Tag Archives: Local 802

Member Profiles

Dawn Hannay: Shining Light on the Union

Dawn Hannay of Local 802 (New York City) looks back on her career and activism as a violist with the New York Philharmonic.

Dawn Hannay of Local 802 (New York City) practically grew up on the stage of the New York Philharmonic. Having joined at 23, in 1979, the violist was one of a handful of women performing with the orchestra at the time. Now comprising more than half women, the oldest ensemble in the country is steeped in history and tradition. Hannay, who retired from her position last October, says she learned quickly, “I was always a bit of a rabble rouser so it wasn’t long before I was elected chair of the musicians’ committee.”

Back then, for an “inexperienced young woman,” there was a learning curve. Hannay explains that in those days music schools did little to prepare string players to master the overwhelming orchestral repertoire. “You had to be a great sight reader and fast learner,” she says, remembering the first time she played Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe suite in Studio 8H at NBC with the mics on, no rehearsal. “It’s like jumping on a speeding train. You have to be tough, especially as a young and very naive woman in what in those days seemed like a good ole boys club, complete with poker games, chain smoking, and even occasional fisticuffs!”

Hannay inherited the torch from those older and more experienced musicians who had fought so successfully to improve the lives of orchestral musicians. She says, “I took on the challenge, and spent decades doing my utmost to improve the working life of my colleagues, negotiating contracts and helping to resolve disputes.”

“The union is crucial in maintaining fair wages and working conditions for all musicians. Younger musicians who prefer to remain independent need to learn the history of their business, and how essential the union is in ensuring that musicians could earn a living from their craft. It is easy to take for granted the 52-week season, health benefits, and pension that we enjoy today,” she says.

What distinguishes prestigious orchestras like the New York Philharmonic from the Vienna Philharmonic? She says it’s “the communication between older players and the next generation. There are many traditions of phrasing and tempi, of fingerings and articulations, of tone quality and bowings, and even jokes that are handed down, such as applauding in rehearsal at the false ending in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.”

Hannay explains that a wise conductor lets an orchestra play, shaping his or her own interpretation, but allowing the unique character of the orchestra to shine through. She says, “There may be fewer than a dozen musicians left in the orchestra who played West Side Story under Leonard Bernstein, but they still play the score like nobody’s business. That’s tradition.” 

Not long ago, playing in an orchestra was among the most precarious of livings. Hannay explains, “It’s almost unheard of nowadays in any profession for people to stay in a single job for 30, 40, or even 50 or more years. It’s the norm here. We owe this extraordinary stability to a whole generation of musicians who fought to make it so. Their work created the continuity that enables the unique musical traditions to be carried forward from generation to generation. Through the efforts of the past generation there are contracts and fair wages.” 

Orchestra standards were set by flutist Julius Baker, clarinetist Stanley Drucker, trumpeter Phil Smith, and concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, of Local 802. Bassist Orin O’Brien of Local 802 shattered the glass ceiling and became the first woman in the orchestra. Legendary players Buster Bailey, Bert Bial, Ralph Mendelssohn, Newton Mansfield, and John Ware created and added to the history and traditions that make today’s daily performances possible. 

Hannay performs chamber music, appearing often with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles. She spends the summers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, playing with the Grand Teton Music Festival, where she is a founding member of the string quartet Wind River 4. In 2001, she was a featured soloist and guest principal viola with the London Chamber Players on a tour of South Africa.

Donn Trenner
Member Profiles

Donn Trenner: Pianist, Musical Director, Arranger, and Author

by Ginny Bales, Member of Local 400 (Hartford-New Haven, CT)

Donn Trenner

The remarkable career of Local 802 (New York City) and 47 (Los Angeles, CA) member Donn Trenner is highlighted in the book Leave It to Me: My Life in Music.

It would be remarkable enough to have played with jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Anita O’Day, and many others; to have entertained the troops with Bob Hope or led the band for the original Tonight Show; to have served long stints as musical director for Ann-Margret, Nancy Wilson, and Shirley MacLaine; and to have declined doing the same for Frank Sinatra. But can you imagine what it was like to tour with big bands led by Les Brown, Charlie Barnet, or Buddy Morrow?

