Ken Peplowski: Remembering a Magnificent Reedman

On February 3rd, I went out to shovel snow and buy some groceries. When I got back home, I checked messages. The first, just two sentences long, was from sax player Kevin Buster: “My condolences on Ken. I am glad you introduced me to his music.” That’s how I learned that Ken Peplowski had died. There were other messages; word was spreading quickly.

I was stunned. I’m writing this a few days after his passing, and I’m still processing the news.

For my money, Ken Peplowski (May 23rd, 1959 – February 2nd, 2026) was the greatest clarinet player of his generation. His sound was instantly recognizable, he swung, he had complete control of his instrument, and he played with warmth. He spurred a revival of interest in clarinet in the jazz world. Ken was equally strong on tenor sax. (And boy! That’s rare.) He could pick up that old Conn tenor sax, and play with such commitment and fire, you forgot everything else. (If you’re not familiar with his tenor sax playing, I think one album he made for Concord with Scott Hamilton and Spike Robinson, Groovin’ High, is a delight from start to finish.)

He was also as big-hearted and likeable as anyone I knew, and had a dry, self-deprecating wit. He really knew the whole history of jazz, and he really loved the music. He was a great favorite of mine. I was happy to write some liner notes for him, and to profile him in my book, In the Mainstream. For the past 20 years (since the passing of Kenny Davern), he was my favorite living clarinetist. And one of my favorite tenor players. He was funny, extraordinarily talented, and humble. (That’s not a commonly found combination.) He was widely loved.

I knew well the serious health challenges that Ken had faced over the past five years. He’d been fighting a blood cancer (multiple myeloma) for which there was no cure; doctors could simply strive to manage it as best they could, for as long as they could. Between the cancer and the medical bills, there were lots of stresses in his life. But he was playing with such joy and creativity, and verve, I just imagined he’d be around for many more years. I wanted to believe that. I was looking forward to seeing his next gig at Birdland, if my own health permitted. His death came as a surprise to everyone.

He was working up until the very end. He died just hours after completing a set on the annual “Jazz Cruise,” which he always enjoyed being a part of; he liked both the music and the camaraderie. He was doing the work he loved, surrounded by friends and colleagues.

He posted on Facebook the photo that I’m sharing here (which John Pizzarelli took) of himself with jazz singer Catherine Russell, just a few days before his passing. He was 66. And always so enthusiastic about life, he seemed, to me, eternally youthful.

I just want to offer some remembrances, and recall his rise to fame. (The photos I’m sharing are a mix of photos I took and photos provided to me by Ken over the years.)

I had great belief in Ken from the time I first met him, 46 years ago. He was then a totally “unknown” 20-year-old who’d recently been hired by Buddy Morrow to play lead alto sax and clarinet in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. And even then, his clarinet work dazzled me.

Morrow had worked with top “name” leaders during the Swing Era—including Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and Artie Shaw—before forming his own big band and later going on to long lead the Tommy Dorsey “ghost” band. And he was a consummate musician. He really cared about the music he played, and he made sure his musicians captured every nuance just right, as they played numbers Dorsey had made famous, such as “Song of India,” “Boogie Woogie,” “Opus One.” He really did an exceptional job in the years he led the Dorsey band. Most critics, alas, ignored the “ghost bands.” But I went to see the Morrow-led Tommy Dorsey Band any chance I could; Morrow maintained impeccably high standards. (As he told me, his goal was always to make music; he didn’t want to lead a band that sounded like an automaton.)

Morrow had such great faith in Peplowski—Morrow could so clearly recognize his talent and potential, right from the start—he did something that I never saw him do with any other player, before or after Peplowski’s tenure in the band. In 1980, in the middle of a concert in New Jersey that I attended, Morrow brought Peplowski down in front of the band, and said that the stage was his. And then Morrow left the stage.

Peplowski, backed only by the rhythm section, swung into an extended rendition of “Oh, Lady be Good.” And it was clear he was a virtuoso. This wasn’t a Dorsey-associated number. It wasn’t a Dorsey Band arrangement. In fact, it wasn’t an arrangement at all; it was Peplowski, a jazz artist, improvising on a song he liked. And wowing us.

