Five decades after laying down the groove together at Danforth, the members of Broad Street Stroke still show up for one another every weekend—and you can bet they’re having a good time.
Get a taste of Broad Street Stroke, including a URochester Dance Marathon performance.
In 2001, Mark Goldman ’76 was watching CNN at home in Weston, Massachusetts, when Jeff Gardere ’78, a board-certified clinical psychologist, appeared on the screen offering advice on talking to kids about terrorism. Goldman called out to his wife: “You won’t believe this! I know him! He played in our band!”
That band, a highlight of Goldman’s time at the Ģý, hadn’t played together in three decades. And it had been just as long since Goldman, the band’s keyboardist, had talked with Gardere, one of the singers.
Now the two catch up every weekend via Zoom, along with other members of Broad Street Stroke, whose repertoire included hits from Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Tower of Power, and the Average White Band.
After Gardere caught wind of the CNN sighting, the men reconnected and decided it would be good to get the band back together regularly, even if virtually and without instruments. Living in several states along the East Coast, they diligently show up on Saturday mornings to discuss all things past, present, and future—but mostly the state of the world.
“This is almost like therapy for us,” says Gardere. “We have different political views and don’t always agree, but we talk with one another in a respectful manner, and that really should be the blueprint for America.”
On a recent weekend, four of the band’s seven members—the regulars—toggle between being playful and serious. After mournfully acknowledging the passing of Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, the men reminisce about the good ol’ days, when Broad Street Stroke earned attention both for its sound and for bringing a diverse group of students together.
From a 1975 review in the : “For those who love to dance the night away, the Stroke gives its audiences enough ‘bumping’ and ‘hustling’ type tunes to keep even the most talented New York City disco-goers satisfied.”
Another Campus Times article credited Broad Street Stroke with performing “a bit of magic” not on the stage but by bringing different races together. The piece compared the band’s impact to “mixing salt and sugar—the individual grains will not change characteristics, but the mixture will have a new taste.”
“The two singers were Black and the other musicians were white,” says Gardere. “That was a phenomenon at the time on campus. Those ’70s were a wonderful mix of entertainment, music, energy, positivity, and racial togetherness. We were brothers.”
Goldman asks if the others can still picture the shock on the audience’s faces during their first gig, dressed in hats and platform shoes, and entertaining with choreographed movements. “We were just doing our thing,” he says. “It wasn’t like, ‘We need to make a statement.’ We were doing the music, and that spoke for itself.”
Their sound was impressive enough to land them a booking on a cruise ship bound for Nassau, Bahamas. The men swap stories about being naive kids back then, when a Genesee beer cost a mere 25 cents. “Our gigs were overflowing and there were a lot of romantic adventures for us on that ship—and I’ll leave it at that,” says Gardere.
Together for two years, Broad Street Stroke practiced at least twice a week in one of the University’s residence towers, after getting official permission to line the walls of an extra room with acoustic tiles. Rehearsals lasted several hours—longer when the band was preparing for a show.
Nowadays musicians can type a song title into a search engine and find sheet music. That would’ve been helpful to the band’s members, none of whom had perfect pitch. Instead, “we’d be standing around our chintzy little record player, putting that needle down repeatedly” and going back and forth about which chord was the correct one, remembers lead guitarist John Accordino ’76. “And we would do that over and over until we got it right.”
Bass guitarist Clint Conley ’77, who had the best relative pitch in the band, also used the phone’s dial tone as a reference point when tuning instruments to F and A. “We practiced like crazy, to the detriment of our studies,” says Accordino. “But we were tight.”
The band members have remained tight in other ways in recent years. Percussionist Louis Gioffre ’76 lost his wife to lung cancer in 2023. Over the two years she was sick, the men offered support, as did other members of the band who pop in every now and then on Saturday mornings.
One of them is Reggie Washington, a Rochester local who sang in the group. After the Broad Street Stroke years, he became a professional gospel singer and contributed to the recording of two gospel albums. That led him to the ministry. Now a bishop, he called at times to pray with Gioffre’s wife. (The group still gets a kick out of Washington’s profession, given that he once was dubbed the “Don Juan” of the band.)
The other occasional drop-in is Conley, who went on to play bass in the post-punk band —recognized as a major influence on alternative rock bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and R.E.M. (The Boston City Council October 4 “Mission of Burma Day” in 2009.) Although he couldn’t make this particular weekly meeting, Conley later says, “I have such affection for these dudes. Locking down a funk groove with these guys was absolutely exhilarating.”
The men briefly mention seeing one another at the memorial service for Gioffre’s wife—the first time since college that most of them had been together in person. (Goldman, Gioffre, and Conley are the only ones who’ve stayed in consistent touch since graduation.)
“It was a tough reunion,” Gardere says. “It meant a lot to me that you guys showed up,” Gioffre responds.
“It was never in question,” Goldman assures him.
They take a beat, then shift into a substantial digression about Smitty’s Birdland, later known as Snuffy’s Birdland—the popular barbecue and fried chicken restaurant they’d go to after each show, adrenaline pumping and needing to unwind.
After sharing memories of the dirty plastic water pitchers and “hot sauce that was basically disinfectant for your insides,” Goldman brings up how much Gioffre adored Smitty’s macaroni salad—and how Conley made up a short song about it.
“And how did that song go?” Gardere asks, egging on Goldman to sing.
Goldman grins, recollecting how Gioffre would “become enraged” by the ditty. “So, of course,” he says, “that meant now I was going to sing it with Clint. Lou got the desired effect. He wanted us to sing it to him again, so we did.”
“Oh, stop it,” Gioffre says, smiling, as everyone else laughs. “It’s never-ending needling.”
Gardere points out that every Broad Street Stroke member—all “solid, honest, good people”—has had a successful career, which he credits in large part to their Ģý education. He has also found it fascinating to watch how each one has remained roughly the same while evolving in his personality.
He paints Goldman, who transformed a family backpack and sports company into an international brand, as the past and present leader of the group. Goldman continues to play the piano “fairly frequently” and sometimes jams at a dinner club. “I would be a liar if I didn’t say it’s still a thrill to play in front of people,” he confesses.
Gardere describes Gioffre, founder of a national service provider to petroleum and clean energy markets, as having “a very quiet strength and humility.” Shortly after graduating college, Gioffre played in the New Wave band the Digits, which “recorded in England at famous studios with famous record producers,” although nothing was released commercially. These days he rents studio space for his drums and recording gear.
Accordino, a university professor of urban and regional planning, is a “mellow, extremely intellectual person” with an “egalitarian perspective on all things,” according to Gardere. Accordino played acoustic guitar regularly until a couple of years ago. Conley, who recently retired from broadcast journalism, “was quite aloof” but “always consistent and reliable.” And Washington, serving his constituents in Tallahassee, Florida, “was always gregarious and generous.”
Gardere doesn’t leave himself out, admitting to “lots of imposter syndrome” both as a musician and across several careers, which required him to learn on the fly. “I was a showman then and I guess still a showman now,” he says. Gardere juggles several professional roles, which include maintaining a private clinical practice and appearing as a therapist on The Real Housewives of Atlanta and other TV shows. He also sings with jazz bands.
(A testament to the group’s good-natured banter: When Conley learned of Gardere’s characterization of him, he wrote in an email, “Aloof? Aloof? Ha! I shall challenge the good doctor to a duel at dawn.”)
These weekly gatherings, Gardere continues, are “a connection from the past to the present, a remembrance of what we were and who we became, and maybe more than anything else, a safe space to talk about how the world has lost its [bleep] mind.”
This story appears in the spring 2026 issue of Rochester Review, the magazine of the Ģý.