Donn Trenner, a member of Locals 802 (New York City) and 47 (Los Angeles, CA), has done all of these things in his dream career characterized by consistent hard work, unstinting devotion to quality musicianship, and careful attention to making gigs run smoothly on all levels.

The AFM is important to Trenner. “I am a very devoted union member, starting in New Haven when I was 15 years old. I believe the benefits of being a member outweigh anything else,” he says.

Trenner’s life and career began in Connecticut, and we are fortunate that he has returned to this area where he continues to lead the Hartford Jazz Orchestra. Everyone who has ever known or worked with Trenner appreciates his depth of musical experience, gentlemanly charm, and sense of humor. 

The book Leave It to Me: My Life in Music (BearManor Media, 2015) by Trenner and Tim Atherton, jazz educator at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Westfield State University in Massachusetts, tells the tale. It’s filled with gig stories and anecdotes often involving well-known musicians and entertainers. 

Those interested in understanding how to write arrangements that work well will find Trenner’s insights invaluable. One section of the book is devoted to his philosophy of orchestration, and the entire book is peppered with observations on arranging, dynamics, instrumental balance, stagecraft, and how to bring the best performance out of other musicians. 

At age 90, Trenner continues to be a role model. He connects us to iconic music “scenes” from classic jazz and big bands through international touring, TV, and Las Vegas-style shows. He continues to create beautiful music and also entertain through writing and speaking engagements.

A quote on Trenner’s piano reads: “Don’t just play notes—tell a story.” His key to happiness? “Keep music in your life.  Music and laughter are the most important beneficial ingredients in a person’s life.”

Recent News

Rally to Save the Arts in New York City

Members of Local 802 (New York City) joined other unions, including Actors Equity Association, for a Rally to Save the Arts in front of City Hall in New York City.

 

Local 802 President Tino Gagliardi was one of the speakers at the April Save the Arts Rally.

 

Hundreds of arts leaders, workers, and supporters turned out for a Rally to Save the Arts held April 3 in NewYork City.

 

Among the speakers at the New York City Rally to Save the Arts was Local 802
(New York City) member David Byrne, a founding member of the Talking Heads.

Anja Wood
Member Profiles

Hamilton Cellist Anja Wood Follows Her Heart to Aid Families in Ethiopia

Anja Wood

Anja Wood, cellist for the Broadway show Hamilton and a member of Local 802 (New York City), founded her own charity to help Ethiopian families overcome poverty.

When Anja Wood of Local 802 (New York City) graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music in the early 1990s, she headed east to carve out a life as a freelance musician. A classical cellist armed with a master’s degree, she easily settled into a tidy routine of playing in regional orchestras and touring Japan during the summer with conductor Mamoru Takahara (also of Local 802) and the New York Symphonic Ensemble.    

“I lived like a pauper with little gigs here and there, and eventually worked my way up,” she says. Wood joined the union in 1997 when she first started subbing on Broadway.

In 2014, Wood received a call from musical director Alex Lacamoire of Local 802, who asked her to join the orchestra of the Broadway hit, Hamilton. It was the same creative team that produced In the Heights. Wood says, “It was exactly what I’d been wanting to do for years,” adding, “It was long before we knew what Hamilton would be. We knew people would react well. We just didn’t know it would be this juggernaut success.”

They play eight shows a week, but the union contract allows the orchestra musicians to take off four days a week and still maintain their contract. Wood says, “The brilliance of that is we can go and play another gig, and a friend and colleague whom we trust and love can come and play the show for us, and is happy to have the work. It’s a great system for musicians in New York.”

In a different role, a world away from New York City and Broadway, Wood serves as president of the Lelt Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps severely impoverished Ethiopian orphans and families. It began in 2009, when she and her husband began the adoption process for their second daughter from Ethiopia. Amid agency-wide and embassy delays, Wood says that their daughter, who should have already been in the States, was still in Ethiopia five months after she was legally theirs.

Taking a leave from work, she traveled to Addis Ababa to take custody. In Ethiopia, they stayed with her friend, the late Carrie Neel-Parker, who also adopted a daughter from Ethiopia. While visiting state-run orphanages, many in grave disrepair, they realized that some basic, inexpensive upgrades could vastly improve living conditions for the children. With the help of friends back in the US, who chipped in about $30 each, they were able to provide 250 girls in Kechene Orphanage with mattresses and linens, plus repair the crumbling outer compound security wall.

