Very Short Version Mark Lewis is a Seattle area native and well-traveled jazz saxophonist / flutist who has created a large body of music, including over 1,700 compositions. He’s been a part of music scenes from Seattle and San Francisco to Rotterdam and Paris. Mark recently won #2 for alto sax and #3 for flute for his album The New York Session in the 39th Annual Jazz Station Awards out of Los Angeles. The album was recorded in NYC with veteran players George Cables, Victor Lewis and Essiet Essiet. “Mark’s sound is the truth” – Bobby Watson, jazz saxophonist “A Northwest treasure” – Jim Wilke, Jazz Northwest on KNKX, Seattle Short Version Mark Lewis is master of the alto sax, baritone sax, flute and piano; author of approximately 1,700 compositions; and has recorded and produced more than thirty albums on various labels. His latest album, The New York Session, features piano legend George Cables, veteran bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis. Mark was recently rated number two for alto saxophone (after Richie Cole) and number three for flute (after Charles Lloyd and Hubert Laws) in the 39th Annual Jazz Station Awards out of Los Angeles for his work on this album. A well-traveled saxophonist and flutist, he’s been a part of jazz scenes from Seattle and San Francisco to Rotterdam and Paris. Rotterdam, the Netherlands was Mark's home base for many years. He toured and played in the better clubs throughout Europe, and taught jazz theory and improvised music classes in several music conservatories. Mark lived and performed for several years in San Francisco and Victoria, BC as well. Jazz musicians Mark has performed and recorded with include pianists George Cables, Willem Kühne, Mark Levine, Overton Berry and Ted Gioia; drummers Victor Lewis, Candy Finch, Frans van Grinsven and Eddie Moore; bassists James Long, Hein van de Geyn, David Friesen, Larry Grenadier and Chuck Metcalf; saxophonists Noah Howard and Art Foxall; trumpet player Randy Brecker; and vibraphonists Bobby Hutcherson and Lodewijk Bouwens. Mark often subbed for Stan Getz and John Handy during his time in San Francisco. |
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Medium Version Seattle area native Mark Lewis is a well-traveled saxophonist and flutist who has created a large body of jazz music over the past four decades. He’s been a part of jazz scenes from Seattle and San Francisco to Rotterdam and Paris. His new album, The New York Session, features piano legend George Cables, veteran bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis. Born in Tacoma and raised on a farm outside of nearby Gig Harbor, Mark Lewis absorbed music from both sides of his family. His paternal grandmother was a concert pianist, and his maternal grandfather played saxophone (a C melody horn that Lewis started playing at age nine). Despite profound visual impairment, he had free run of the family hi-fi system and soaked up Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Art Tatum while investigating his parents’ record collection. Lewis’s waking hours were filled with music through his school years, and he went on to study composition, flute, electronic music, and piano at Western Washington University and the Cornish Institute of Allied Arts. Settling in Seattle, Lewis started performing regularly at Norm Bobrow’s Jazz at the Cirque showcase, and quickly found invaluable colleagues and mentors amongst resident masters like Art Foxall, Bea Smith, Dee Daniels, and Buddy Catlett. Drum master Otis “Candy” Finch, who moved to Seattle after a sterling New York career recording with heavyweights like Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock and Dizzy Gillespie, recognized Lewis’s budding talent and took him under his wing. He also encouraged him to get out of town, and in 1978 the 20-year-old saxophonist flew to Europe with a one-way ticket and his alto sax, $500 in his pocket, and virtually no contacts. He ended up making Rotterdam his homebase for the next 14 years, and established himself as a vital force on the international jazz scene as a player, label owner, and producer. Building an extensive network of musical peers amongst Dutch players and American ex-pats (“Johnny Griffin got me my first gig in Europe,” Lewis recalls), he maintained three working Dutch groups, including an organ trio with Carlo de Wijs; an experimental-minded quartet with Willem Kühne, James Long, and Frans van Grinsve; and a world-jazz quintet featuring musicians from India, Holland, West Africa, and South America. “I only played original music, and I thought it was a good idea to play everywhere,” Lewis says. “Gigs helped promote the sales of albums. No one wanted to play in Sweden in the winter, the off season. I didn’t mind. I’d play anywhere.” His record company Audio Daddio became one of the era’s essential outlets, releasing recordings by Art Foxall, Vonne Griffin, Al Hood, Art Lande, and David Friesen. The label’s last European recording The Rotterdam Session features tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan and legendary jazz drummer Philly