Morrow was giving Peplowski the time and freedom to play whatever he wanted. For a big “name” bandleader to give that kind of exposure to a 20-year-old “unknown” that he’d just hired was extraordinary. (When Peplowski worked for Benny Goodman, later in the decade, Goodman certainly didn’t let Peplowski do any clarinet soloing, or any kind of feature on his own.) But Peplowski’s playing that night, in the Dorsey Band’s concert, just knocked me out.

I wondered how it was possible that someone could play that well and still be unknown. It felt like a fully developed talent had suddenly emerged from out of nowhere. I asked him, after the concert, where he’d come from, who he’d worked with. He said this was his first big-name job. He and his brother Ted—two years older than him—had formed a polka band, the Harmony Kings, when he was about eight, in their home town of Garfield Heights, Ohio.

I couldn’t imagine how playing in a polka band could help prepare him for jazz; but he said that if his brother was playing the melody on trumpet, and he was improvising around the melody on clarinet, that was actually very good preparation for jazz. That’s exactly what he’d be doing in a Dixieland band, he noted. He was largely self-taught.

And he listened to all sorts of jazz records, growing up; and to the jazz musicians and big bands that came through the region, including Benny Goodman—his favorite—whom he saw “live” in small-group settings, and various touring big bands, such as Woody Herman’s and Stan Kenton’s, and the Dorsey band.

Ken played locally for about a dozen years. Morrow had chanced to hear him in Cleveland, offered him a job, and had been wonderfully supportive. I was impressed by all of this.

The next year, 1981, Buddy Morrow and the Dorsey Band recorded an album for MCA Records. Morrow told me he wasn’t really satisfied with the album; Tommy Dorsey’s widow, not Morrow, had had final say over what tunes to record. But Morrow had gladly given Peplowski great solo exposure throughout the album. And he sure liked Peplowski’s work. But neither critics nor the general public was taking much notice of new recordings by ghost bands.

Not long after that, when Morrow heard that his old friend and erstwhile boss, Artie Shaw, wanted to organize a new big band and was looking for someone to lead it and play Shaw’s famous clarinet solos, Morrow recommended Peplowski for the job, and got Ken an audition with the Willard Alexander Agency, which would be booking the band. Again, Ken loved Morrow’s generous spirit; Morrow simply wanted to help him.

In the end, Shaw picked a more seasoned clarinetist—58-year-old Dick Johnson, a real Artie Shaw buff—for the job. And for years, that became Johnson’s identity—serving as a kind of Artie Shaw surrogate. Peplowski was disappointed at the time that he didn’t get the job—it certainly would have meant more income for him and more visibility. But getting typecast as an Artie Shaw clone would probably have been an artistic dead-end for him.

Peplowski always enjoyed chatting with Morrow—listening to stories from his long career—almost as much as playing in the band. He was learning a lot, just listening to Morrow reminisce. He wondered, had Morrow had any regrets? Morrow said he had very few regrets, but he shared one in case Peplowski might learn from what he felt was his mistake. Morrow said that back in the 1940s Benny Goodman had invited him to join his band. Morrow wanted to do it; Goodman was one of the greatest of all players. But he listened to some pals who’d been fired by Goodman; they told him: “Don’t join Benny’s band. He’s too tough on musicians. He won’t treat you well; you won’t like it.” He turned down Goodman and went instead with another bandleader who wasn’t as great a player. He always regretted that. Even if Goodman had been rough on him, he felt he could have learned a lot from him. And over the years, he’d met other musicians who’d had very good experiences with Goodman. Morrow’s reflections on Goodman gave Peplowski food for thought.

While touring with the Dorsey Band, Peplowski got to meet jazz saxist Sonny Stitt, and jam with him. And words Stitt told him stayed with him: “The bottom line is, if you’re at 100% and you’re playing for yourself, and you’re being completely honest with yourself and you’re making the best music you can make, that’s all that matters.” They got to re-connect a few times in the next year. Peplowsi was impressed, too, that Stitt was playing so well, putting everything he could into his music, even though he acknowledged he was fighting cancer. “He played well, right to the end,” Peplowski noted; Stitt died in 1982.

Peplowski and Morrow grew very close as friends. Morrow encouraged him to move to New York, and try to make it as a freelance jazz musician. If Peplowski could save up the funds to make the move, Morrow felt, he would grow more as a musician freelancing in New York—the jazz capitol of the world—than staying with the band. Peplowski was impressed that Morrow really wanted what was best for him. The Dorsey band was laying off for the next month. Peplowski and Morrow both felt that he’d learned all he could playing in the band.

