Alan Gilbert, the tuba player whose unmistakable brass lines became part of the unofficial soundtrack of Hell’s Kitchen, died suddenly at home on Wednesday afternoon, November 19. He was 76.
Alan Gilbert performing with Unintended Consequences playing in Hell’s Kitchen. Photo: Catie Savage
A Broadway veteran with credits that included Crazy For You and My Fair Lady, Gilbert was best known to West Siders not from the stage but from the sidewalk. He lived on W51st Street between 8th and 9th Avenues since the 1970s, and for decades could be found performing on neighborhood corners, festivals and parks — most recently at the HK45/46 Fall Fest just two Saturdays ago.
I first encountered him in July 2015 at the corner of W49th Street and 9th Avenue, where he and fellow brass player Tom McHugh were playing tuba–euphonium duets as Two Budz — “say it fast and the joke comes through,” friends like to note, since they were essentially a pair of tubas. By the time we crossed paths again at the 9th Avenue Food Festival in 2018, Gilbert had helped launch a new chapter: a busking trio that would become Unintended Consequences.
Alan Gilbert and fellow brass player Tom McHugh were playing duets as Two Budz. Video: Phil O’Brien
“We were playing in the subway when Randy Witherspoon, head chef and proprietor and previously a dresser on Broadway for 30 years, heard us,” Gilbert told W42ST at the time. “He approached us and said, THIS is the sound I want in the restaurant I am opening. We have been there ever since.”
For more than two years before the pandemic, the group became the house band at SpoonFedNYC — performing just steps from Gilbert’s apartment and cementing their role as what former W42ST editor Ruth Walker once called “our favorite neighborhood band.”
Unintended Consequences grew out of those early duets: McHugh on euphonium, Gilbert arranging, and actor-musicians Richard Kent Green and later Matt Baker joining on banjolele and percussion. They played Occupy Wall Street rallies, parade gigs, and eventually a rotating lineup of trombone, saxophone, mellophone and flugabone. Even after SpoonFed closed, the group remained a fixture — performing at the reopening of Mathews-Palmer Playground, block parties, and five consecutive HK45/46 Fall Fests.
Gilbert was still performing up to the end. The band was scheduled to play their first night as house band at the newly reopened Siberia Bar when word of his death came. Owner and actor Tracy Westmoreland, after offering condolences, told the group: “There is, after all, only one truly acceptable reason for missing a performance.”
In addition to his neighborhood work, Gilbert played tuba with the Manhattan Wind Ensemble and Manhattan Summerwinds. Friends describe him as a warm presence with a dry wit and deep love of music — and of beer. His favorite song, which he often quoted, begins:
In heaven there is no beer,
That’s why we drink it here.
And when we’re gone from here,
Our friends will be drinking all the beer!
Tributes quickly appeared online. “He was the warmest person around and had such a passion for making music,” wrote Megan Bastos. “The tuba section will feel so empty without Alan,” added Zach Obsniuk.
Unintended Consequences plans to continue performing. “Alan was a trouper to the end,” Green wrote in a message announcing his passing. “We will keep it going.”
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.