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by Rick Holland
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An Interview with Todd Marcus
Rick Holland, JR247: Todd, welcome to JR247. I’ve enjoyed listening to some of your cuts from the Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra new release entitled, In Pursuit of the Ninth Man.
Can you tell us, and give us some background on how this group was conceived?
Todd Marcus: In 2001, an alto friend of mine from Washington, DC and I shared an interest in doing some writing for a larger ensemble and so we decided to work on some charts of our originals and to try putting some rehearsals together. I remember that around that time I had been checking out a band in NY called the Jason Linder Ensemble at Smalls and I really liked the fullness of that band but how it also broke down to nice long solos too. I think that also around that time the Joe Henderson Big Band CD came out and I remember hearing some of that on the radio and really liking it. But I didn’t have any experience arranging for a large ensemble and actually had never had the experience of playing in big bands either. So when the intial rehearsals that my friend and I put together with a 13-piece band weren’t working out because of logistics, we went with a 9-piece which I think was much more accessible for me to start with. We worked on writing arrangements of our tunes for a while but soon it was just me writing and so when there were enough tunes in the book to start doing gigs, it was almost all my material and eventually the band just became my own project and called The Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra.
JR247: Who were some of the people that molded and shaped you as a writer?
TM: Well the two ensembles I mentioned above were some ensembles that appealed to me for the way they had a full sound with modern harmonies. But I a lot of quartet playing really held the kind of sounds I wanted and so as took my compositions, I just sat at the piano and worked on different ways to expand and arrange my tunes for a larger context.
JR247: I love the Bass Clarinet, and how you write for this instrument. How did you discover the bass clarinet voice, and it’s special uniqueness to Jazz?
TM: I first heard the bass clarinet when a friend gave me the Eric Dolphy record “Outward Bound” with Freddie Hubbard. I remember liking the arrangement that Dolphy did on Green Dolphin Street and how much I liked the different textures of the horn. At the time, I was about 20 and just getting into jazz and still playing the regular soprano clarinet. And since I couldn’t play at all, everything kind of just sounded like some bad New Orleans thing. And so I went about getting a bass clarinet. And I still couldn’t play but there was more of a clean palate to start from in that I feel like unless you’ve got you’re playing together on clarinet, the tone tends to make listeners associate to the New Orleans or just older styles of playing. So I just kept working on the bass clarinet and I guess slowly started getting some stuff together. Eventually, once I could play a bit, I would occasionally come back to revisit the soprano clarinet. And right now, I’m actually started to incorporate that horn more regularly into my playing and to develop a voice on it. But the bass clarinet has definitely been my instrument where I found my own voice.
JR247: Tell us some of the things you like about the smaller orchestration. I too lead a 10 piece group and have an affinity for these smaller orchestrations.
TM: Well, I guess I like that my nonet lets me have the richness and colors of a full horn section without being too loud. I think it allows me to get lots of different texts but still maintain some of the space and intimacy of playing in a quartet setting. I like having the ability to do extended arrangements to tell a musical story that you can’t accomplish with just a quartet. So for example, if I have an up-tempo tune, the nonet allows me to do a slow intro that then buildings up to the fast stuff. I just like the creativity that it gives you and I also think that audiences respond to this too. I think that as musicians, when we play as a quartet and play the head a couple times then launch into solos, we can lose our listeners if they’re not already established jazz fans. And since the number of hardcore jazz fans is always diminishing, I’ve found that the extended arrangements of the nonet help to draw people into the music. Now the other thing that is helpful about having a nonet rather than a big band is that getting 9 people together rather than 15+ is a lot easier, although, I have to say that getting all 9 together is still extremely hard. And that’s actually the sort of meaning of the album’s title tune – that as I’m trying to schedule a rehearsal or a gig, it seems like just when I get close to lining up everybody’s schedules, getting the last 9th man confirmed either prevents things from coming together or just makes it really tough.
JR247: Todd, Baltimore seems to rich in talented improvisers, as your band seems to indicate. Can you speak of how and whom are some of the personalities who helped shape this scene in Baltimore?
