Welcome to Music for Life, enhancing the Armstrong concert experience. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. In today's episode, we will spotlight our very own jazz virtuoso, Mark Jenkins, and the tribute to Ellis Marsalis program he is bringing to Armstrong Auditorium Tuesday, February 2nd. Jenkins has years of experience as pianist, vocalist, composer, and arranger, and he will be bringing all his skills to the Armstrong stage along with six other Oklahoma-based jazz phenoms. We will discuss these musicians, the program he is bringing, and the jazz legend whom he is honoring with this concert. So stick around as we spotlight Mark Jenkins' performance, this tribute to Ellis Marsalis, today on Music for Life. It's thrilling to be able to offer another live performance at Armstrong Auditorium, and it's equally as thrilling to be offering the program we have coming. Mark Jenkins is one of the most versatile musicians I know, and he is based right here in Oklahoma.
In fact, just down the hall from me, serving as the assistant music director for Herbert W. Armstrong College. He is a classically trained pianist and vocalist who specializes in singing and playing both classical and jazz styles. He's been performing since very young, and I know because we actually grew up together and share some of the same pedigree. But he far excels anything I could do in the jazz sphere. We are both experienced composers and arrangers, and he has created some phenomenal jazz arrangements and compositions over the years. He truly is a musical gem right here in Oklahoma, and we're excited to present him in concert on Tuesday, February 2nd at Armstrong Auditorium.
What's more, Mr. Jenkins has put together some of the greatest jazz musicians from this area to assist him in this performance, a program he's dubbed a tribute to Ellis Marsalis. I will let Mark describe the six fantastic musicians who will be joining him. When I put a concert together, I asked myself, if I could play with absolutely anybody, who would I call? That's what we've got here, the best group of guys I could reach. All first choices on my list of people I would call.
First, we have Jay Wilkinson on trumpet. Jay is the coordinator of jazz studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was a graduate student when I was attending OU and doing free jazz classes on his own time even then. After we graduated, he went on to study in the renowned jazz program at North Texas. He played with me on a Clifford Brown tribute concert a few years ago, and he was simply amazing.
Next, we have Jamar Poteet on drums. I first called Jamar almost 10 years ago because he was recommended by everybody at the UCO Jazz Lab. Best call I ever made. Jamar recently relocated to California and was playing for Disneyland in Lion King and working as a musician before the shutdown. He's in Oklahoma until California gets itself moving again, so right now their loss is our gain. We also have Floyd Haynes on clarinet. When I met Floyd, he was playing a Dixieland arrangement I wrote for a recording session at Cornerstone. This was when Floyd played Dixieland music seven nights a week with the Civilized Tribe Dixieland band at a barbecue joint.
He also loves playing big band and toured with the Russ Morgan Orchestra and also Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians for a few years. The Armstrong audience would have heard him last year with David B. Hooten and I am very excited to have him back with us this year. Our bass player is Raul Reyes. Raul holds a bachelor's degree in bass performance from the University of Central Oklahoma and a master's degree in jazz performance from the University of North Texas, where he was a member of the seven-time Grammy-nominated One O'Clock Lab Band and appeared on their album Rhythm of the Road. He also found opportunities to perform with Jimmy Heath, John Beasley, Doc Severinsen, Billy Hart. In 2018, Raul was touring the United States as a member of saxophonist John Petruccieli's band.
On saxophone, we have Vince Norman. This is my first time playing with Vince, and I couldn't be more excited to do that. He's played concert tours in Europe, Japan, India, Mexico, Canada, all 50 states except for Alaska. He's performed with Arturo Sandoval, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Butch Miles, Marvin Hamlisch. There's tons of great jazz musicians, even the Four Freshmen, the Temptations, and Joan Rivers. He performed with the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and with the Cincinnati Pops at several venues, including Carnegie Hall. So we're just very thrilled to have Vince Norman with us for this concert.
My friend Zach Lee will be playing trombone for us. He's the instructor of jazz composition, jazz arranging, and music technology at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is also the best jazz arranger I know. His compositions and arrangements have been featured in performances with Kenny Garrett, Delfeo Marsalis, Tony Monaco, Jeremy Thomas, and he's played with the Count Basie Orchestra, Donnie McCaslin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, and just about everyone I know in Oklahoma City. Now let's start getting into some musical examples to listen to. Some of Mark Jenkins himself performing some of these tunes that we'll hear on his February 2nd concert. To set these up,
I'll let Mr. Jenkins talk us through his program, and we'll interrupt on occasion to hear some of these examples to whet your appetite for this program at Armstrong Auditorium. I love Duke Ellington tunes, and the first thing I usually play on my concerts is take the A train. The audience always recognizes it, which is not a given for most jazz, and I love playing it. It was actually written by Billy Strayhorn, but it was the Duke's signature tune.
