‘Jammer’ Bill Bennett Is Remembered

 Several months after the terrorist attacks, Bill Bennett arrived at Bob Townley’s door with six electric guitars and a sound system, hoping to get a kids’ rock band going. Bennett ran the Off Wall Street Jam, a Murray Street venue that brings together amateur rock, jazz and blues musicians, and gives them a place to play. Townley is the director of Manhattan Youth, based on Warren Street, which organizes most of the kids’ programming Downtown. Both had been displaced by the disaster, and Townley, though touched by the offer, was incredulous.

Bill Bennett plays with his band, the Rolling Bones, in 2001.

“I said to him, ‘God, I’ve got to repair my poolin Battery Park City. I’m going to form a band?’”

Townley didn’t form a band. But he and others who knew Bennett, who died on Oct. 7 of head injuries suffered in a Sept. 26 car accident in the East Village, say it was just like him to try to lift spirits and tighten community through live musical performance.

Not only has Bennett’s Off Wall Street Jam helped many Downtown drummers, guitarists and sax players realize fantasies far afield of their day jobs, but it was through his graces that Stuyvesant High School got its own rock band, the Taste of Tribeca had high-quality live music each year and young local musicians had a stage and sound system at the Tribeca Film


Festival’s Family Festival. Bennett also provided low-cost rehearsal space and donated instruments to the Church Street School for Music and Art.

“He’s been a good friend to the kids in the neighborhood,” said Bob Jewett, a member of the Jam who organized the music for the Taste of Tribeca.

Bennett was a good friend to many, in this neighborhood and others. More than 100 people posted tributes to him last month on the Jam’s web site (www.panix.com/~owsj/) in an outpouring of affection, sadness and appreciation, providing an indication of how many lives he touched.

The Jam has more than 400 dues-paying members, most of them Wall Streeters and professional types who had let their musical dreams lapse. In the online messages and in interviews after Bennett’s death, one person after another spoke of the precious opportunity and vital encouragement he had given them to play music again.

“So many people were able to get back in touch with their passion because of Bill,” said Dave Stancavish, a guitarist in the Rolling Bones, which was Bennett’s main band.

“His discipline and relentless hard work enabled all of us to participate in the joy of jamming, forming bands and performing,” said Allan Tannenbaum, a photojournalist and bass guitar player, who lives on Duane Street.

In 1997, when Bennett was considering buying the Jam, Greg Manning, a close friend and another Rolling Bones member, urged him to go for it. “I said, yeah, it was a risk, but very few people have a chance to do something they love and invest their life in it,” Manning said. “That’s what he did.”

Manning said that Bennett had also provided invaluable support after Manning’s wife, Lauren, was badly burned in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. “When I look back at what got me through, he was one of the reasons. He was just a wonderful friend.”

Bennett briefly moved the Jam to midtown after the terrorist attacks, but had it back on Murray Street within two months, offering Downtown musicians and Ground Zero workers a musical refuge. He had planned a big music festival for his 50th birthday on Oct. 19. His friends and family went ahead with the event, and more than 100 musicians came to the Red Lion to play in his honor.