Peplowski took a job playing reeds in the national touring company of the popular Broadway musical Annie, in order to save up money to move to New York. The job paid more than the Dorsey Band, and he needed the funds. Morrow supported his decision and wished him well, noting that every job is a learning experience.

Within three days of touring with Annie, Ken told me, he felt he’d made a mistake. He hated playing the exact same music, the exact same way, night after night. There was no room for creativity. And he learned that he simply was not cut out for this kind of work. He was totally bored. He stayed long enough to save up the funds he needed to make the move, then set off for the Big Apple.

New York did not initially seem like the most welcoming place to live. Someone broke into Peplowski’s car, to try to steal what little he had in the car, within two weeks of his arrival in New York City. But he was thrilled to be there. And little by little, he made friends, found like-minded musical cohorts, and began picking up gigs.

When he made his debut as a group leader in a club, I hailed him in the New York Post as a new “Clarinet King.” One of the other newspaper jazz critics—who’d never heard of Peplowski and thought Peplowski was playing in an “unimportant club”—gave me grief for praising an unknown so strongly, telling me: “It’s not our job to discover new talent.” I told him, “That’s ridiculous. Peplowski’s the best new clarinetist to hit New York in years—and of course it’s our job to discover new talent.”

I had an amazing editor back then at the New York Post, V. A. Musetto, who gave me absolute freedom to go to whatever clubs, halls, or theaters I wanted, and if I thought someone was worth writing about, I could write about them. He’d tell me: “You’re the expert. If you think somebody’s good, let us know.” If I felt like writing an article titled “Ten Unknowns Who Deserve Record Contracts,” Musetto would print it. And I hated the idea—which some writers and editors subscribed to—that some venues were “unimportant” and not deserving of any coverage. Often, those “unimportant” rooms were where you first saw important, emerging artist-to-watch. I never met another newspaper writer in New York who enjoyed the freedom I had in my 18 years writing for the Post. For me, it was a lot of fun.

Peplowski was playing wherever he could find work. The big “name” clubs, like the Blue Note and the Village Vanguard, weren’t going to book a total unknown. But if he got a gig at some much-less-well-known New York club (like, say, the long-gone “J’s”), he’d play his heart out, sometimes playing clarinet, tenor, and alto sax in the course of one night. I’d marvel at the way he might go from playing, say, an Irving Berlin number to an Ellington number, to a Coltrane number, and make it all flow so easily, so naturally, and somehow feel so connected.

I got to see him play with equal zest, whether he was somewhere playing one night for patrons who really were into the music (like at Eddie Condon’s Club, run by Ed Polcer) or for patrons who seemed more interested in eating and talking than in the music (as I witnessed one night at Cleopatra’s Needle).

I told Carl Jefferson, head of Concord Records, that he should sign Peplowski. He said he hadn’t yet seen Peplowski “live,” but he’d gotten the same recommendation from Scott Hamilton and Warren Vache—his label’s outstanding young jazz stars—and he was intrigued. We were just chatting over spaghetti and meatballs in midtown Manhattan; by dinner’s end, Carl was saying that maybe he’d record Peplowski as a sideman first, then give him a shot as a leader, and see how it went. He noted ruefully: “If I sign an unknown and let him record one album a year as a leader, I’m taking a big risk. Because it’ll usually take about five years before the albums he’s making will begin to pay for themselves. And once an unknown has made a good name for himself and his albums are finally beginning to sell, some bigger label with deeper pockets may well steal him away from me.” But if Jefferson liked an artist, he was willing to take such risks. It was his company, he alone made the decisions on who to record, and he wanted to record musicians he liked. He’d made his money owning a car dealership, and had initially gotten into the music business almost as a lark. But he had great instincts, and he made Concord Jazz an important independent record company.

Before too long, “Peps”—as Peplowski was nicknamed—was a star on the Concord label. I was delighted to write some liner notes for him. Jefferson was happily surprised to see how much radio airplay Peplowski’s albums were soon getting. And—just as Jefferson had predicted—other labels started making bids for Peplowski’s services. (One record company, which had previously rejected Peplowski, even offered to release as an album the demo tape that he’d sent them.)

But Peplowski was loyal, and stayed with Concord for as long as Jefferson lived, about a decade. He got to make small-group records and big-band records, and work with musicians he greatly admired. (He told me he always loved working with musicians he thought were better than him; he’d learn from them.)