Curiously, Ellington asked Strayhorn to write this piece because they could no longer afford to play Duke's own compositions after ESCAP raised the licensing fees. Before this, his signature piece was Sepia Panorama, a great little piece that you have probably never heard of because it was replaced by Take the A-Train. This is only after Johnny Mercer pulled a draft of it out of the trash can. Strayhorn had thought Take the A-Train sounded too much like a Fletcher Henderson tune and threw it out. There are many great recordings of Take the A Train, with either Duke Ellington or Ella Fitzgerald's probably taking the prize for most recognizable. My group's performance is loosely based on Clifford Brown and Max Roche's incredible 1955 recording on the album Study in Brown. So let's hear Mark Jenkins' arrangement of Take the A Train. This is actually from his 2015 jazz concert here at Armstrong. You'll be hearing some of the same musicians he's got coming back. Jamar Poteet on drums, Jay Wilkinson on trumpet, though the trumpet solo you'll hear in this particular number is taken by Kirk Palmer, Zach Lee on the trombone, and of course, Mark Jenkins on the piano.
We'll also be doing Summertime. My version of Gershwin's Summertime is based on what I remember our Steinway tech playing. Peter Krause was playing this when I was in college. I've probably performed this song more than any other jazz tune. My children might groan audibly when it starts, but I'm doing it anyway. So let's hear this Mark Jenkins rendition of Summertime.
You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we are spotlighting our very own jazz virtuoso, Mark Jenkins, and the tribute to Ellis Marsalis program he is bringing to Armstrong Auditorium Tuesday, February 2nd. We just heard his arrangement of Summertime, which will be on the first half of the program, and we're listening to a discussion with Mark Jenkins where he's talking us through the program he selected for his concert. Now, for this particular concert, dubbed a tribute to Ellis Marsalis, the tribute part of the concert makes up basically the second half of the program. Another great tune we'll be doing, and this will be on the Ellis Marsalis tribute half, is Stardust.
Written almost a hundred years ago, Hoagy Carmichael was remembering a friend who had died young, the cornet player Bix Beiderbecke, and the solos he had played. Most probably think of Stardust as a love song, but it isn't a love song, it's a song about the music itself. Meltor May said, the verse rambles up to scale and down, resembling nothing so much as an improvisational cornet solo. And that's what it is. Specifically, Hoagy Carmichael remembering the improvisational cornet solos of Big Spiderbeck. Originally, Stardust had no lyrics at all, just the music itself about the memory of Love's refrain. The memory of a song that would never be heard again because the player was gone, and the circumstances that surrounded his performances would never return. The title, Stardust, came from his friend, Stuart Goral, who said the melody was like the dust from the stars drifting down through a summer night.
At our wedding, my wife and I danced first to Clifford Brown's version of Stardust, then everyone danced to Nat King Cole's version. There are probably four different versions of this song that would qualify as my favorite jazz, from Meltor May to Harry Connick accompanied by Ellis Marsalis, to an amazing recording by Wynton Marsalis in 1984. The version we'll do on this concert is the Harry Connick version. I realized when I was listening to it that it was actually Ellis Marsalis playing the piano, and I've transcribed his piano arrangement for this concert.
Of my heart. High up in the sky. The little stars climb. Always reminding me. That we're apart. Wander down the lane. And far away. A song that will not. Is now the star. The music. Sometimes I wonder. Only night. Dreaming. My.
And I am once again. That was long. Now my consolation. The stardust of a song. Beside a garden. When stars are bright. The nightingale tells his fairy tale. Paradise where. Though I dream. My stardust melody. When stars are bright. The nightingale tells his fairy.
We heard Harry Connick Jr.'s Stardust, the version Mark Jenkins will be doing on his tribute to Ellis Marsalis program at Armstrong Auditorium Tuesday, February 2nd, and that recording featured Ellis Marsalis on the piano. Let's hear Mark Jenkins talk a little more about Ellis and this tribute he's doing for this late jazz legend. Ellis Marsalis died last year at the age of 85, probably the first well-known person I heard of as dying from complications related to COVID-19.
As you probably already know, he is the father of several other jazz musicians, the legendary jazz trumpet player and composer Wynton Marsalis, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who did a brief stint as band leader when Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show, trombonist and producer Delfeo Marsalis, and drummer Jason Marsalis. Poet and music historian Kalamu Yasalam has described Ellis Marsalis as both literally and figuratively the patriarch of modern jazz in New Orleans. No one has done more for jazz education than the Marsalis family. I remember seeing Winton's educational videos, Marsalis on Music, when I was still in high school, and I have it in book form. The entire family was on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Ellis' students included Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Nicholas Payton, his four sons, and I meet musicians all the time who tell me how inspired they were by Ellis in their formative years as jazz musicians.
