Vicki Abelson's Broadcast: The Road Taken

John Conte Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson What crazy fun to sit down with my old dear friend, bassist John Conte, whom I hadn’t seen in decades. How is it possible that he appears to have aged barely a day? Seriously! John took us back to childhood days, his jazz-singing mother, Rosemary, his early days on guitar, and his brother Steve at first on drums. Their first band when John was 8 or 9, their early songwriting, including John’s first song, Maryanne, Sittin on a Log, which he gave us a little taste of. He was a boy with a dream of playing arenas with rock stars. He told us how they flipped instruments, with John choosing bass. His college days, jazz-infused, where he gigged around with stellar players like Terence Blanchard. We tripped down memory lane, where we met, in the md-80s at The Rock ’n Roll Cafe on Bleecker Street, 1/2 of The Brothers of Conte, as I affectionately came to call them, with his brother Steve, they were weekly regulars whenever their schedules allowed. John was in