April 28, 2003

By JOSHUA BROCKMAN

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Jay Leno was pacing the stage in his customary suit and tie and being his usual funny self. There was a joke about his wife’s cat and about how cats in general were kind of unmanly pets. There was another one about his elderly parents, how they turn up the volume on the television until it’s blasting and then fall asleep.

“You walk in my parents’ living room, it’s like a heavy metal Matlock concert,” he said, wiping his brow with his tie.

The audience roared. Everyone seemed old enough to get the reference to the show, the one from the 80’s in which Andy Griffith played a crafty country lawyer.

This was no “Tonight” show studio audience, however. There was no NBC camera tracking Mr. Leno, no Kevin Eubanks, the talk show’s bandleader, to banter with. It was just Jay Leno alone on a stage doing one comic bit after another for almost 90 minutes, aided only by a bottle of water on a cocktail table.

This was also not Las Vegas, though there were plenty of slot machines nearby. Here was an appreciative crowd of 2,000 people, ordinary Americans, filling an ocean of stackable chairs in a cavernous carpeted hall called the Bingo Showroom. Flanking the stage were two jumbo video screens and overhead a big neon sign reminding people of where they were: “Isleta Casino and Resort.” Which is to say, Indian country.

In recent years Indian resort casinos have sprung up throughout the Southwest, becoming lucrative magnets for top music and comedy acts. Tony Bennett may play Carnegie Hall, but he also played the Bingo Showroom this year. Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller and Willie Nelson are also regulars here. So are a lot of B-list music acts now surviving on popular nostalgia: among them James Brown, the Village People, Styx, the Beach Boys, Little Richard, Chubby Checker and Mötley Crüe. One can also find Las Vegas fixtures like Wayne Newton and Engelbert Humperdinck moonlighting in less glittery environs like Isleta.

As entertainment palaces go, Isleta and casinos like it exist slightly below the radar of the mainstream media. But here the shows are no secret. They are aggressively promoted on local television and radio and in newspapers as well as on billboards and flashy electronic signs along the highways, where most of the casinos are built. The spring tourist season brings a resurgence of live entertainment at the casinos, where managers hope the paying public may also be enticed to partake of the gambling tables and — in the case of Isleta — the steakhouse, sports bar and golf course.

“I think I’ve done every Indian casino in the country,” Mr. Leno said in a backstage interview. “If not, I will by next year or the year after.”

Apart from his role as host of the “Tonight” show,” Mr. Leno, who turns 53 on April 28, is a veteran road warrior who got his start doing comedy routines while touring with the jazz legends Miles Davis, Mose Allison and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He began performing in Indian casinos as soon as they opened. He also has a connection to Indian culture at home: his wife, Mavis, is part Iroquois. Today, he said, he performs almost 150 times a year across the country, typically flying out of Los Angeles after taping his show in the late afternoon, performing that night and then immediately flying back.

“I’ve never done a record album, I’ve never done an HBO special,” Mr. Leno said. “I’m one of those people if you want to hear my act, I’ll come to where you are.”

The road includes the Foxwoods resort in Mashantucket, Conn., where Bill Cosby, Aretha Franklin and Luciano Pavarotti have also played. In Mount Pleasant, Mich., there’s the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort (Joan Rivers, Regis Philbin, Lynyrd Skynyrd), run by the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. And there are many others, in equally unglamorous locations.

But few areas have witnessed as much growth in Indian casinos as the Southwest, where 13 tribes in New Mexico and 15 in Arizona alone now run gaming operations. The Isleta complex, one of the largest and, expanded in 2001, one of the newest, is run by the Isleta pueblo. On a recent Saturday evening, a din of bleeps, bells and canned musical riffs emanated from nearly 2,000 slot machines crowding a smoke-filled gambling area almost the size of two football fields. Hundreds of people jammed the floor.

Before hitting the stage for his third visit to this casino, Mr. Leno did a “meet and greet” backstage for about 30 guests, including members of the tribe and casino employees. They shuffled in one by one or in couples to shake hands and pose with Mr. Leno for a complimentary Polaroid picture. At ease among strangers, Mr. Leno draped his arms around them and even jokingly strangled one young fan.

“You don’t do this in Vegas,” said Mr. Leno, who also performs there several times a year. “This is more personal, one on one.”

Live entertainment draws both local residents and tourists, some of whom drive hundreds of miles to attend shows. “We’re isolated in New Mexico,” said Anne-Marie Werner-Smith, 53, an educational consultant from Bosque Farms, who came to see Mr. Leno with her mother and husband. “It’s a chance to see the kind of entertainment you would see if you were in a big metropolis.”

For both performers and audiences, Indian casinos offer a low-key alternative to Las Vegas.

“I think the difference with the Indian casinos is that you’re reaching people who for whatever reason probably don’t get to Vegas or would not normally partake in this type of entertainment,” Mr. Leno said.

The casinos’ deep pockets from gambling revenue have helped woo musicians, too. Top stars can earn $25,000 to $100,000 a night. “We budget for shows with the expectation that it will increase the gaming revenue and in turn pay for the show,” said Jeff Jantz, Iselta’s marketing manager.

“They do pay well,” said Robert Cray, who performs regularly at Indian casinoswith his group, the Robert Cray Band. “Now you do see a lot of bands playing the casinos. But the casinos are also making changes,” he added, mentioning better sound systems and lighting. “Playing a casino used to mean you were on the way out or you’re past your prime.”

Still, casinos are not to be confused with concert halls. The seating is often entirely floor level, fostering many stiff necks. And the music can have competition. When Maynard Ferguson brought his big band to the Camel Rock Casino run by the Tesuque pueblo last November, the cacophony from gaming machines on the casino floor wafted into the performance space, overpowering a number of solos during a rendition of “The Girl From Ipanema.”

The shortcomings can have compensations, however, like ticket prices that are often less than the cost of a CD. And the remoteness of many Indian casinos is actually a draw for many performers, who get to have the marquee to themselves.

“There’s a comfort in knowing that you’re the only act in that town when you play,” said Mr. Bennett. “You have a captive audience that has just come to see you, and they’re a family audience. That’s what I really like about it.”

Performing in a desert landscape also has its advantages for Mr. Bennett, who is an avid painter even when on tour. The day before his performance at Isleta in March, he visited Acoma pueblo and met with a potter, Emma Lewis Mitchell. After his concert, in which he sang Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” among other tunes, Ms. Mitchell and five members of her family met backstage with Mr. Bennett for autographs, photographs and to conclude a transaction. They had come to hand-deliver a bowl with lightning patterns that Mr. Bennett had decided to purchase.

At the end of Mr. Leno’s show, he stood on the edge of the stage signing autographs and shaking more hands. In his dark suit with a flag pinned to a lapel, he looked like a politician.

“All show business is local,” Mr. Leno explained backstage. “L.B.J. used to say every handshake is worth $250. It’s the same thing as this. You look people in the eye, you say hi to them, you sign an autograph, you meet their kids, you meet their mom, and they’ll probably be fans. They’ll come see you. It’s such a simple formula. I’m just amazed a lot of people don’t get it.”

Read original article, which appeared in The Arts, Section E, on pgs. 1, 5.

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