Joe Jones, in one of his last recordings. Lewis also maintained a strong presence back in the States, spending several long stints in the Bay Area in the 1980s. He gained a considerable following with a quartet featuring drum maestro Eddie Moore, pianist Mark Levine, and bassist Larry Grenadier (the group featured on most of his critically hailed Quartet Records album In the Spirit). Championed by pianist and jazz scholar Ted Gioia, who produced In the Spirit and wrote the liner notes for The New York Session, Lewis became a vital part of the Bay Area scene, subbing for sax stars Stan Getz and John Handy, and working with heavyweights like Bobby Hutcherson and Randy Brecker. Now based in Bremerton, a small city west of Seattle on the Puget Sound where he returned to be close to his family, Lewis maintains a busy schedule that includes touring, teaching private students and college clinics. He continues to expand his daunting book of compositions, which number over 1,700. Though he’s recorded more than 30 albums, only a fraction of his compositions have been documented on record, another reason why The New York Session is a particularly important release. The discovery of a master improviser is always thrilling, but finding a player/composer at the peak of his powers is a rare occurrence indeed. Though fully aware of his accomplishments, Lewis sees himself as part of a modern jazz continuum. “I try to approach each composition, each performance, with knowledge and technique from studying the masters who came before and also the innocence of a child,” he says. “I hope it keeps the music authentic and genuine.” |
Longer Version
Music is a way of life for Mark Lewis. As an instrumentalist, composer, producer, engineer, and teacher, he has earned the reputation of being a dynamic and innovative force in music today.
Mark was exposed to music at an early age. On one side, his grandmother, Elaine Lewis, was a concert pianist while on the other, his grandfather, Ray Street, played saxophone. Mark was influenced by his parents' extensive record collection, which included artists like Count Basie, Lester Young, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington. His mother recalls that from a very young age, Mark had little interest in games and activities that attract most children, preferring to listen to records over any other activity. Though he had serious visual impairment, he was very careful with the record albums and was allowed to play and change albums himself.
At age nine Mark began to play on his grandfather's C melody sax. Mark spent summers on Vashon Island with his grandfather because he had allergies to scotch broom and other plants that grew in abundance on the family farm on the Key Peninsula in Washington State. At the age of ten he was given his uncle's old alto to begin his formal musical education. Mark's playing was soon highly regarded in the school jazz and concert ensembles. His first group was formed at age 14 to play at dances and local sporting events. At South Kitsap High School, Mark played lead alto in the stage band, sang in concert and jazz choirs, played alto clarinet in the concert band, and performed music in school plays.
Mark’s father, Hugh Lewis, was a maintenance supervisor at a foundry in Seattle. He told Mark at a young age that Mark would need to earn a scholarship if he wanted to go to college. Mark followed his Dad’s advice, and attended college on a scholarship for his academic achievements. At first Mark carried a double major in music and physics, two of his greatest interests. His visual impairment made it impossible for him to keep up with the assigned reading material and also sleep. He eventually accepted that he would have to choose one major. He called his mother, Marilyn Lewis, to ask what she thought he should do. Mark’s Mom asked, “Can you leave your saxophone in the closet? That’s what your grandfather did when he took a different career path.” Mark decided that he couldn’t leave his saxophone in the closet and dropped the physics major.
He worked with his own groups professionally while attending Western Washington University and The Cornish Institute of Allied Arts in Seattle. Some of his most noted instructors included Dr. Edwin La Bounty (composition), Gary Peacock (advanced music theory), and Americole Biasini (concert band and electronic music). He took private lessons on classical flute with Mark Sanders, who played with the Seattle Symphony. He studied classical piano with Corey Celli, who found large print piano scores so that Mark could see the music.
Upon moving to Seattle, not far from his birthplace of Tacoma, Mark hooked up with great players like Candy Finch, Art Foxall, Bea Smith, Dee Daniels, and Buddy Catlett to become a regular feature in Norm Bobrow's "Jazz at the Cirque." But even though he was becoming successful in the Seattle area, Mark felt the need to broaden his horizons. Following the advice of Dizzy Gillespie's veteran drummer, Finch, he left Seattle in 1978 with a one-way ticket to Amsterdam, an alto saxophone, and 500 dollars in his pocket.