Wood initiated a music program at the Kolfe Boys Orphanage, where an instructor comes in twice a week to teach students electric piano, bass, and electric guitar. She felt confident that the efforts made in just a couple of months would give way to more initiatives. “Our daughters gave us this gift of having Ethiopian families and we wanted to continue to give back to those we now consider our family,” she says.

Back home she filed for nonprofit status, formed a board of directors together with Neel-Parker, and the Lelt Foundation was born. Its focus: nutrition, education, and job creation programs for very impoverished neighborhoods. “Our whole mission is to help people so they won’t need us in a few years,” Wood says. “People graduate from the program with assistance we give them—it’s a hand-up, not a handout.”

A partnership with the Ethiopian government helps the organization identify the most impoverished families in the region. Lelt pays the fee for their children’s public school education, about $2.50 a year, and gives them a daily nutritious lunch and after-school tutoring. Families are provided counseling and job creation services, monthly food rations, and household necessities.   

In just six years, Lelt has built a community center, and homes for girls and boys, which are refuges for children who are abandoned or severely abused. A dedicated staff in Ethiopia, managed by a husband and wife team (called Mommy and Poppy by the children) live on site, in the compound. “This team is deeply committed to the community. This is their mission. It’s what they want to die doing,” Wood says.

Lelt conducts seminars on money and business management skills, providing micro loans to families to launch their businesses—a “jumpstart to financial independence,” says Wood. “The kids are in school, moms have just started a small business, like vegetable wholesale at the local market or bread baking. Once they get started, we usually see graduation from the program about three years later.”

Investing in music education is a natural component of Lelt’s mission. In addition to Western instruments—keyboards and guitars—students learn to play the traditional instruments of Ethiopia, including the masinko (an ancient violin), the krar (a lyre-shaped guitar), and traditional drums. Traditional folk music is important to Ethiopians, Wood explains. It is what folk music might be to people who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. “Everybody has a grandparent, an aunt, or uncle who plays an instrument, and the children want to learn, too.”

In the music community Wood has found many on-and-off Broadway friends and donors who support her work. “In fact, 20% of the people who sponsor children in the organization are musician colleagues,” she says. “They are by no means wealthy, but loyal and compassionate humans who want to contribute in some way.”

Now, a busy mother, managing daily operations and directing the foundation’s fundraising efforts, Wood says, “Playing a show is the easiest part of my day. I get to go off and be my adult self and who I’m trained to be. I have a few hours of easy peace and artistic expression.”

Working with fellow pit musicians in Hamilton, Wood says, “I love knowing this group really well. I love coming in and knowing exactly where I’m going to put my F# in ‘Right Hand Man’ because my quartet is sitting right next to me. I know exactly where the first violinist is going to use less vibrato for emphasis and I’m going to match him. I know where we’ll sit behind the beat on ‘Room Where It Happens’ because I’ve learned this band so well—and that to me is exciting. We’re making this music as perfect as possible.”

For more information on the Lelt Foundation and to make a donation, visit www.leltfoundation.org.

Recent News

Simon Tours in Support of Biodiversity

After considering retirement last year, Paul Simon of Local 802 (New York City) has announced that he will hit the road again for a 17-city tour to benefit the Half-Earth Project, an initiative of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. The singer says that he feels that actively supporting biodiversity through performing his music makes him feel like he’s making a “greater contribution than just putting more money in my pocket, or becoming more famous,” both of which he says he doesn’t need.

In Wilson’s book Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life he proposes an achievable plan to save our imperiled biosphere: devote half the surface of the Earth to nature. Simon assures fans that his concerts will be music based saying they won’t be lectured to, though the book may be available.

Stranger To Stranger, Simon’s most recent solo album, was his first number-one hit on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Americana/Folk Albums charts.

 

Andrew Schulman
Member Profiles

Andrew Schulman Creates Bridge to Healing for ICU Patients

Andrew Schulman

Andrew Schulman of Local 802 (New York City) is resident artist of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at the Beth Israel Medical Center.

