Ken Peplowski 1
A very good place to start
If we’re lucky, we find a handful of people throughout life with whom there is immediate rapport, and we’re even more fortunate if it blossoms into a friendship that lasts throughout the years. There may be ups and downs, periods of estrangement and reunion, but that essential bond can never be broken. Nothing was beyond the pale when it came to Ken’s sense of humor. I know he found some peace and balance in maintaining it, all the more so especially in his last, incredibly challenging and frequently painful years. I mention this in the context of Ken’s willingness to share his cancer diagnosis with his public; this was not only theraputic for him, but also afforded great inspiration to others facing the same reality.
His legacy is the music - always the music.
When Ken mounted the bandstand, he brought with him a mood, a sensibility that became apparent after just a few measures. He did it with understatement, all the more incredible when you realize that he could easily have used his overwhelming technique to dazzle. Yes, he did dazzle, but it was an earned dazzle, deep into the set, when it really meant something compared to what had come first.
I met Ken Peplowski shortly after he moved to New York in 1982. To say he was leaps and bounds ahead of me as a musician isn’t saying very much, but he was equally far ahead of even the most gifted of our peers. It wasn’t just his technical virtuosity, it was the maturity and originality of his playing. Listen to him play on those heartbreakingly wonderful moments captured just a couple of weeks ago, including on his very last night on earth. It’s the same guy, the same voice that we all heard 40+ years ago. Yes, he and his music grew and deepened, but his basic identity was already firmly in place.
As the shock of his sudden passing wears off and the reality of missing him and his music becomes ever more apparent, I’ll be sharing various angles and aspects of his life and music here, joined by his longtime friends.
In late 2021, Ken joined me and his close friend, drummer Kevin Dorn, for a series of online listening sessions dedicated to the original Benny Goodman Trio and Quartet recordings - the ones with Teddy Wilson. Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa, made between 1935 and 1937. You’ll find some other related recordings slipped in there, including the odd rarity.
I loved hearing Ken talk about them, as we had never got into this kind of analysis beyond the cursory “aren’t they great”, “wow!”, and “let’s play it again”. Although the critics/media loved to tag Ken as a Benny Goodman clone or disciple, the truth is he sounded nothing like him! He knew Goodman’s music intimately, but from an historical perspective as well as from an instrumental one. I like to think that Ken, Kevin, and I formed our own improvisatory trio during the series.
Here is the YouTube playlist of the 11 sessions we did, and through them you’ll meet the Ken that so many of us treasured off the bandstand.