Marius Nordal

Although I'm originally from NY, my parents moved to Seattle in 1949, when I was six. I took piano and violin lessons from a local teacher at age eight. I was growing up in that unfortunate era in pop music in the early 1950s where swing had died and rock'n'roll hadn't taken hold yet. It was totally bland city... all Doris Day, Mitch Miller and Frankie Lane. Then I heard Chuck Miller play Boogie Woogie on his recording of The House of Blue Lights. I was thirteen and immediately quit piano lessons and pursued jazz. That record became a number one hit and soon after, there was Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard in pop music and, around the same time in jazz, there was early Miles, Coltrane, Cannonball and Bill Evans, and five years later, Herbie, Tony, Wayne and Chick Corea too. An astounding musical era in which to be a teenager!

From a 1999 All About Jazz Interview

All About Jazz: Talk about your history. What got you into jazz?

Marius Nordal: Although I'm originally from NY, my parents moved to Seattle in 1949, when I was six. I took piano and violin lessons from a local teacher at age eight. I was growing up in that unfortunate era in pop music in the early 1950's where swing had died and rock 'n' roll hadn't taken hold yet. It was totally bland city... all Doris Day, Mitch Miller and Frankie Lane. Then I heard Chuck Miller play Boogie Woogie on his recording of "The House of Blue Lights." I was thirteen and immediately quit piano lessons and pursued jazz. That record became a number one hit and soon after, there was Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard in pop music and, around the same time in jazz, there was early Miles, Coltrane, Cannonball and Bill Evans, and five years later, Herbie, Tony, Wayne and Chick Corea too. An astounding musical era in which to be a teenager!

AAJ: How did your CD, Notoriety, evolve?

MN: Notoriety evolved, indirectly, because of Thad Jones. I discovered his big band writing in the early 1970's and was so overwhelmed by the power of his harmonies and rhythmic concept, that I started to imitate him. It seemed there was simply nothing else that could be so intelligent, earthy, shouting, modern and swinging at the same time. The result was that I started to lose my identity as a band writer, so I quit after fifteen years of being a pretty successful arranger/composer. I reverted to being a piano player and decided a couple of years ago that it was time to record, blending my organizational skills with the freedom to improvisation. By the way, today most writers sound like a watered down Thad Jones, and, after all these years, I still find him to be the greatest of all band writers.

AAJ: How is thinking as a composer similar/different from the mindset of a player?

MN: I can't separate the composing from the improvising. I spent so many intense years writing that all those painfully "discovered" ideas act as material I never would have discovered improvising from the fingertips. Conversely, when I'm engrossed in writing and get stuck for an idea, I would put down the pencil and just improvise a lot lick or something and it would work better than anything I could have "thought" of.

AAJ: Anything in mind for your next CD?

MN: On my next recording, I'll probably include a couple of Art Tatum transcriptions because, while many people seem to automatically acknowledge his greatness, few seem to actually have heard any of his music. I plan also to include some things appropriate for airplay on NPR jazz stations but then counter them with screaming tracks of "I Got Rhythm," "All the Things You Are," and some blues.

AAJ: How would you like to improve?

MN: I would like to learn to think more rhythmically and not just in strings of notes which just happen to have rhythm. Also, I'm about ready to write another jazz symphony. It would probably feature piano or sax and speak the jazz language but have a strong structure so it wouldn't just sound like movie music or a pop ditty with Muzak strings. Show less