Tribute: Frank Shea, jazz drummer, played with Lou Colombo, Treniers – Cape Cod Times
Jazz drummer Frank E. Shea, who played weekends in the ’70s and ’80s at The Columns in Dennis with the Lou Colombo Band and other greats, has died at age 93.
“He became (the) first-call drummer for the Cape,” said John A. Basile, author of “Cape Cod Jazz: From Colombo to The Columns.”
“Frank was so in demand. He was always the guy you called first when you needed a drummer,” Basile said.
“He was such a musical drummer, always supporting and driving the band,” Saxophonist Bruce Abbott, a longtime friend and colleague of Shea’s, emailed.
Abbott, who lives in Brewster but was traveling in Vietnam, emailed comments when contacted after his friend’s Jan. 20 death.
“I loved hearing his stories and perusing the scrapbooks from his life in jazz,” Abbott wrote. “We spent many hours listening to and discussing music and I continue to be inspired by his insight. That was his gift to me.”
“Frank was a musician’s drummer,” Basile, who has a chapter about Shea in his 2017 book, said. “He could play a lot of styles of jazz. He told me the most important thing was to make everyone in the band feel comfortable.”
Before coming to the Cape to raise his four children in the ’70s, Shea toured with “The Treniers,” a well-known rhythm-and-blues/swing band, and even did guest performances on TV variety shows.
Shea’s youngest daughter, Catherine Shea of Florida, said her father always rooted for the underdog, including the many friends and colleagues who were Black musicians and faced segregation when touring in the South.
“My father was beat up many a time for being a white guy in a Black band,” she said. “He was often the one who had to get off the bus and get all the food because his Black friends were not allowed in the restaurant.”
She said her father got beat up one time when he walked into a “coloreds-only” restroom to protest segregation.
“Black culture, community and music is what he was drawn to and influenced by. It is definitely part of his story,” Shea said.
A self-taught musician
Born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Shea fell for the sounds of jazz and Big Band music early and by his early teens, the self-taught musician realized his innate talent, picked up drumsticks and never put them down.
“At the dinner table he would have a drum pad and sticks. It’s all he knew. And he raised a family on it. He played professionally up until his 80s,” Shea said.
Shea’s wife of more than a half-century, Shirley A. (Majors) Shea, said her husband lived for his music and his family.
“He played at The Columns, The Captain’s Table, Wychmere Club,” she said. “People liked my husband because he was a nice man.”
She recalled a time when Tony Bennett was playing Cape Cod and sent a band member to recruit Frank Shea for the tour. Shea declined, saying he didn’t want to leave his family.
‘A great father’
“He was a great father. And he encouraged our children to do whatever they loved and were good at,” said Shirley Shea, who had three little ones of her own when she and Frank met and married in Chicago in 1967. The couple later had daughter Catherine.
The Sheas’ son, Mark Ayala, and his wife, Melissa, own The Little Capistrano Bike Shop in Eastham and he sells wood carvings, a skill his father urged him to pursue.
After living in Florida, Frank and Shirley moved back to Cape Cod in 2013, retiring to Orleans until Frank’s health required a move to Plymouth Rehabilitation & Health Care Center.
“Older folks on Cape would remember him,” Basile said. “These guys were part of another generation.”
Gwenn Friss is the editor of CapeWeek and covers entertainment, restaurants and the arts. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @dailyrecipeCCT
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