The long-running series of Tulsa musical events collectively known as Eicher Wednesdays provides, among other things, a pretty nice example of the old saw (often attributed to Alexander Graham Bell) about how when one door shuts, another one opens.
Here’s the origin story: One evening back in October of 2015 at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, after vocalist Annie Ellicott, guitarist Mark Bruner and fiddler Shelby Eicher had finished the latest in an impressive run of Wednesday evening shows around town, one of the trio decided it was time for a change. That’s according to Eicher, who remembers that Bruner simply said, at the end of their performance, that he thought he wanted to start doing something different on Wednesdays.
“I don’t know if he wanted to teach or look at another opportunity to play with another band or something,” Eicher muses. “But I said, ‘Oh. Okay,’ and at the same time I was thinking, ‘Gosh, what am I going to do on Wednesdays?’ I wanted to keep that regular Wednesday night gig.
“Then I thought, ‘It’d be fun to do something with Nathan.’”
Nathan is Nathan Eicher, son of Shelby Eicher and his wife, Janet Rutland, the Oklahoma-based stage and cabaret star. As you might imagine, it’s a musical family, and Nathan’s instrument is the bass – a perfect complement to his dad’s fiddle, mandolin and guitar.
The idea of a regular Shelby-Nathan team-up was quickly greenlit by Jazz Hall management, and on October 28, 2015, the first Eicher Wednesday concert took place. Joining the two Eichers were Annie Ellicott and West Coast guitarist Pat Kelley, a Tulsa native, who happened to be visiting his hometown that week.
“So that was our first concert, and we thought, ‘Why don’t we just try to have different featured guests every week?’” says Nathan. “Both of us have had long careers as sidemen, in addition to being bandleaders, and what you learn about being a sideman is that it’s a little bit like being a chameleon, or an actor. With everybody you play with, you play a character. But it’s always you that you bring to the stage, or a version of yourself. And with every person, you bring something different.”
“I grew up playing bluegrass, which isn’t something a lot of jazz players are going to say,” adds Shelby with a chuckle. “But that’s a community with a lot of jam sessions – not unlike jazz. So there’s some real crossover to me. Even though the styles of music are so different, there are similarities in the culture of the music.”
At this writing, in early 2025, the Eicher Wednesday lineup has featured more than 100 different performers, in addition to Nathan and his dad. They include such names as the New York-based Brazilian guitarist Richard Miller, the aforementioned Kelley, and Bruce Forman, the West Coast jazz guitarist who created the Western-swing group Cow Bop.
Of course, many of the other featured guests are from the Tulsa area, including regular vocalist Rutland and guitarist Tommy Crook, one of the first wave of Tulsa rock ‘n’ rollers.
“Tommy came out of retirement to play Eicher Wednesdays, and he has been a real staple over the years,” Shelby says. “We’ve just had a lot of great artists. Sometimes, they’re not jazz artists, but they’re artists that our people like, and there’s a jazz element to them. Like Jacob Tovar. He does more like old country swing.”
Nathan continues: “That’s a good example, his style of music. If you were going to put it in a genre, a category, it’s a lot different than the other guests we have. But there’s an approach to making music that allows us to find some kind of magic there.
“We’ve been fortunate to have so many wonderfully talented guests. Jacob is one of ‘em. Richard was one of ‘em. We both have such an appreciation for people who have excellently honed their craft and have something exciting they want to bring to the table. It’s fun to share that with them and see what we can do together.”
The weekly shows were staged at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame through February of 2022, when that building was closed for renovations. The Eichers moved to the Greenwood Cultural Center for a few weeks, and then found their current venue: Baxter’s Interurban Grill at 717 S. Houston Ave., in Tulsa.
“It’s very centrally located, and there’s a nice room, like a meeting room, which is great,” notes Shelby. “All the restaurant stuff happens on the other side. They’ve got a bar, and they bring the food over, and parking is easy. It’s just a really great environment for playing music.”
It’s not an expensive one, either. The Eichers encourage their Wednesday evening patrons to make the same donation they did when the event began at the Jazz Hall of Fame, nearly a decade ago.
“You don’t have to pay us, but we would love to suggest that you donate ten dollars,” says Shelby. “That way, we can bring in the [other] artists, and explore having new people in.”
Although guest performers have always been a part of Eicher Wednesdays, Nathan and Shelby dealt with the exigencies of the pandemic by initially doing some two-man virtual performances from the Jazz Hall. Even then, however, they found ways to add other artists – figuring, as Nathan says, “We could spread out, put six feet between us, mask up, and do shows with them.”
Those challenging concerts will always stick in their minds. But there are other Eicher Wednesdays they’ll especially remember. For instance, one that featured, in Nathan’s words, “dueling vibraphones,” played by Howard Potter and Nick Mancini.
“We’ve had both of them as guests multiple times,” he adds, “but this one time, we got both of them in a room together. We opened with a Chick Corea song that I’d never played – or, I think, even heard, ‘Sea Journey.’ So we started playing it, and it was just this very magical sound. I remember being so excited. And when we got done, it was like, ‘What? What was that?’
“And then, another one. I grew up as a huge fan of the music of [the innovative bluegrass, folk, and jazz mandolinist] David Grisman. His music is such a niche thing that I thought I’d never get the opportunity to play it. And then, we did a tribute to the David Grisman Quintet, the only difference being that we had two acoustic guitars instead of two acoustic mandolins. We had both my brothers in the band, and [bluegrass artist] Kentucky White. And, again, it was electric – although it was an acoustic event.”
He laughs.
“The crowd loved the energy at both those events, and I don’t think they fully knew what to expect. I don’t think we knew what to expect,” he adds. “We knew the music of David Grisman. But the experience of playing it in an ensemble like that and bringing it to life – that was a real high point for me.”
So is being able to play shows on a regular basis with members of his gifted musical family.
“That’s a nice thing – they all get to be guests,” he says. “My mom we have very frequently, not just because, you know, we love her, but because she’s a wonderful artist. We can do a jazz tune, an old country thing, or maybe some kind of pop tune re-imagined with her; she has so much flexibility as an artist.
“There’s also definitely a father-son dynamic that makes this very special,” he concludes. “And my dad is such a fabulous musician, who plays at a very high level, that it makes me a better player when I play with him. That is definitely a high point, every week. I come away inspired, and driven to do what I do better.”
