While Steve Zirkel was a multi-talented musician, he was equally strong minded, opinionated and highly outspoken. Never the easiest person in a band to get along with, his personality was unusually abrasive and off-putting, often to the exasperation of bandleaders and fellow musicians, among others. Yet despite his idiosyncrasies he was respected, admired and even loved for the passion and boundless energy he brought to every part of his work in music. At least one individual who knew him observed, at the time of his passing, that with the loss of Zirkel, Austin was made a little less weird.
Born in McAllen, Texas in February 1957, Steve’s home life was filled with music. He grew up hearing his father play saxophone, his mother piano, and his siblings practicing trumpet and trombone. Records played constantly, from big band swing to folk to rock & roll. By the age of four Steve was picking out melodies on piano.
Steve moved to Austin in 1968. In high school he joined the Austin High School Band and then the Austin High Jazz Ensemble. As a senior, Steve was named best musician at the Texas High School Jazz Competition, and his ensemble took first place. While still in high school he joined the locally prominent Nash Hernandez Orchestra.
After a semester studying music at UT Austin, he joined legendary Tejano band, Little Joe, Johnny y la Familia, with whom he toured Texas, the Southwest and Southern California. His early professional experiences led to his lifelong passion for jazz, salsa, cumbia, and other varieties of Latin music. Though his initial instrument was trumpet, which he continued playing throughout his career, he soon became a largely self-taught and uniquely proficient bassist. He also played keyboards, drums, and acoustic guitar.
The mid-1970’s was a seminal time in Austin music and in the modern history of Austin jazz. It was a time when jazz clubs often seemed to spring up overnight, as if from out of nowhere. This was when Zirkel came of age as a working musician. In 1977 his career took off in a major way when he became, as some would say, one of the chief conspirators in the formation of Beto and the Fairlanes, the revolutionary musical bi-cultural institution that would sweep through Austin music in the decades to come.
Two of Zirkel’s most remarkable attributes became evident in his work with Beto. First, his resourcefulness and almost protean musical instincts and creativity were off the charts. When Beto needed a bass player, Steve transitioned from playing trumpet to bass. After only a few lessons from legendary bassist, Spencer Starnes, Steve turned himself in short order into the perfect bass player for the band. When Beto needed charts for new compositions, Zirkel produced them as though he’d been writing charts his whole life. Throughout his career he continually drew on a deep reservoir of talent and musical acumen to elevate his skills to match the demands of any project in which he was engaged. His sense of music propelled his musicianship.
Zirkel’s second great asset was his limitless energy, which was high-spirited and infectious, especially at live performances. It’s no wonder his Beto bandmates nicknamed him Sparky. His enthusiasm and presence on stage literally lit the fuse, gig after gig, that ignited the band and sent it soaring to its now legendary musical heights. Several in the band acknowledge that the true origin of Beto and the Fairlanes lies in Zirkel’s persistent prodding and pestering all who were originally involved to get off their proverbial backsides to do what was needed to start the band in the first place.
Always active, Steve worked with many different bands and on innumerable projects throughout his career. He played on over 50 record albums, produced more than half of them, and wrote charts for multiple bands. He regularly worked as a music teacher. He played in Austin’s legendary fusion jazz band, Passenger. In the late 1980’s, he joined Leonard Cohen’s touring band and performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He served for a time as Cohen’s musical director and spent time at Cohen’s home in Los Angeles writing charts for the Leonard Cohen songbook.
Zirkel’s tenure with the popular Austin band, the Brew, offers insight into his often-vexing manner of interacting with the musicians and bands he played with. Due to his talent and deep sense of musicality, he was often hired to play with the Brew. But his relentless badgering of the band’s members to
alter their original style, Latin jazz fusion, to instead play salsa and Latin
dance music, was a constant irritant leading to his being fired, only to be
rehired, then fired and rehired again in an almost comical repetition.
Ironically, his unwelcome pestering of the band to change its music turned out to have been good advice as the Brew eventually started playing mostly
salsa & Latin dance gigs.
Steve earned his pilot’s license in 1987 and flew bandmates to gigs in Texas and surrounding states. On one memorable occasion, flying with musicians around Big Bend country, he inadvertently “invaded” Mexican airspace and narrowly avoided either getting shot down or causing an international incident on both sides of the border!
In 1989 he started a collaboration with jazz violinist and Strings Attached founder Will Taylor, which continued for more than 30 years. Together they toured the USA and Western Canada and performed extensively in Austin, including Steve’s last performance in December 2023.
In late 2023 Steve was diagnosed with cancer. During the months before he died in August 2024, he faced his mortality with equanimity, courage and humor, supported by family, friends and loved ones.
With his induction into the Hall of Fame, Steve and his father, Clifford Zirkel, late of the Big Band Sound of Austin, become the first father and son inducted into the Austin Jazz Hall of Fame.
There has of late been speculation within the local jazz community, but little doubt, that Zirkel by now has hooked up with Tony Campise, Bob Meyer, Mambo John Treanor, Arturo Garza, Spencer Starnes and Bobby Bellemans, and is once again hounding and prodding them to start a band. Just as assuredly, he’s no doubt making a nuisance of himself pestering the powers that be in heaven for a steady Thursday Night Gig.