Wednesday, January 5, 2011

"Derby City Jazz" - One More One



The Hog having some quality time with the Punch Baby.

For jazz fans of the '40s, '50s and early '60s, jazz is much more than music.
It's a grand story about the people who made the music and how that music
changed over the years in reaction to its own artistic struggles and from
external pressures as the world around the musicians changed. Best of all,
the jazz story never ends. New details about the lives of jazz musicians
constantly emerge, and out-of-print recordings are constantly surfacing. It's
all so exciting.

Marc Myers
JazzWax


Jazz organist Hank Marr plays some fine mainstream music

Jazz is an extremely diverse music. Last month, the Louisville Jazz Society introduced local jazz fans to the scintillating hard bop of drummer Art Blakey. Last night during a concert by jazz organist Hank Marr’s Trio at Downstairs at Actors, the Society presented yet another kind of jazz.
This time the music wasn’t as serious or intense. It was just plain enjoyable laid back mainstream jazz performed by a master of the Hammond B3 organ.
Marr, 57, is a native of Columbus, Ohio, he started out playing music there with school mates, one of whom was the late multi-instrumentalist Rashaan Roland Kirk. Marr even backed up singer Nancy Wilson when she was still in high school and, as he put it during an interview at last night’s concert, “when she was just a singer in the band who sometimes got to sing and sometimes didn’t.”
But in 1955, Marr heard organist Jimmy Smith, and like a lot of other jazz piano players of his generation, fell in love with Smith’s huge soulful sound.
During last night’s concert, Marr displayed a lot of Smith’s influences, the lightning fast arpeggios and driving base lines. But his style also owes a debt to organist Wild Bill Davis, the man who penned the famous Count Basie arrangement of “April in Paris.” Like Davis he can make the organ sound like a whole orchestra.
Marr was accompanied last night by vocalist-trumpeter Bobby Alston and drummer Joe Ong. Their first tune, a blues line “Freddie the Freeloader” was a definite bow to Jimmy Smith.
Trumpeter Alston, looking like the archetypical jazz musician – dark suit, dark glasses, bearded, his head shaved – took the first couple of choruses. He displayed a fine technique and a warm, full tone. His solo was followed by Marr coming up from behind spurred on by the driving drums of Ong.
For their next tune, the trio chose the jazz classic “Blue Bossa.” As the name implies, it’s a bossa nova with a blues feeling and Marr and his men played it for all it was worth, including a passage or two in double time.
Before playing the next number Marr, seated behind the organ’s massive wood cabinetry and looking like a youthful Count Basie, informed the audience, “Anybody who doesn’t know the name of this next tune will have to leave the club and forfeit their money.”
There were no takers as Marr began the introduction to Duke Ellington’s famous “Satin Doll.” Alston shone on this tune, contributing a muted trumpet solo that was both laconic and tasteful.
The good-sized audience cheered Alston’s efforts and then was treated to some more liquid fire organ runs by Marr. Next, Alston dropped his role as trumpeter to become the trio’s singer.
He swung into a rocking rendition of “More” from the 60s movie “Mondo Cane.” Marr then charged in with an energetic solo quoting at time from the old song “Blue Skies.”
Drummer Ong was later featured in a special arrangement of Miles Davis’s “Milestones.” He showed fine technique as Alston and Marr fanned him with sheets of music to cool him off.
Marr is a fine musician and he plays an entertaining kind of jazz. During last night’s interview, he said he had played in Louisville several times before, particularly at the old Top Hat nightclub on Walnut Street. But that was over 30 years ago.
It’s real nice to see Hank Marr and his organ back again in Louisville.

Danny O’Bryan
Louisville Times
12/4/84

From the up-coming book “Derby City Jazz”

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