The 54th Annual Chicken Fat Ball

The 54th Chicken Fat Ball took place on Sunday, January 8 at the former Women’s Club in Maplewood, NJ, a well-to-do suburb about 20 miles west of New York City. Well, it wasn’t actually the 54th, as there was an approximate 20-year hiatus in the event from the mid-70s until 1994. But with a run as long as this, who’s counting? The CFB was the brainchild of Al Kuehn, who still runs it, and his friend Don Greenfield, both trad jazz lovers who lived in the area. Al is also a co-founder of the New Jersey Jazz Society, which has since adopted the event as one of its own. In 1964 Al and Don were talking about planning a jazz party. They happened to be in a deli in Irvington, an adjacent town, trying to come up with a name for the event. Don, looking down at the display counter that all delis have in order to tempt customers, saw a bowl of chicken fat among the trays of pastrami and cold cuts. The area has a large Jewish population, which is all you need to know as to why the chicken fat was there. Don said, “Why don’t we call it the Chicken Fat Ball?” Nobody could come up with anything better, and the name has stuck. And why not? Nobody would steal it and it couldn’t be confused with anything else. At the end of