Rotterdam became Mark's home base for many years, though he frequently traveled back and forth to Seattle.
“As I was trying to find my way in a new country, a jazz lover on the street saw my horn case and sent me to meet Christine, the girlfriend of Noah Howard. Noah took me on tour with him to Paris and Rome and we played free jazz, which was great because I had been listening to Coltrane just before I left Seattle. Rotterdam became my home for fourteen years. I feel like I’m from that city, because it has so much heart. It’s such a great city.
“Soon after, I met Irene. I thought of her as a grande dame of jazz. She was good friends with Max Roach, Sarah Vaughan and many other American musicians who came to Europe. Irene helped me get established and taught me how to fit in. She hired me for two nights a week in her club and I played with Archie Shepp and Frank Foster there. I met a lot of famous musicians through Irene. I met Billy Higgins and Johnny Griffin, who got me my first gig in Holland under my own name at the B-14 in Rotterdam. I also met Rob van der Feyst through Irene. He was an impresario for well-known musicians including Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, Beaver Harris, Philly Joe Jones and Clifford Jordan.
“I had three different groups in Holland: The Mark Lewis Quartet with Willem Kühne, James Long, and Frans van Grinsven, which played only my original music; The Mark Lewis Trio featuring Carlo de Wijs (an organ trio); and The Mark Lewis International Quintet, which played my music written in African rhythms. It included musicians from India, Holland, Africa, and South America. Asad Oberio played the djembe, and that’s where I developed my deep love and respect for that instrument.
“My record company, Audio Daddio, recorded several albums in Rotterdam and Seattle. Hein Van De Geijn, Lodewijk Bouwens, Henk Arts, Ton Verbeek, Steve Clover, Art Foxall, Vonne Griffin, Al Hood, Art Lande and David Friesen all recorded on the Audio Daddio label. I traveled back and forth between Europe and the US, recording and promoting Audio Daddio albums, and performing along the way. In Holland, I recorded albums in Rene von Broekhoven’s RBS studio and Ron Konings’s studio. I was putting together my own half-track studio in Rotterdam when I learned that Philly Joe Jones wanted to record with Clifford Jordan and my bass player, James Long. We recorded the album in my studio. Philly Joe died not long after that, and we put the album out as "The Rotterdam Session," to give respect to the city I loved.
“I received the opportunity in 1985 to record an album for Holland’s foremost audiophile company, Audio Gallery. They had previously used Audio Daddio albums as demo LPs to show off their fine equipment. They wanted me to represent Rotterdam’s musicians by recording one song by each band I thought fit for this endeavor. The musicians included Marcel Reys, Jaap Schoneveld, Bernard Joosten and my international quartet.
“I arranged European tours for American musicians Art Foxall, Dee Daniels, Al Hood and Steve Clover and brought Dutch bassist Hein Van De Geijn on tour in America. I recorded the album “Spheres” (Hein Van De Geijn, Al Hood, Steve Clover), which became their landmark LP. I worked as a studio musician for several studios in the area. I produced an annual Audio Daddio New Music Festival in Rotterdam, which featured about 75 musicians over three days each year. I also taught improvised music and jazz theory classes at music conservatories, schools and jazz foundations throughout Holland. The national jazz foundation (S.W.I.N.G.) chose me to lead the best students of the Netherlands in a week long teaching and performing seminar in Amsterdam, which was a great honor.
“I enjoyed performing at jazz festivals throughout Europe, including the Amsterdam, Delftse, Haarlem, Heineken, Hilversum and Utrechtse festivals in Holland, and at jazz venues including The Bimhuis in Amsterdam and The Dizzy in Rotterdam.
“I grew up in Holland and the Dutch taught me my musical and artistic sensibilities. They also taught me a way of life that I find very humane and developed. I owe a lot to the people of Holland for taking the time for my musical development and artistic direction. My values as an adult were heavily influenced by Dutch society. It has made me the musician I am today.
Bedankt Nederland”
Mark returned to North America and played up and down the West Coast for a year until he was "discovered" by musician/author Ted Gioia. Mark was asked to audition for a record deal in the San Francisco area. At the end of the audition he found out that he was playing for the great tenor saxophone master Stan Getz, who loved his playing. His first album with this record label, "In The Spirit," reached into the top 40 on the jazz charts and sold over 900,000 copies.