Following pancreas surgery in 2009, Andrew Schulman of Local 802 (New York City) suffered cardiovascular collapse and was not expected to survive. When he came out of the coma, doctors called it a medical miracle. But Schulman, a professional musician and guitarist knew it was music that had reached him and brought him back.

At his bedside in the intensive care unit, Schulman’s wife, Wendy, thought music would comfort him in the ICU, but desperately hoped for more, that it just might be a lifeline. From his playlist she chose Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Within an hour, Schulman’s vital signs began to stabilize. In three days, he emerged from the coma. No one would know exactly how he survived the first night, but Schulman, whose case has been cited in medical journals and at major medical conferences, says, “The day I came back, six months after being in ICU, people said, ‘You’re famous in this hospital.’”

In his book, Waking the Spirit: A Musician’s Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul, Schulman recounts his experience, from survival and recovery to his new calling as a medical musician. Drawing on the inspirational stories of the people he’s met, as well as experts in both music and neuroscience, Schulman reveals the powerful ways music helps patients negotiate illness. After his medical crisis, Schulman became a volunteer musician three days a week in the surgical ICU, and in 2011, was officially appointed resident artist of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at the Beth Israel Medical Center.

“The guitar is perfect for playing in this setting, especially if you need to make a modulation instantly,” Schulman says. Most patients in the ICU cannot make a request, but once in a while, someone will ask for Elvis or Gershwin. The right music, the right sound, makes a difference. A Bach prelude is typically calming. Music can make heart rhythms more regular, and lower stress hormone levels, heart rate, and blood pressure. Schulman says, “The key is finding the resonance frequency of a patient.”

Schulman has been working with trauma surgeon, Dr. Marvin A. McMillen, perioperative director at Berkshire Medical Center in Massachusetts, to develop a program of medical music specifically for post-op care. He expects to attract many professional musicians, but Schulman emphasizes it’s not a regular gig. It requires natural empathy, extreme motivation, and a sense of humor, plus the confidence to handle some rather complex medical information. He explains, “You’re the one who needs to keep up the spirits of patients. You have to play your Carnegie Hall best, all the while watching the patient’s face, hands, and feet because that’s where you can see agitation—checking the monitor and range of vital signs.” 

Of his renewed passion for life and music, Schulman says, “It’s like being in three worlds—a triad of music, medicine, and writing. I’m using much more of my brain than I ever did before.” He suffered brain damage during cardiac arrest—retrograde and anterograde  amnesia. In cases like this, although the nerve network for memory was damaged, the brain compensates by reorganizing the neural pathways to work around the deficiency. Called neuroplasticity, the neural rerouting allowed him to continue to play and read music, eventually relearning all the songs he had forgotten.

Schulman continues to play professionally with the Abaca String Band, his own quintet, and as a soloist. His steady union engagements include landmark New York City venues, the Palm Court at The Plaza Hotel, The Mark Hotel, and The InterContinental/Barclay. He’s performed at Carnegie Hall, the Improv, and the Royal Albert Hall in London. His CDs include The Baroque Style, Lullabies, Reveilles, (and Siesta!), and two Live from Chautauqua recordings.

Schulman was just out of college in 1975 when he joined Local 802. A year before his surgery, which coincided with the 2009 recession, his wife learned she had breast cancer. He says, “If it hadn’t been for emergency relief fund of Local 802, if they hadn’t helped us after my surgery, I don’t know what we would have done. I might have been evicted, might have lost my apartment. They helped us through a crucial three months. I’m forever grateful.”

Back to work, in a new role, Schulman reflects on the turning point in his own ICU experience, when he heard St. Matthew Passion. He says, “The greatest grace a musician can have is to play for a patient who’s in a critical care unit. Instead of hearing the cold harsh beeps and alarms of a medical machine and impersonal voices, they hear a beautiful flow of Bach or a melody or tune that’s soothing.”

Member Profiles

Neil Balm: Trumpeter’s Career Hits the High Note

nEIL-BALMNeil Balm of Local 802 (New York City) is co-principal trumpet of the New York City Ballet and principal trumpet for the New York Pops and Mostly Mozart Festival. All along, he’s demonstrated his virtuosity, recording with the Canadian Brass, as a soloist with award-winning conductor Gerard Schwarz of Local 802, and on tour in Europe with Louie Bellson’s Big Band. The experiences were revelatory for Balm, who hails from Hamilton, Ontario. He says, “They are such fabulous musicians!”   

