Cover photo © 2023 Laura Carbone
It is generally accepted that a good “sideman” knows how to support the lead musicians without overshadowing them, knows when to take direction but can also improvise, can work well with other musicians, and is humble enough not to seek the spotlight, but instead focuses on helping the lead musician to sound his/her best. Saxophonist Mark Earley does all those things and more. You might not know his name, but you probably know his work, as he was a long-time member of Roomful of Blues and is currently a member of Victor Wainwright & the Train, and The Bender Brass Band. In addition, he has collaborated on stage and in the studio with many amazing artists, such as Duke Robillard, Albert Collins, James Cotton, Billy Boy Arnold, Ronnie Earl and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, just to name a few. Mark has been featured on numerous albums which have been nominated and/or won awards. For example, he played on Paul Gabriel’s and Gracie Curran’s albums, (which both were nominated for Best New Artist Debut awards at the 35th Annual Blues Music Awards), Billy Price & Otis Clay’s album (which won Blues Album of the Year at the 37th Annual Blues Music Awards), and was featured on two Grammy nominated albums by Victor Wainwright and the Train and Roomful Of Blues. Additionally, he has been inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
Mark was not born into a family of musicians. In fact, he noted that his father wouldn’t even play music in the car, but instead always had the news station playing on the radio.
“I always wondered where I got the ‘bug’ because my parents were not musicians. However, my mother loved music and I remember making fun of my mom when she would try to play her favorite song, Clair de Lune, on the piano. I did hear that my grandmother and her sisters on my father’s side were in a vocal church group in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina that practiced Shape Note Singing. Naturally, I don’t believe that my passion for music came from nowhere. Luckily, I was always highly encouraged by my parents to play and pursue my music, so maybe it skipped a generation. I have always felt very fortunate that I was always told by my parents that I could do anything I wanted to set my mind to.”
Aside from being a bonafide and unashamedly admitted Sonny Stitt fanatic, one of Mark’s strongest influences was being able to hear Joe Lovano play live early in life.
“My friends and I would drive up to Cleveland to the clubs to hear and sit in with the great blind organ player Eddie Baccus in East Cleveland and elsewhere in jam sessions. Sometimes I didn’t even know where I was. I just went along for the ride with my friends in search of great music. It was during this time I discovered Joe Lovano who became of my heroes. Joe would be home from the road from whatever he was doing at the time, and I would hear him play. Joe is prolific and famous in jazz circles. However, to me, Joe sounds like he plays blues. Many Blues folks may not hear the music in the way I do in that regard, but I’m ok with that. I heard him speak once at North Texas State, where I attended college and he said, ‘people don’t call me when they want a sax player—they call me when they want Joe Lovano—they want me.’ I think that would mean you’d arrived when that happens. To me, being called as a sideman for a gig because I’m Mark Earley and not just a sax player would be a goal for me–to be known for what I can individually bring to the table musically. That does happen sometimes but sometimes I get called just as ‘a sax player’ and for all of it I am truly grateful. I am grateful for all the work I am fortunate enough to be called upon to do, both in writing, recording sessions and live performances. I can learn something from any situation, but I will say this, if it were not for the blues, there would be no music in my world. Everything I do comes out of that music. Everything. In my work as an accompanist, I do enjoy realizing the vision of whoever has brought me onto a job, whether it is the bandleader, the writer, producer, or whoever is guiding the musical vision. I do think that is a strength of mine. I can ascertain fairly quickly what somebody is looking for. It’s not that in any given situation I am not being myself, because I am. But that is what being a sideman Is all about.”
Mark started playing the saxophone at the age of ten, (although he also plays flute, clarinet and a little piano). He took formal lessons and was in the school band. At the age of nineteen he was hired to go on tour in the Guy Lombardo Orchestra, and then joined a rock band called The Easy Street Band, where he basically imitated Clarence Clemmons. After a few false starts in college, (which led to him dropping out twice), he finished a bachelor’s degree in music performance with an emphasis on jazz at North Texas State University. Knowing both the blues and the jazz worlds well, he can become frustrated when jazz lovers claim the blues is “too simple.” And he noted his disappointment that the blues has never achieved the same recognition that jazz has been given.
