Meet Ken Peplowski

This article was first published on All About Jazz in August 1998.

In numerous rave reviews, critics have exalted Ken Peplowski as the epitome of jazz traditionalism. But repeated listenings of his work reveals that Peplowski is perhaps more experimental and diverse than some have described him. It is worth noting that while Benny Goodman and Ben Webster are strong inspirations, Ken has also recorded songs by Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane (and even The Beatles).

His sound and intonation may recall the mid-1940s—when swing was giving way to bebop and giants like Coleman Hawkins, Ike Quebec and Woody Herman were excelling in both areas—but he has also shown an awareness of more recent developments ranging from third stream music to the bossa nova. Peps' strong interest in classical music asserted itself on his last album, the symphonic The Other Portrait, and continues to do so on his most project, A Good Reed.

"I've been trying to get away from being thought of as strictly a swing/traditionalist type player, which I've never really considered myself," the 38-year-old reedman asserts." Part of it is that I play the clarinet and I play a lot of standards; so people automatically think, OK, it must sound like Benny Goodman in 1940.' I think that Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw put such a strong mark on the clarinet that people automatically associate it with the Swing Era. Of course, if you study the clarinet,you are going to listen to Benny Goodman. So my first experience playing the clarinet was listening to swing. But as I went along, I listened to everyone from The Beatles to Ornette Coleman. I listen to all kinds of jazz and all kinds of music in general."

In 1996, Peplowski's need to experiment took him to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he joined forces with a symphony orchestra for The Other Portrait. Fusing jazz and classical, he embraced everything from Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" and Duke Ellington's "Single Petal of A Rose" to the works of 20th Century classical composers Witold Lutolawski ("Dance Preludes") and Darius Milhaud ("Concerto for Clarinet & Orchestra," a piece that Benny Goodman commissioned in 1941 but never recorded). Equally surprising but quite different is A Good Reed.

Eclectic and unpredictable, the CD ranges from big-band versions of "Royal Garden Blues"(which unearths a seldom heard arrangement by Ellington) and "I've Never Been In Love Before" to small-group material like Ellington's "Purple Gazelle," "Luck Be A Lady" (a song defined by Frank Sinatra) and bassist Greg Cohen's thoughtful "Dream Theme." Peplowski's sidemen on this effort range from Cohen (who has worked with avant-garde explorer John Zorn), pianist Ben Aronov and drummer Chuck Redd to the well-respected tenor saxophonist, journalist, jazz historian and educator Loren Schoenberg.

"A Good Reed is almost a companion to The Other Portrait," Peplowski explains. "Both albums are trying to bridge the gap between the written and the improvised. I'm trying to branch out and find new ways of looking at jazz and new ways of playing the music that I like. I spent a lot of time on the sequencing so that there would be a definite flow and a continuity to it. I didn't want to just lump all of the songs together."

The improviser's passion for European classical music is especially strong on "Homage Concerto," a 17-minute piece that was written for him by guitarist/arranger James Chirillo and employs the big band. "When I've played Homage Concerto' live," he notes, "people have asked me which parts are written and which are improvised—they weren't sure. That was what I was hoping for."

Asked to compare the big band employed on A Good Reed to the symphony orchestra heard on The Other Portrait, Peplowski quickly responds: "I think that with a big band, you definitely have a closer feeling to the musicians. All of you are playing jazz and have embraced that element of improvisation—so there's a common bond. All of you have familiar waters. It's like friends getting together. But with a symphony orchestra, it's more intimidating because it's not something you do all the time. There's more distance between you and them. Playing classical music with an orchestra, you're trying to bring new life to something that's almost written in stone."

The reedman adds: "When I was playing those classical pieces on The Other Portrait, I wanted to play them the way I would play a standard and put a lot of emotion into them—as opposed to just doing a dry, clinical reading."

Though Reed does contain a few standards (including "Royal Garden Blues" and "I've Never Been In Love Before"), Peplowski also made a point of giving some less obvious gems a chance. "Purple Gazelle" is a lesser known Ellington gem that The Duke recorded with John Coltrane in 1962. One of the CD's small-group offerings, "Gazelle" finds Peplowski sticking to clarinet and featuring Schoenberg on tenor sax.

Ellington's music has been one of Peplowski's greatest passions since childhood. The Cleveland native, born on May 23, 1959, took up the clarinet in the fourth grade and grew up listening to a variety of jazz, rock and R&B. Peplowski was majoring in clarinet at Cleveland State when he got his first big break and was hired to tour with the Tommy Dorsey "ghost orchestra" in 1978. (Dorsey himself had died in 1956). He was on the road with that band when he met alto/tenor hero Sonny Stitt, under whose tutelage he soon fell.

After moving to New York in 1980, he went on to play with such greats as George Shearing, Jimmy McPartland, Hank Jones and Charlie Byrd. Peps' lyrical nature resulted in him being employed by celebrated vocalists Mel Torme, Peggy Lee and Rosemary Clooney.

In the ten years he's been with Concord, Peplowski has recorded over a dozen albums—the first of which was his 1987 date Double Exposure. His subsequent concord offerings ranged from 1989's Sonny Side (an acknowledgment of Stitt's influence) to Groovin' High (which united him with Scott Hamilton and Spike Robinson in a three-tenor front line) to a duet with guitarist and frequent companion Howard Alden for Vol. 3 of the Concord Duo Series. In 1994, he was joined by trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison for his first live album, Live At Ambassador Auditorium.

One of Peps' best studio recordings ever was 1995 album It's A Lonesome Old Town, which featured trumpeter Tom Harrell, pianist Marian McPartland and guitarist Charlie Byrd. Town found him demonstrating how well The Beatles' "In My Life" could work in a straight-ahead jazz setting. While Peplowski has expressed no interest in recording fusion and prefers an acoustic setting, he's far from a "jazz snob."

"Sonny Stitt always told me that the most important thing is to be true to yourself," Peplowski recalls. "Sonny said, People can have opinions, but only you really know whether you're being true to yourself.' And I know that I have. If I deprived myself of the chance to play songs that I enjoy—whether they're by Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman or The Beatles—it would be dishonest."

"A lot of jazz musicians are strangely conservative in their tastes," he adds. "They'll tell you, 'I only listen to jazz recorded before 1960, and I never listen to rock.' But to me, that's such a loss. You're depriving yourself of so much. And I don't want to deprive myself. I want to be honest with myself and at the same time, continue to throw myself into unfamiliar, challenging situations."

"I don't want to stay inside a comfort zone. I want to take risks, try out new things and experiment. And with albums like The Other Portrait and A Good Reed, I'm confident that I'm doing exactly that."

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