Balm’s father was a high school music teacher who also repaired instruments. Balm picked up the trumpet and never put it down. He showed promise, and at 12 years old, when he formed a band, his father told him, “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Let’s join the union.”

His father passed away before Balm entered high school. Balm, who at the time was studying with Ronald Romm of the nearby Canadian Brass, found an extended family. Romm became a father figure. When Balm entered the Juilliard School to study with William Vacchiano, it was Brass member Fred Mills (also trumpet coach for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada) who introduced Balm to top New York musicians.

In 1979, Balm was practicing concertos and orchestral music, in between his bachelors and masters degrees at Juilliard, when the phone rang. Peter Frampton of Local 257 (Nashville, TN) needed a horn section and somebody asked if Balm was available. He was hired based on references. Opening the four-month tour with the band in Flint, Michigan, to more than 7,000 people, Balm (who played lead trumpet and keyboards) says, “I had never been to a rock concert until I played that one. I couldn’t believe my eyes and the roar of the crowd. It was fantastic!”

“I was fortunate to have had rich exposure to such a high level of playing,” Balm says. His main teacher and chamber music coach, conductor Gerard Schwarz,  gave him playing opportunities which Balm says, put him on the map. On Schwarz’s recommendation, Balm became principal trumpet for the preeminent summer concert series Mostly Mozart Festival. This year will be Balm’s 33rd season with the 50-year-old festival.

Balm credits old friend Marvin Stamm of Local 802 for inroads to the jazz scene. “I went to recording sessions and got to see some of the great players, how they played and how the business worked. Eventually, I started covering for some of those guys.” For five years, he worked with Ted Weis, long considered the first trumpet of New York. Balm says, “He was a pro, and if you were observant, you could learn how to survive on the job.”

That’s where the union comes into play. He stresses, “It’s a team sport, not just on the stage or on the band stand, but also behind the scenes. It’s a mistake to think you can do it on your own. Without the union, negotiations, contracts, CBAs, and the fraternity that we have, we’d be making $50 a night the rest of our lives.”

The camaraderie he found in the union positioned him to help other musicians. Partnering with timpanist Jonathan Haas of Local 802, he formed Gemini Music Productions. The contracting and consulting firm provides educational and business outreach for musicians so they can build and use the area’s vast union-connected resources.

Between the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York Pops, the All-Star Orchestra, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, and his production company, the 58 year-old Balm stays busy. He has no plans to stop working—but when he does, his investment in the union means he has a pension to cushion retirement.

Balm maintains, “If you can really play, you’re going to work.” He admits it may not be a 52-week contract with a symphony orchestra, but he says it’s easier nowadays for artists to create music, especially with today’s technology. Ever mindful of the shifts and metamorphosis of the music business with each decade or generation, Balm nonetheless proclaims it’s alive and well.

“After the ’40s, people said, ‘the big bands are done, the business is gone’; in the ’50s, when radio orchestras started dying out, people said it was over. In the ’70s and ’80s, when the jingle business dried up, people said, ‘the business is gone.’ But it’s still here. The music business changes, but it’s still here!” he says.

On the Cover

Lou Marini: The Joy of Providing Blueness to Fellow Musicians

Lou Marini ImageMusic and people are clear priorities to Lou Marini, who has been an in-demand sideman and session player his whole career. The multi-instrumentalist is adept on soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax, as well as piccolo, flute, and clarinet. He’s also a composer, arranger, producer, and educator.

His distinctive solos can be heard on dozens of albums from artists like Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder of Local 5 (Detroit, MI), Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffet of Local 257 (Nashville, TN), John Tropea of Local 802 (New York City), and Steely Dan. This year Marini looks forward to a long list of appointments including touring this summer with Local 802 member James Taylor; performing at the Kennedy Center with Lynda Carter; as well as traveling to Japan and Europe with the Blues Brothers Band.