“I wouldn’t call the blues simple. The blues is anything but simple. I would say it is as complicated an art form as anything else, if not more so–intensely complicated. The thing is this, it’s complicated in a way that is difficult to write down in regular western musical notation. ‘Jazz’ was the same historically, but it has changed since it has found its way into academia. If you listen to anyone who doesn’t know how the blues is supposed to go, it doesn’t matter how simply they play it—it just doesn’t sound right. Jazz has made its way into education almost at the expense of the blues. This aggravates me. There is a prejudice against blues in higher education. The blues is as deep and intricate as any other form of music to me. It’s an aural tradition. Somehow, people had the notion that bringing jazz into education was going to save music—sort of like a microcosm of Wynton Marsalis saving the Lincoln Center — and he may have just done that. But I get to see both worlds—the jazz world and the blues world. I interact with people in both camps often. In my view it’s bizarre that jazz is taught in school and blues is somehow shunned as substandard. It makes no sense to me. “
“When I was traveling out on the road with Roomful of Blues, and we had trouble filling the middle of the week as the times began to change and the money to book a big band started to become tighter, I would contact my old collegiate friends who were now music professors and ask if we could do a clinic along with a performance at their school for their students, and I couldn’t get anyone to bite. I mean here is this five-time Grammy-nominated and multiple Downbeat Magazine’s Blues Band of the Year offering to do a clinic and a concert, and I couldn’t get anyone to go for it. After all Roomful has ‘Blues’ in its name. Go figure. As leaders in this art form, we need to embrace the culture that jazz came from rather than just teaching ‘improvised classical music’. There was a time not that long ago that jazz and blues were the same thing. Now it seems the chasm between them is so vast it boggles the mind. I would attempt to explain this phenomenon based on two things: plain racism against the culture the music was born from, and an attempt to put jazz into a box of how music has been traditionally taught at the college level. They took the blues part out to simplify it and codify it, but without the blues, jazz has turned into some kind of improvised music that I cannot get behind. I guess I would call it a disrespect for the art form. To teach jazz or any commercial music without including the ethnomusicology element, (which is the blues, from which all popular music today has sprung), to me is a sin.”
“All the blues people I know think I’m a ‘jazz guy’, and all the jazz people I know think I’m a ‘blues guy’. I guess I’m somebody who sees those two things as not so different from each other. Sometimes I want to get up on my soapbox and say, ‘this is heavy—this is important’. The performers that recognize the beauty in blues are the ones I like to listen to and the ones who will tickle my muse. I spent six weeks on tour in Russia and Turkey, and I said to the Turks, ‘the blues is like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes.’ I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Mark is an adjunct faculty member at the Ipswich Public Schools, the Pingree School, and the Junior New England Jazz Camp. When asked about advice that he offers students, Mark noted that he sometimes mentions how he used to play with the senior center.
“Several years ago, I started playing Dixieland with the old guys in the afternoons at the senior centers around Boston and learned a ton of old songs, and it helped me with my understanding of the blues. The more of the older stuff I know, the further back I go into what I’m studying in order to make a valid contribution to the world musically. You know the phrase, the deeper the well, the sweeter the water? For me, it just makes sense to learn the music where all this music came from. I like to dig deep.”
Mark has played with some legends in the genre as well as playing for 18 years with Roomful of Blues.
“When I was on the gig with Kim Wilson’s Blues Review, I had the honor and distinct pleasure of being yelled at by Larry “The Mole” Taylor for not playing something just right. Joe Williams also scolded me too for just about the same thing. Valuable lessons. Jay McShann took three of us locals to back him up at The Cuyahoga Valley Heritage Festival in 1993. That was one of the highlights of my career. Talk about a masterful musician! He cradled us like a baby. He grabbed hold of us all and cradled us like babies with the lightest touch on that piano, so powerfully masterful. He carried all three of us. It was just the most amazing experience. The most masterful musicians can command such power with the lightest touch on their instruments. This has always been a joy for me to witness.”
“So, after 18 years with Roomful of Blues I decided it was time to move on. I wanted to be in ‘control of my own destiny’, I want to be able to say yes to other opportunities that were becoming available to me. I volunteered to outright quit due to the long standing ‘no sub” policy with the band but ended up staying on for four more years *with subs), when I was off doing other things. They just waited until they found the right guy for the job; and did they ever! Eventually they found this tremendous young sax player, Alek Razdan, from Rockport, MA. who was exactly what the doctor ordered–totally cut from the cloth of old school R&B saxophone playing, and perfect for Roomful. My time in Roomful of Blues was a true blessing under the mentorship of guitarist Chris Vachon and saxophonist Rich Lataille — in the band since 1970! Nearly all the opportunities I have had since then are an outgrowth of my relationship with that legendary band.”
Mark is now a member of Victor Wainwright’s band, but he noted that Wainwright is flexible enough to allow him to take advantage of the other opportunities. And he has tremendous respect for Wainwright’s talents.
“Everybody who has heard him play knows Victor is a phenomenal talent on the piano, but he is actually a terrific songwriter too. I think that is one of the things that sets him apart—some of those songs just rip your heart out. It was at the Bender several years ago that I went up to Victor and said, ‘listen, if you want some horns on one of your records, let me know. Doug (Woolverton), I believe approached him separately in about the same way, and we both ended up being on his next record produced by the genius of Dave Gross. Then the record became Grammy Nominated. After the recording Doug and I started playing live out on the road touring with the band as his horn section. When we started to do the next record, we knew the guys a lot better musically, so we were much more involved with what the horns would be contributing to it. I am very proud of those records we made with Victor and Dave. Victor is an enormous talent and his passion for music is unparalleled, and the band is a very talented group of young men. I however, am the token old guy fortunate to be included in the hang.”