TM: Well, actually, the scene in Baltimore is really bleak unfortunately. There are only two places that consistently present jazz right now so there’s really not regular opportunities for guys to play and develop. So as a result, most guys that get their playing together leave Baltimore at this point. And then for guys that go on to make a good name for themselves, they hardly ever come back to town because there’s nothing with venues or audiences to support them. So we have great musicians who have come out of Baltimore recently like Antonio Hart, George Colligan, and Cyrus Chestnut, and slightly older guys like Gary Thomas, Dennis Chambers, and Gary Bartz, but we never get to see them play here. It’s frustrating because it has made it hard for those of us who have chosen to make Baltimore our home. So a lot of what I’ve had to do with my band is try to create a scene by finding places that will at least try to have the band and then I still have to do tons of work to try to get audience people out.
JR247: Your newest release In Pursuit of the Ninth Man, displays an originality, and has some very nice diversed compositions. Can you tell us how you guys conceived this recording?
 TM: I think I had the band together for about 2 years and I felt like it was the right time to document some of my compositions, what we had developed as a group, and to capture solos by the different members of the ensemble. So I worked to line up the money to record and was able to establish a partnership with Tony Haywood of Hipnotic Records to take on the manufacturing, promotion, and distribution of the album. Since the band had been playing for a couple years at that point, I had to figure out which tunes I wanted to record and that was hard, because there are some favorites of mine that I just couldn’t include because there wasn’t enough space on the album. But I tried to pick selections that give a good cross section of my writing and the band’s playing. And so we did a series of gigs to tighten everything up and then went up to NJ to record at Skyline Productions. We did everything live in the studio in a day and a half and used most of what we recorded.
JR247: I had noticed that your work was very well received at the World Bass Clarinet Conference in Rotterdam. Tell us some about this experience.
TM: Going to Holland last year to participate at the World Bass Clarinet Conference was my first overseas performance. I had tried to work it out to use some local musicians over there to play some of my quartet or nonet pieces but it didn’t work out so I actually collaborated with another bass clarinet player from Baltimore to do some duo stuff. It went well I think and I enjoyed being able to be part of a big bass clarinet community. It was kind of like when saxophone players are around each other – they get to talking about their mouthpieces and ligatures and stuff and just kind of bond around things of their instrument. So being at this conference was the first time that I could talk shop with others familiar with my horn and it was a really nice feeling. Unfortunately, there still wasn’t as much gear to try out as I’d hoped but I think that will just always be the reality since there’s not a big market for products for the bass clarinet.
JR247: To achieve what you learned through being self taught is ‘learning’ the old fashioned way. I recently had a conversation with Bill Dobbins on how important this is to understanding the complexities of Jazz music. Tell us about some of the process you went through in ‘teaching’ yourself the in’s and out’s of Jazz.
TM: For me, I had learned how to play the clarinet in elementary and high school but had always been turned away when I expressed an interest I jazz. I was always told “You have to play the saxophone” and so once someone finally gave me some records to listen to when I was 20, I started exploring and realized I would have to figure out how to understand theory and harmony. So I’d just mentally drill myself by thinking, “Ok, the 3rd of E major is what? A is the b7 of what chord?” – just exercises like that. And then of course, I learned a lot by just sitting at the piano and plucking away till I could play chord progression. When I started trying to do arranging, it was the same thing, just sitting and trying stuff out and learning as I went. I think it made the process slower and harder perhaps but I think it also has resulted in some individualized things in my playing and writing.
JR247: You guys are also show some interest in World Music’s. I believe the success of Jazz music is found how this music has evolved in World culture. How do you feel about this?
TM: I’m half Egyptian and over the past couple years, I’ve been making an effort to incorporate some Middle-Eastern sounds into my writing and playing. My father immigrated from Egypt in his mid-twenties to Chicago, married in Pennsylvania, and eventually settled in NJ where my brother and I were born and raised. But there wasn’t a Middle-Eastern community presence and so unfortunately I grew up without a strong cultural presence from that side of my family. I think as I’ve gotten older, connecting with that part of my heritage has become more important to me and so I’ve tried to musically incorporate that into my work.
JR247: Todd, how do you feel the State of Jazz music is doing currently? What are things you and your comrades may be able to share with the rest of us, to help the betterment of the music in performance and awareness?