A member of Local 802 since 1971, Marini says he first joined the union in Ohio as a teenager. “I was around guys who believed in the union and what it could do and that we had to stand together,” he says. “I’m a passionate defender of the union. Politicians seem to delight in claiming that unions are the source of all evil. It baffles me that the normal worker doesn’t realize that, if you leave it to the man to determine what you are going to get, you are going to get less and less.”

“I have a good pension through the union—a cushion of financial stability. New York musicians who spent their whole careers on Broadway are set, and that’s because, at some point, guys banded together,” he concludes. 

UNT Days

Lou Marini sunglassesThe son of composer and band director Lou Marini, Sr., Marini says he never considered pursuing anything but music. He’s been working steadily ever since his days at the University of North Texas in Denton, where he played in the school’s famed One O’Clock Lab Band. By the end of his freshman year, Marini also had a steady gig with jazz trumpeter Don Jacoby.

“I was playing in the number one jazz band in school, and at the same time, I was working six nights a week. Then I started recording. Dallas had a real vibrant recording scene and I became a part of that when I was 19 years old,” he says.

Though UNT is known for its jazz program, Marini says that his time in Texas introduced him to the wide range of genres he would play for the rest of his career. He recalls one early experience when he was playing with Les Elgart’s band. The show had them performing with the country duo Jethro and Homer, and the main act was bluegrass—Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

“I was a little budding jazz snob. After the rehearsal we started jamming with Jethro on mandolin, and he played better than any of us did! That was sort of a mind-blower, and then that night, when we heard Flatt and Scruggs—their very first tune was at a blazingly fast tempo. I was like, ‘Holy shit these cats are bad, and I sort of lost my jazz snobbery a little bit.”

“In university I also got turned onto classical music much more,” he says. “All that led to a more open mind as far as playing goes.”

Between recording and freelancing over the next few years Marini played with anyone he could—Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Manhattans, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight. “They would come to North Texas and pick up horn sections from the area,” says Marini who also managed to go on the road with Woody Herman’s band during that time. “I was reading new, challenging music all
the time.”

A True New Yorker

Lou Marini saxBut that was just the beginning for Marini. To officially launch his career he set his sights much further north. “New York City was where I thought I should be,” he says. Marini had played with Doc Severinsen when Severinsen toured in Texas, so when a friend mentioned Marini was moving to New York, the bandleader hired him immediately.

“I remember when I drove across the George Washington Bridge, I said to myself, ‘I’m home.’ I’ve always felt that way; I’m a committed New Yorker,” Marini says.

He quickly became an in-demand New York sideman and session musician. “I had already played a super wide variety of music when I came to New York, so I sort of fell into the recording scene here,” he says. “I always liked the challenge and camaraderie of going into the studio and sitting down and sight reading.”

Marini also credits his strong mid-Western values for his success in New York. “I was on time and prepared. Those things stood me in good stead when it came to New York,” he says. “It was based on tons of hard work. I’m still practicing three or four hours a day. I certainly never had a master plan, but doors open and you have to be prepared.”

Three months after arriving in the Big Apple, Marini joined Blood, Sweat, and Tears, in 1972. During the 1970s he also worked with The Band, Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars, and Frank Zappa. But one of his most memorable jobs came about when he auditioned for a late-night television comedy show that was launching—Saturday Night Live.

“When I auditioned I just had a certainty that I was going to get the gig and what a wonderful gig it was!” says Marini. “That time was so fantastic. I remember Alan Rubin, right before we’d play the opening theme he’d say, ‘Where’s the hippest place on earth to be right now?’ It was fun; it was so loose.”

Marini says that one of the greatest things to come out of the eight-year SNL gig was his friendship with bassist Bob Cranshaw of Local 802. “Bob, to me, is a jazz hero,” he says. Other long-lasting outcomes of the show were the Blues Brothers Band and Marini’s nickname, Blue Lou.

“Dan Aykroyd told us we had to have a blues moniker and that he would supply it if we didn’t. I chose Blue Lou because it’s the title of an old jazz tune that my Dad had a recording of,” says Marini.

“If someone had told me in 1978, when we started, that in 2016 we would be going to Japan as the Blues Brothers Band, I would have told them they were out of their minds,” laughs Marini, who also appeared in the Blues Brothers movies.

“The Blues Brothers is energy and camaraderie—most of us have been on the road together for at least 20 years. [Steve] Cropper and I kiddingly say that we’ve had dinner with each other more than we have with our wives,” Marini says.