Just last summer, thousands of musicians were streaming free jazz instructional videos of Wynton Marsalis live from Lincoln Center, and I couldn't help thinking about that as the legacy of Ellis Marsalis. He impacted not just his students, but our entire community. I wanted to do a tribute concert because there is no jazz musician who had more impact on my playing personally than Ellis Marsalis. I could fill a book with transcriptions I've done of his playing. When I was about 15, I told my mom I wanted to buy a jazz piano CD but didn't know what to try. She recommended Ellis, and I selected Heart of Gold based on the tracks I saw.
I recognized a few of the numbers on it. This was my first real glimpse into jazz piano. I still don't really know why she chose him as my starting point, but I'm glad she did. Heart of Gold was a great set of recordings, and I immediately started doing what most jazz musicians do, trying to write his playing down. I couldn't do it, though. Simply put, I couldn't hear the nuances of the chords yet. Despite being unable to sort out exactly what he was playing, my ear certainly improved from the effort. I might not have learned to hear every note, but I did learn to discern the overall quality of the chord and to put down some version of it. Technically speaking, I suppose this was my first lesson with Mr. Marsalis.
I tried to learn some version of most of the songs on that album. Have You Met Miss Jones was first on the album, which we'll do as a piano trio at the beginning of the tribute. Do you know what it means to Miss New Orleans and lots of great other standards were on there? Most of the album was in traditional trio style, piano, bass, and drums, but two tracks featured solo piano. The first was Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, and I spent quite a bit of time with that track. But my favorite piece on Heart of Gold was A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square by Manning Sherwin.
was A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square, played by Ellis Marsalis on the Heart of Gold album that Mark Jenkins is describing to us. He's talking about the influence that this jazz legend had on him in his younger years, and next he talks about his actual interaction he had with this patriarch of modern jazz. Mr. Jenkins was just a couple years out of college at this point that he's describing. I had a two-hour lesson with Mr. Marsalis in his home in New Orleans, and I played A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square for him. When I finished, he said I made the same mistake he did. I didn't play the introduction. Many of the old music theater tunes have introductions to them written by the composers, and most jazz players just leave them off.
Mr. Marsalis said, Tommy Dorsey got after me for that in a club one night on A Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square, so now I always play the intro. Then he asked me if I knew it, and I started to sing it. He said, Oh, you can sing. You have to be really careful about that. He went on to warn me at length that many jazz musicians, he specifically named Harry Connick Jr. and Diana Krall, tried to get known as pianists and couldn't because they became known as singers. He said, The audience connects with that more easily, and once you're known as a singer, you won't be known as a pianist. He's probably right about that too, but I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut. I'll do a few vocal numbers on this concert, mostly in the first half.
Zach Lee suggested that any Ellis Marsalis tribute should include the tune Mozartin, so you can thank Zach for that one, which we'll do on this concert. Speaking of Zach, we'll also do I Cover the Waterfront, which Ellis played with his trombonist son, Delfeo. was I Cover the Waterfront, featuring the trombonist and son of Ellis Marsalis, Del Feo. Mark Jenkins is taking us through his tribute to Ellis Marsalis program on today's Music for Life, which is a concert scheduled for Tuesday, February 2nd at Armstrong Auditorium. Ellis played a weekly gig at Snug Harbor in New Orleans for 30 years. I went to this once. I guess his usual trio wasn't available, so the entire concert was Ellis and a guitarist. No drums, no bass. It was one of the most interesting concerts I've ever seen.
I have a great album called A Night at Snug Harbor, and the last two numbers I'll do on this concert are from that. First is Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia. The Marsalis version handles the meter a little bit differently than Dizzy did. Ellis actually became what he called a confirmed bebopper after attending a Dizzy Gillespie concert when he was 14. The other number we'll do from that album Ellis actually recorded many times, The Very Thought of You. My favorite version is his solo piano version on the Snug Harbor album. But for this concert, we're putting together a special arrangement for the full group to wrap up our tribute to Ellis Marsalis and the contribution he made to this great American art form.
You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we have spotlighted our very own jazz virtuoso Mark Jenkins and the tribute to Ellis Marsalis program he is bringing to Armstrong Auditorium Tuesday, February 2nd. We've heard about the great musicians who will be playing alongside him and these amazing arrangements he's created. We've also been hearing Mr. Jenkins talk us through his program. We just heard that exquisite rendition of The Very Thought of You performed by Ellis Marsalis himself on that Snug Harbor album.
Before we finish the discussion about Mark Jenkins' program and play one final example, I want to let you know how to obtain tickets to this event. You can attend in person or virtually. All information can be found at armstrongauditorium.org. Okay, to close out today's episode, I want to play one of the great Marsalis family arrangements of a well-known tune, which Mark Jenkins will also be putting on his program. The Marsalis family also made a Charlie Brown tribute album, and I transcribed the opening track, Linus and Lucy, specially for this concert. I hope you enjoy, and I hope to see you soon at Armstrong.
You have been listening to Music for Life, a production of KPCG 101.3 on the FM Dial in Edmond, Oklahoma. From the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus, I'm Ryan Malone. Thanks for joining me.