TM: As I was saying when you asked about the scene in Baltimore, I often feel that things are bleak when you look at the challenge of finding or creating work and then of trying to get folks to come out and listen. And the more I talk to friends in New York, the more that I hear that it’s the same problem there. So the lesson I’m finally accepting is that we have to do more to cultivate a new audience for this music. The older jazz crowd is dying out without a new generation to replace them and so the demand for our music is diminishing. And I’ve realized that the scaling down or elimination of music departments in our country really hurts the overall music scene because it prevents kids from being exposed to music and from developing an interest to hear it once they grow up and have the money to go see something cultural. So I’m now starting to make more of an effort on my part to do clinics and expose kids to the music. I just submitted my first funding grant request to do a residency project with a high school here in Baltimore where we’ll do monthly clinics where the students will hear us play and then get coached so they can play our charts too. We’ll also have monthly performances where my nonet will perform and the students that have shown promise during the clinics will get to join the band. And my goal is to get these kids, their families, and friends, all exposed and interested in the music so that we’ll have the start of a new audience.
JR247: What are some of the goals for you and your groups?
TM: In addition to what I mentioned about building new audiences for jazz, my current goals now for the group are to keep working regularly and to start touring. I recently got an invitation to take the band to Estonia for a festival there but I need some more performances there or in the surrounding countries to make it work financially.
JR247: Do you feel in your located in a creative and viable environment in Baltimore and Washington DC? Please tell us why?
TM: I don’t think that Baltimore is an extremely viable or supportive environment right now but as I shared, I’m trying to change that. And since I’m committed to my city, I supposed I’ll keep making that fight for a long time. Things are better in DC and so I hang out there quite a bit. But I really am working to get up to New York and Philly more regularly in order to meet more musicians there and hopefully find more playing opportunities.
JR247: Besides your music, what completes you in your humanity and life?
TM: I’m glad you asked that because the issues of racial reconciliation and community have been big parts of my life. When I first moved to Baltimore from NJ to go to college in 1994, I wanted to do some volunteer work and I got involved with an organization called Sandtown Habitat for Humanity (www.sandtownhabitat.org) which renovates rowhomes for low-income homeownership. For two years, I would come every Saturday to Sandtown (an African-American neighborhood located on the west side of Baltimore) to be a part of the work. Now during that time I was passionately into jazz from the 1950s and 60s and was trying to learn as much as I could about the music’s great black musicians which led me to study our country’s history of that time. And all of this really brought me to reflect a great deal on issues of ongoing racism and community. During this time I had also started to develop relationships with several Sandtown residents and I realized that I wanted to move into the neighborhood to be a permanent part of the community. So in 1997 I moved to Sandtown and worked under a life-long community resident who had started a nonprofit to serve the needs of the neighborhood. We worked together for years and in 2000 opened a program called Martha’s Place (www.marthasplace.org) which serves women overcoming drug addiction. So for me, my adult life has really been about being a part of and serving my community by day, and shedding on my horn by night. I think I’ve always felt upset by the injustice of inequities in the world and so being a part of my community has allowed me to specifically deal with ongoing issues that stem from systemic racism and poverty. And at the same time, my music has allowed me to try to create some beauty that hopefully unites people across all races through the power of music.
JR247: Thanks for sharing your music and thoughts with us at JR247.
For more information about the music of Todd Marcus, please visit: www.ToddMarcusJazz.com
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Rick Holland |
| About the author: |
| A versatile musician and veteran performer in organizations such as the Louie Bellson Big Band (Chicago Based Band), Jimmy Dorsey, Mike Pendowski, Rob Parton , Buddy De Franco, Buselli-Wallrab and Terry Gibbs Bands, Rick Holland brings a wealth of experience and musicality to each performance. |
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Based in Baltimore, bass clarinetist and composer Todd Marcus is one of the few jazz artists worldwide to focus exclusively on use of the bass clarinet as a primary soloing instrument. Jazz Times contributing journalist David Adler writes, “Marcus…brings a saxophonic rigor to the bass clarinet while also generating enough sonic power to front a nine-piece ensemble…