“We’ve had a lot of adventures,” he continues. “One thing that’s great about the Blues Brothers Band is that, because of the nature of it, we play places like three-county summer arts festivals in the South of France—unbelievable beautiful villages where they bring you local wine and cheese. You can’t buy those types of experiences.”

Marini the Leader

Lou Marini smileIt wasn’t until the 1990s that Marini released his first project as bandleader, Soul Serenade. Lou’s Blues followed in 2001 and then Starmaker. As a bandleader he is committed to looking out for his band. “I think that I pretty much see things through the sideman’s eyes. I have this funny idea that everybody should be treated fairly and with respect, and make good money,” he says.

The most recently released project to feature Marini is The Blue Lou & Misha Project—Highly Classified. Marini first met Misha Segal when he was on tour in Israel. The pair kept in touch and Segal later relocated to the US. “We were hanging out one night at his pad and he played me some stuff he had been working on, and he says, ‘what do you think?’ And I said, ‘It’s nice, but it needs a saxophone solo,’” recalls Marini. The project took several years of going back and forth between L.A. and New York until its release in 2010.

Currently, Marini is working on a CD of originals inspired by his frequent trips to his wife’s native Spain where he plays and sings in the blues quartet Redhouse. “We started playing together in Madrid about seven years ago and have done a couple hundred gigs around Spain,” says Marini. “I sing about a half-dozen tunes. This is a real jazz album with vocals.”

But, he confesses that he’s way too busy to put a timetable on the project, saying, “I’m going to find windows to record it, and in between we want to record a new Blues Brothers album, probably at the end of April.”

Marini’s biography reads like a who’s who of the music industry. He says, simply: “I’m happy to have done things I did and I treasure the friendships I’ve made along the way, and all the great musicians I’ve gotten to play with. When you get to be 70, there’s a lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of the guys that were swimming in it are gone too! At the same time, I look forward to the next thing.”

“I’m still trying to figure out how to play,” he laughs. “You can’t exhaust it; you hear these young saxophone players—what the hell are they doing, what is that, and how can they play so fast? I gotta practice! The fact is, I just like playing, so I practice.”

“When I look back on it, I’ve had a long and continuing apprenticeship,” he notes. “I keep ending up in these great gigs, but I’m just in awe of my fellow musicians. I like people, and that’s one thing about being a musician—they are a bunch of nuts! So you get to meet these characters that just delight you and make you laugh.”

Recent News

The AFM Sues French Company for Failure to Pay Bands

The AFM has filed suit against the French company KIDAM, and to date the AFM has not received any payments for more than 20 bands that were recorded at the Winter Jazzfest for commercial broadcast on French television. It has been more than seven months since KIDAM entered into an agreement to pay wages and benefits for music recorded at Winter Jazzfest, and yet these musicians have not received payment by the Paris company.

“These folks should not feel they can get away with filming, recording, and widely broadcasting our work without meeting the terms they agreed to with Local 802 and the American Federation of Musicians,” said pianist, composer and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill in a press release. “We walk a tightrope as musicians, trying to survive, and musicians should never be treated as KIDAM has treated us.”

“The musicians of Winter Jazzfest do not deserve to wait indefinitely for payment as this company profits from their work,” adds Local 802 President Tino Gagliardi. “We must hold KIDAM accountable and ensure that these extraordinarily talented musicians get paid for their work.”

The lawsuit states that KIDAM signed a “Single Project Letter of Agreement” January 7, 2015 in adherence to the AFM Television Videotape Agreement. The agreement details wages and benefits for musicians for future broadcast on the commercial French television station Mezzo, which reaches approximately 16 million subscribers in 39 countries.

Recent News

#NotesForRelief Raises Funds for New York Musicians

Local 802 (New York City) has launched a new hashtag fundraising campaign to support its Emergency Relief Fund (ERF), which has helped musicians in times of crisis since 1967. The local hopes that the hashtag #NotesForRelief will go viral, attracting donations from successful musicians and music lovers. The ERF supports professional musicians facing medical emergencies, family crisis, and career threatening medical conditions. You can read some of the ERF success stories and find out more information at local802erf.org.