Since Carl Jefferson’s passing in 1995, Concord has grown into a big corporate conglomerate, active in multiple fields of the entertainment business. (Concord’s theatrical division even publishes and licenses a couple of my plays.) It’s no longer the sort of place where one man can make a decision to offer a record contract to an unknown simply because a few people whose opinions he valued told him: “This player is great; he deserves a record deal.” It’s more bottom-line oriented. It’s a big, financially successful company. And I wish them well. But a part of me misses the Concord Records company that Carl Jefferson founded and headed, producing mainstream jazz records reflecting his own personal taste. Carl Jefferson brought together an incredible array of artists and helped them thrive. He deserves recognition and credit for all that he accomplished.

Peplowski subsequently enjoyed recording for Nagel Heyer, Stomp Off, Jazzology, Arbors, and other record companies. He liked working with independent labels run by individuals whom he felt really appreciated the music he and his colleagues were making. He greatly valued these independent labels, run by people who really loved mainstream and traditional jazz.

When Peplowski first moved to New York, he knew almost no one. Sax player/arranger Mark Lopeman, who had been his bandmate

in the Tommy Dorsey Band, had moved to New York a little before Peplowski, and helped open some doors for him, getting him work, for example, as a sub with a big band out on Long Island, Peplowski told me.

But Ken was such a good player, and so easy to work with, word of his abilities spread quickly among musicians. New York had a wonderful, sizable group of younger players who were into older styles of music (Scot Hamilton, Chris Flory, Mike LeDonne, Phil Flanagan, Warren Vache, Peter Ecklund, Mike Hashim, Jordan and Randy Sandke, Loren Schoenberg, Howard Alden, John Pizzarelli Jr., to name just a few), and he found work quicker than he’d anticipated. I’d see Ken turn up in all sorts of places. He became a member of Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks (then based at the Red Blazer Too on 46th Street); I’d enjoy seeing him in that terrific big band, faithfully re-creating arrangements (including classic solos) from the 1920s and ‘30s. I enjoyed seeing him play with the Orphan Newsboys, co-led by Mart Grosz and Peter Ecklund. The Orphan Newsboys played numbers from the 1920s and ’30s, originally recorded by Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and others, but made no attempt to re-create vintage arrangements; they offered their own fresh new takes on timeless older numbers like “I’ll Be a Friend with Pleasure,” “At the Jazz Band Ball,” and “Once in a While.”

Veteran musicians like Buck Clayton, Max Kaminsky, and Jimmy McPartland loved Peplowski. And he sounded great with their bands. Jimmy McPartland (1907-1991) was 52 years older than Peplowski. He liked the fact that Peplowski not only played brilliantly, he knew whatever songs McPartland wanted to play—even ones Jimmy had recorded some 30 years before Ken was born. I remember Jimmy beaming appreciatively as Ken soloed, when Jimmy was a guest on his wife, Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz radio show; I attended that taping; Jimmy couldn’t have been happier. And he took Ken with him on a jazz cruise to Bermuda. And Buck Clayton always spoke so appreciatively of Peps.

Benny Goodman was Peplowski’s favorite clarinetist, Peplowski told me. But there were so many clarinetists he enjoyed, like Jimmy Hamilton (from the Ellington Orchestra), Jimmie Noone (a great favorite of Ken’s), Edmond Hall, Johnny Dodds, Don Murray (from Bix’s band), Jimmy Dorsey, Albert Nicholas, Pee Wee Russell, Buddy DeFranco. Listening to one record would make him listen to another; he enjoyed lots of New Orleans players, as well.

Curiously, he didn’t warm up to Artie Shaw when he first heard him; young Peplowski was firmly in the Benny Goodman camp. It took him time, he told me, to fully appreciate Shaw’s wholly different style and sound. He came to admire Shaw’s playing very much, and recognize that Shaw’s best solos (like on “Stardust”) were among the greatest in jazz history.

Ken’s apartment was filled with recordings. I think he owned and knew by heart seemingly every recording Frank Sinatra ever made, including outtakes and rejected sides. And he was so enthusiastic about music he liked, I enjoyed being around him.

