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Gabriel Mintz once got in trouble at elementary school for bringing in a boombox and playing the Rolling Stones. “I couldn’t understand what the problem was,” he says. That’s more or less how the Denver bassist and bandleader still sees things, and it runs through Gabe Mintz & The Sparrows, a band that mixes blues, funk, punk, outlaw country and jazz fusion, and whose first single, “Colfax Swamp Blues,” came out Oct. 21.
Music came to him through his dad’s car stereo: Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, the Stones, a lot of soul. He still remembers being fascinated by the intro to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” Older cousins widened the map, one with musical theater, another with Iron Maiden and the Melvins. He picked up an instrument at 15, but says he only started taking it seriously as a musician five or six years ago.
An open jam got him there. Jason King, now the Sparrows’ guitarist, hosted the Your Mom’s House Open Jam before it shut down, and he waved Mintz up on a slow night. “King helped me find the confidence to get onstage,” Mintz says. He started on keys, kept coming back, wrote a few songs and asked friends to play. The first official Sparrows show was Aug. 25, 2023. Today it’s Mintz on bass, who also books the shows, King on lead guitar, Tyrone Parks out front, George Lowrey on drums, and singer Bonnie Utter sitting in on some shows.
The single is where it gets heavy. “Colfax Swamp Blues” is an instrumental in 5/4, and it’s tied to a street he’s lived on for more than ten years. “The whole avenue has an energy that reverberates and is hard to ignore,” he says. He ticks off what you see there: addiction, cheap roadside motels, neon bar signs that come alive at night. “It is raw and honest, exactly the kind of street that produces the blues.”
The song started as a Hendrix riff he loved. It took years to figure out what it wanted to be. “Some songs come together quickly,” he says. “‘Colfax Swamp Blues’ was different. I kept returning to it until it revealed itself to me in full.” There are no lyrics, but he says plenty. “This country has real issues that continue to get swept under the rug,” he says, then reaches for Tupac: “We got money for wars but can’t feed the poor.” He’s quick to add that’s his reading, and he’d love for a listener to walk away with something else. “That’s the beauty of music.”
The odd time signature is partly just him. It’s “off-kilter, quirky, and unexpected,” he says, “and in that way, it feels a lot like me.” He calls it “a punch in the face first single with Star Power” that he’s truly proud of. The track was cut at The Keep Recording on South Broadway in Denver, with guitarist DJ Williams, who spent more than a dozen years with Karl Denson, and guitarist Shawn Eckels, who did a decade with Andy Frasco. Producer Jack Marty, the keyboardist for Sqwerv, plays the Hammond organ, and Nate Miller added his horn arrangements later at Marty’s home studio. Mintz met all of them the usual way: “booking their bands, open jams, going to their shows, or just being a fan.”
The rest of the self-titled record, which took about four years, was cut at Marty’s house in the “sqwudio.” Mintz says it felt professional despite being a home setup, and he calls Marty a genius, the guy who reads mixing books before bed and gets the “fix it Marty” call when something’s off. On the name, he points to the Gorillaz, who also debuted with a self-titled album.
More singles come before it lands. “Lookin’ to Groove” is the radio-friendly one, a funky blues about putting on your favorite outfit and hitting the floor. Utter, who co-wrote it, belts it, and the arrangement opens up to solos from Marty, Sqwerv’s Guy Frydenlund and a local drummer. “White Butterfly” is quieter tune. He wrote the instrumental for his mom, who passed away, about feeling the presence of someone who’s gone, and it’s the most personal song on the record. Fans keep telling him it reminds them of the band Khruangbin. Another song touches on being an only child and the lonely side of a musician’s life. “There aren’t many other occupations besides art where people are willing to put the love of the craft ahead of the financial rewards,” Mintz says.
How do all those genres hold together? “I’m not sure,” he says. “I’m just playing the genres I love and trying not to box myself in.” Live, he wants people to forget their phones and enjoy the show.
Catch Gabe Mintz & The Sparrows at The Little Bear in Evergreen on Nov. 21, a stage he says he’s been dancing on since he was a baby, and at The Armadillo Ranch in Manitou Springs on Dec. 4. Beyond that, “whatever the hell we want,” which means celebrating this record, then making another.
