Meet the Gatekeeper of BAM Cafe

Meet the man with one of the greatest — and toughest — jobs in Fort Greene.

Darrell McNeill, the gatekeeper of BAMCafé Live, is entering his fifth season of programming at one of the neighborhood’s hidden treasures.

The weekly free concert series began its 12th season this year, and McNeill has come into his own, presenting artists and sounds that are seldom heard elsewhere in Brooklyn: Macedonian classical guitar last week, Afrobeat-inflected hip hop and house music this week with Blitz the Ambassador and the Earthman Experience, respectively.

The Ghanaian-born Blitz, who lives in Bed-Stuy, delivers an uplifting, empowering message — not just with his sturdy, throaty flow but also with a backing band that flexes from Afrobeat to soul to jazz in the space of a single song. Earthman, a Haitian house music pioneer, combines a live band’s furious polyrhythms with the pre-recorded kicks of house and hip-hop records served up by a DJ.

“BAMcafé Live is the most culturally and musically diverse programming that BAM has to offer, hands down,” McNeill said. “I’ll hang my hat on that every time.”

It is also, McNeill acknowledged, designed to act as a gateway, “to introduce BAM to people who would otherwise not go through its doors.” Still, McNeill makes a point to push the envelope whenever possible.

“I’m predisposed to represent artists who, first and foremost, represent the craft,” McNeill explained. “Not people who are using music as a vehicle to fortune and fame.”

Under his direction, the café has presented local bands that went on to achieve wider renown – Bear in Heaven, Dragons of Zynth, the Budos Band, to name just a few – but McNeill’s bookings are based on musicianship, not hype.

McNeill, who grew up playing music “in every kind of band but a successful one,” doesn’t have any interest in what the next big thing is. “I’m really kind of looking to bring things back to basics,” he said. “People whose records you would buy. People that you could go to [any of] your friends and say, ‘You need to check this out.’”

Indeed, with pop music now fractured into a million different marketing niches and micro-scenes, it is harder and harder to find venues that present programs that are meant for everybody. 

But for McNeill, who grew up in a music-obsessed household, that instinct to craft shows for a large community comes naturally. “I grew up in a time when people listened to records together,” McNeill explains.

He also looks for a lack of pretention. “[I book] people that you might have play in your living room,” he said.

It might be hard to imagine Blitz and his band fitting into a standard living room, but McNeill’s sentiment is clearly represented in their music.

Friday will be the band’s first show in a busy 2011, and the first BAM experience for many of the night’s attendees as well. But thanks to McNeill’s work at one of Fort Greene’s most eclectic, iconic and underappreciated venues, it probably won’t be their last.