Victor Wainwright expressed mutual admiration for Mark and noted the following about him. “Since joining my band almost eight years ago, Mark has continually demonstrated what it means to be a consummate professional, both on and off the stage. His friendly demeanor, his focus on the team, and his over-the-top talent and skill on the saxophone makes Mark the absolute best there is out there. What I love most about Mark’s playing is the emotion he conveys on the instrument, something on which all inspiring blues artists should take note. It’s very special indeed, and I’m proud he’s on our team.”
Jimmy Carpenter, (Musical Director and Talent Buyer for the Big Blues Bender), met Mark over twenty years ago when Carpenter was playing with Jimmy Thackery, and they shared a bill with Roomful of Blues. Their paths crossed several times over the years that followed, and Carpenter noted, “When I was looking to round out the Bender Brass, I knew Mark would be perfect. He is just a monster saxophonist, a fountain of cool ideas, and an all-around pleasure to work and hang with. We’ve traveled the world together, and I love him like a brother!”
The Big Blues Bender is an annual blues festival located entirely within one hotel in Las Vegas. The Bender is often described as being similar to a blues-themed cruise, but on land. Each year at the Big Blues Bender, the Bender Brass Band quickly learns an impressive number of songs so that they are easily able to back numerous “artists-at-large.” The Bender Brass have received so much notoriety that they were asked to serve the same function on the first Big Easy Cruise and are even getting their own bookings at festivals as a stand-alone band.
“That’s the premise of the whole thing—backing up artists like Bettye LaVette, Delbert McClinton, Bob Margolin, Johnny Sansone, Mike Zito, Shemekia Copeland, Jimmy Hall, Curtis Salgado—it is endless. And to make those artists not sorry that they didn’t bring their own band. It is really fun. And what talent there is in our house band. Mike Merritt, our bass player, spent 25 years or so on the Conan O’Brian show, not to mention playing with Johnny Copeland for years before that. He was there when Shemekia was born. Then there is Red Young. Look him up! What an astounding life in music. And Jimmy Carpenter—he is so talented and has done so much. The whole band is a wealth of amazing blues talent. And playing our own gigs out as The Bender Brass Band is something Jimmy and I were talking about when he brought me on board this thing. We thought we could possibly tour and do shows outside of the Bender with some of the artists that we enjoy backing up. Jimmy, Doug and I have done Blues Heaven in Denmark for the past several years as the horn section in much the same way we do the Bender, backing up artists who don’t carry a horn section on the road. We learn their songs and tear it up. It’s a blast. And now we have the entire Band on the Big Easy Cruise which I believe is going to be an annual thing. Thank you, Jimmy Carpenter, and thank you to the Big Blues Bender. I’ve had a very charmed life. I’ve done a lot of really great things.”
When asked if he had anything to add, Mark said the following:
“I’m just honored that Blues Blast asked me to do this interview, because I’m a sideman, I’m not a bandleader. I am not out front leading the band garnering the spotlight. I am on board to accompany the artists and that’s a role I take pride in doing well. When the time comes for me to step out and take a ride, I know what to do. I take the moment for myself, say what I can say and then pass the ball. I don’t feel like I do much other than try to open the window of what music I’ve learned and heard, and just let it come out. That seems to be the best result. Sometimes I feel the music is just coming through me from some other place, like I am just letting it out rather than creating it. I take this approach in the studio as well, and one thing I really enjoy is recording in my home studio. I have been putting horn parts on blues records as well as other projects. In a few short years I have done several full album projects including adding horns for records by Big Llou Johnson, Peter Poirier, two for Dave Keller, (one of which was nominated for the Soul Blues Music Award Album of the Year), and several others as well as individual songs for folks. This is something I am excited about. I do find fulfillment in writing horns for these blues records. I’ll do other music also, but the blues is what floats my boat. I was equipped before the pandemic, but it was during that time that I earned my bones on studio recording here at what I call ‘Earley Horn Works’, my recording studio. Occasionally I do get a call now and then from people who want me to lead a band for a show or a gig, but unless it’s instrumental cocktails and such I’ll usually find a singer and I’ll put a band together to back them up. I’ll take a gig that is mine and I’ll finagle a way to become a sideman on it. I know the cats and can find the right people for the mix, that’s what I do. I’m also just grateful that we can promote the blues in this article and grateful to have been given a voice to share my thoughts on the subject. I mean who is left? If you think about it–who is left that has actually played with Muddy Waters? (And it’s not me, just to be clear.) Is that the standard of measure in blues? Who is bearing the torch for this beautiful gift of music we all have inherited, rising out of the ashes like the Phoenix? We are. We’ve got to keep it going and keep it real after they are all gone.”
One thing is for sure – Mark Earley’s collaborations are not slowing down one bit and world-renowned artists are sure to continue to recognize his extraordinary talent. You can contact Mark at https://victorwainwright.com/mark-earley or www.facebook.com/markearleysaxophone