“Listen to this!” he’d tell me, before playing a Sinatra recording. “He’s such a good singer. I mean, really, just LISTEN to this. He’s really, really good!” He didn’t have to convince me, of course; I loved Sinatra. But I loved the sheer joy Ken could take in a recording. He spoke about Sinatra as if he’d just discovered some “unknown” whose talent amazed him, and he wanted everyone in the world to know about him. He’d listen to recordings of artists he liked with a kind of wonder. I can close my eyes and hear him telling me, regarding Sinatra: “I mean it, Chip; listen to what he does here; he’s really good.”

He could wax equally enthusiastic about Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Rosemary Clooney, Jimmy Rushing, Bing Crosby…. And also early Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Beatles. He had big ears.

He wanted to know the whole history of popular music and jazz, and he assumed that any good musician would feel the same way. He was sorely disappointed when he worked with some musicians—as occasionally happened—who didn’t share his knowledge or curiosity about music. I remember him telling me one time about a young trumpeter he’d hired as a last-minute replacement for a gig: “Chip, he had this great tone, and great chops. But he didn’t know any of the tunes I wanted to play—tunes everyone knows, like ‘If I Had You,’ ‘What’s New?,’ ‘I’ll See You in my Dreams.’ He’d say: ‘I never heard of those songs; pick something else.’ I think he knows a total of, like, 12 songs.” Peplowski couldn’t understand how any player could have such great technical skills but not know a song like “If I Had You” or “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” Ken didn’t just know the melodies to the songs he loved; he could sing every word of them, and that added to the musicality of his playing.

He delighted in the fact that he got to work and record with so many artists he admired: Scott Hamilton, Ruby Braff, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Kenny Davern, Hank Jones, George Shearing, Dick Hyman, Andy Stein, George Wein, Randy Sandke, Frank Vignola, Paula West, John Pizzarelli, Leon Redbone, Charlie Byrd, Steve Allen, Jim Cullum Jr., Howard Alden, Dan Barrett, Terry Waldo, Marianne Faithful, Marty Grosz, Peter Ecklund, Barbara Lea, Loren Schoenberg, Lucie Arnaz, Jay Leonhart, Jake Hanna.

He had strong work ethic, and he liked trying all different kinds of music. You never knew where he might be working next. He’d bring jazz programs to public schools. (He believed it was important to introduce jazz to young people.) He’d turn up on film and TV soundtracks (Sweet and Lowdown, Six Feet Under, The Polka King, The Human Stain, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, The Hangover: Part Two). He enjoyed playing hard-driving blues until two or three in the morning at Mr. Hicks, an all-Black club in Freeport, Long Island that booked Hammond B-3 organ / tenor sax / drum combinations. He’d often be the only white person in the room, he acknowledged; he always felt welcome.

Sax player Allen Lowe—who often worked with players considered avant-garde or experimental, such as Julius Hemphill, Hamiett Bluiett, Mark Ribot, Roswell Rudd, Matthew Shipp—chanced to meet Peplowski one time at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Lowe recalls, of his meeting with Peplowski: “I found myself sitting next to Ken who, to my surprise, had listened to some of my things with Julius Hemphill, plus a long piece I recorded for Enja. We started talking and he said: ‘You know, people think all I can do are Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw tributes. But I can do a lot of things. Call me if you are recording something, I like to stretch myself.’”

Some years later, Lowe went to see Peplowsi playing at Smalls jazz club in New York City. He told Peplowski of a new recording project he was working on and asked if he’d like to be part of it. Lowe remembers: “He was happy to do it and we discussed times to rehearse and then record. That was the first of three or four recordings we made together and I am so happy I got the chance to get Ken into the studio. Not only was he a brilliant clarinetist—not to mention a wonderful tenor saxophonist—but he fit in with everything. He even recorded with Matt Shipp on an open piece I wrote. It was all just beautiful music. I will never forget Ken, who was kind and funny and an artist.”

Of all the gigs Peplowski got after moving to New York, none meant more to him than becoming a member of Benny Goodman’s last big band. He was in the Goodman band from 1984 to Goodman’s passing in 1986. Goodman initially took over Loren Schoenberg’s excellent rehearsal band; but he kept making personnel changes and rehearsing the band until it was clearly and unmistakably his own.

