all of a sudden they become fans that same thing with the food the drink and they people or maybe they haven't been there ever before it's their first time they have any great experience like you're providing for them their lifelong customers that it's you know that's what you want that's a that's obviously what we all want it's also a fun you know similar to what you're saying it's a fun experience for me you know as a restaurateur to say  was your first time how did you feel about your korean beef is fantastic if you like that next time try this yeah similarly i get to talk about another subject you know when somebody comes in  you want to come in on something that's a little bit more raucous and upbeat come see argument tell the head you know we got to talk about you next yeah that's right so and i get to meet new musicians who come to see you guys and it's just it's been a really fun experience and it's you know what that's the thing your crew like that the whole experience and i know it's like when you're a restaurant owner you're literally i know you're like twenty four seven you've got a you're like married to it now but you've also got you have a wife and don't you have a little you have a little and i will have a one year old so that's keeping you busy too it does how we are we are incredibly blessed because he's the happiest easiest kid ever yeah you know i tell you i tell people that who have other children that he's been sleeping through the night sesame chicken and clapping and dancing to my guns when my daughter was like three years old like maybe not even maybe two years old i had a gig in hartford connecticut and the hard for jazz festival but we had been at the hotel we had a gig prior to that but we were in already in hartford so my ex and i had my daughter and we were at and we were up there and i had a good shanghai that on saturday and our gig up in hartford was sunday so we came all the way down from hartford to shanghai to play the gig my daughter slept the whole car ride down and then was awakened downstairs in the in the day where we eat and would not for the whole set she was just like crying and just with us and then but we would go back up to hartford she fell asleep again  t but that's how long i we've been at shanghai you know so it's been like an institution for us too you know and i know my guys enjoy playing there and you know so the other thing i wanted to pictures i think here too yeah so we did this we get we planned we started planning this remodel over the last seven months and i said so i kind of called him up and i said there's also the my uncle who i went to montana to help an ultra cool oh great so anyway i said to him here's what i want to do to do this in a week sure so he rose to the challenge and he came up and we took new year's day off on the second we started i got there at ten am and things were just ripped  and he and his team started working tirelessly and they were there for seven to seven while for a week while i was there and he was there in this all just happened on january first generous second change second ok until yesterday to generate tenth we reopened and you know they were still we opened for thirty the first two women came through the door and they kind of looked around  working their butts off to get this done and that's true my staff to my extended family who i had you know i had six cousins on saturday and three uncles working with us and while my brother some of my other business partners were there just everybody just pitching in to clean up or yeah hang a picture or just to get a dang lighting you know is it was an amazing experience to watch all of this come together in a week and next time you're up when you see it and i tell you this happened in a week i think you're going to be yeah i know you always have we always have such a great time playing there and i think we have some video clip of just last month as a matter of fact when we were there we usually do our december charlie brown well i hope you enjoyed that that was a chang hi jazz and that was just last month that was a lot of fun and again tom i really really appreciate you being here and shanghai jazz is one of our sponsors of their show and i really really appreciate that too and i'm just i'm excited because i can't wait to see what happens you know in the next two three years now like it's going to you know even i think it's even going to be expanded even more you're going to continue that legacy i think even more than that any any visions for the future as far as i know you're you're already you know you've done a lot already and you just you're going continuing the service any new additions to the menu anything like that the menu is going to evolve yeah not not good i'd like to refine it a little bit and give some of my own little nuances to it and hopefully again to just appeal to a few more people that whether they say i don't like they think a lot of people think of  erly and i'd like to bring in a few more influences from my past and like you said refined it a little bit we're going to add a menu or a bar menu we're going to the next big phase is we're and great you know so we've got to drop some new microphones out of the ceiling upstairs so we can just bring the music here over there downstairs that's great so we can kind of continue the same musical experience downstairs but allow people to be a little bit more rowdy and not rowdy but they have conversation a little bit and louder well we're going to we're going to wrap it up here but let's what do you tell our audience again where the shanghai jazz is located and your website and and something's coming up so avenue were open six nights a week tuesday through sunday and we've got live jazz every night and one of the top one hundred jazz clubs in the world according to dallas beat magazine and i got to say it's just a great experience can't wait to play i know after this is over