Goodman was a hard taskmasker, and so focused on his music that he could often seem insensitive to, or oblivious to, other people. He had plenty of detractors. But Peplowski was not one of them. Oh, Ken could see Goodman’s far-from-perfect social skills, and he understood why some musicians complained about how Goodman had treated them. But Peplowski stressed to me—both during his tenure with Goodman and in later years, reminiscing—that Goodman was always great to him. “He gave me raises; he called me daily; when I got married, he sent a lovely note and wedding present; and he tried to get me a record contract with the label he was working with—even offering to produce the album himself.”

Peplowski saw Goodman fire musicians as casually as he would discard a reed for his clarinet that didn’t meet his high standards. But Goodman kept Peplowski on, featuring him on tenor. And Peplowski admired Goodman’s skills as both a player and as a leader who wanted the best possible band.

I remember attending a rehearsal of Benny Goodman’s band, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in NYC, October 7th 1985. Goodman was a bit late in arriving and pianist Dick Hyman was running the rehearsal in his absence. Hyman would call a tune; the band would run through it a couple of times; Hyman would be pleased; and they’d move on to the next number. I thought the band sounded terrific.

When Goodman arrived, it was like there was electricity in the air. Everyone came to attention, like the boss had arrived and everyone had to be at their best. And he was extraordinarily exacting, as he rehearsed his musicians. He had the saxes play one phrase over and over, and over and over until he was satisfied they were playing it exactly as arranger Fletcher Henderson had intended, then he repeated the process with the next phrase. I was fascinated. I felt privileged to be there, sitting in as a guest at a closed rehearsal.

During a break, Goodman warmly hugged drummer Louie Bellson, chatting with him like an old friend he had not seen in far too long. We spoke briefly. He was happy with the band, and with his decision to focus on Fletcher Henderson—his personal favorite of the arrangers he’d worked with. He wanted to re-record his old hits with this band, then do an album of Henderson arrangements that he’d never recorded. (Only his death in June of 1986 prevented him from realizing that latter dream.)

The band’s performance that night was taped for a public-television special. Peplowski got nice solo moments on numbers like “King Porter Stomp” and “I Would do Most Anything for You.”

When Benny died, the band had bookings stretching through the next year. The band played just one concert without Benny, in his memory, then broke up for good. And the musicians went their separate ways.

Filled with positive energy, Ken had a good impact on a lot of people—myself included. He could get philosophical about jazz, too. And his views on the artform influenced my own. May I give one small example from my own life?

I’ve sung on a dozen albums. I’ve always felt comfortable in recording studios because I acted professionally as a child and did my first recording work when I was about 10. But it was Ken, more than anyone else, who influenced how I go about making a recording as an adult. He believed in creating recordings that, as he’d tell me, felt “organic”—recordings that were not over-rehearsed, not over-produced. Created by sympathetic artists performing in the same studio at the same time, where they could see and hear one another, and create together That was the way the early jazz records we both loved so much were made. That was the way he liked to record. He told me that the benefits of recording that way outweighed any potential drawbacks.

His philosophy, which I liked a lot, was different from those of some commercial pop record producers I’ve known; they wanted recordings as “clean” and precise and flaw-free as possible. But Ken felt that if you had each individual recording in a separate isolation booth, and everyone worrying about overdubbing “fixes” of anything that might conceivably be considered a blemish, you were liable to wound up with recordings that were bloodless and mechanical.

He told me that if I recorded, say, a vintage blues with musicians I liked, and we were all sort of feeding off of each others’ energy, we’d be more likely to create something filled with life than if we did a lot of overdubbing and inserts, and edits, to try to “perfect” every bar after-the-fact. He liked recordings that reflected what actually happened when artists got together to make music. And felt that trying to “fix” every imaginable blemish, via overdubs and edits, as some producers strived to do, was counter-productive; the music wound up feeling sanitized. He wanted music to feel vital and honest.

He’d tell me: “Listen to any old record that you like—Louis Armstrong, Benny, Charlie Parker, anybody—there’s mistakes all over the place. I like those rough edges. That’s why people like jazz, because everybody’s making things up on the spot; they don’t know what’s going to happen.” He could record a great album in five hours—just one or two takes for each number; no overdubs or edits. I liked that way of making music a lot. I found it inspirational.

“Music is my life,” he told one interviewer in Japan, a few years back. “Jazz is like poetry. I don’t need to think, but just express myself….. We can communicate and unite through music.”

I’ll miss Ken. The things he’d say, the well-written blogs that he’d periodically create, and of course the music that he made. He left a rich legacy.