During his time in the Bay Area, Mark recorded and/or performed with many top jazz musicians such as pianists Mark Levine and Ted Gioia, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, trumpet player Randy Brecker, and drummer Eddie Moore. He frequently subbed for saxophonists Stan Getz and John Handy. He performed at jazz festivals and opened for Carmen McRae at the Palo Alto Jazz Festival. He was called back to Seattle to perform at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley.
Mark also lived for a year and a half in Victoria, British Columbia. His music was very well received throughout British Columbia. He was a fixture at Hermann's Jazz Club in Victoria, and he played for the inauguration of Michael Harcourt, former Premier of British Columbia.
Mark returned to a home base in the Puget Sound area to be near family. He continues to compose, record, perform, tour, teach and live and breathe music. Time after time, students, listeners and professional musicians call Mark an inspiration. He is known for his creativity, his technical ability, and the pure joy of music he brings to the stage.
As a musician and composer, Mark's music is filled with sensitivity and change. The musicians involved with his work understand that the music he shares with them represents his life. This can be felt in the way the members of the groups interact to perform concerts that are both intelligent and exciting. Musical technique moves from simplicity to complexity and back again creating textures influenced by bop, blues, classical, and ethnic music. It is music of the moment.
Although Mark performs predominantly original music in concerts, he is also master of a vast repertoire of jazz standards.
As a teacher, Mark Lewis has helped many people discover their musical potential. He began giving improvised music workshops in 1981 when his bass player, Hein van de Geijn, recommended him to an organization in Nijmegen. Mark now teaches privately in Bremerton, WA and at college clinics. Mark's teaching begins with the physical properties of sound and the ways in which music has developed from them. It is based on understanding and unifying melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic concepts in order to realize music's intention. He shows that through being sensitive to these concepts and developing the needed technique, one's essence can pass through music more easily. He places much emphasis on listening, being aware of the moment, and of course, practicing.
Mark has to his credit more than thirty album productions, over 1,700 compositions, and his own record company and studio. His latest album, "The New York Session," was recorded in Brooklyn with top NYC players George Cables, Victor Lewis and Essiet Essiet (Mark first met Essiet when they both lived in the Netherlands) and has been very well received by the jazz community. Mark was recently rated number two for alto saxophone (after Richie Cole) and number three for flute (after Charles Lloyd and Hubert Laws) in the 39th Annual Jazz Station Awards out of Los Angeles for his work on this album.
Mark Lewis is dedicated to creating positive human interaction through the music he composes, performs, and records. His standards are high and he is considered by many to be one of improvised music's most important artists.
Mark was born completely blind due to congenital cataracts. He had surgeries until the age of two to allow light into his eyes, then had to learn to “see” because his brain didn’t develop the ability to process visual information at the normal time. One eye sees very little because his surgeries as an infant were staggered from one eye to the other, and one eye became dominant in the process. He has also experienced retinal detachments in both eyes. He is legally blind, which limits his options for reading music on stage, but he is partially sighted and makes the most of what he has. He doesn’t see everything at once when he walks into a room the way most people do, but he does hear and process everything at once, a skill that helps him interact with music at a very advanced level.
Living a life devoted to music first and allowing the music to lead him, and living with a visual disability, has provided Mark with some extremely interesting life stories.
Here is one story we found on Facebook:
Playing for Phil Woods
“Phil has given me much inspiration and when I played for him in Munich, encouragement to keep on my path. I was walking with sax in hand after playing a small club in Munich, Germany. Well, who should be walking the other way, but Phil Woods. I do not see well and almost ran right into him while passing. He looked at me then looked down at my case and asked, "Alto?" I said, "Why yes it is!" I asked if he would like to see it and he said that he would so I showed him my new silver Selmer. I had bought it directly from the factory in Paris some weeks earlier. We were sax talking and one thing led to another and so I broke it out. As I started playing, the police came. They told me to put it away. Well, we talked sax talk until they left and then, of course, took it out again, after all, it was Phil Woods! I played for him for a while and he gave me great encouragement.
“After he left, a person passing by asked me to play some more. No sooner had I started, the same policeman came back. He said that he thought he had told me to put it away. I told him that he had but that "That was Phil Woods!" He didn't know who Phil Woods was. He then confiscated my brand new Selmer and my passport. He went to the telephone and made a call and while talking, waved my passport as he spoke to someone on the other end. Just then, I saw the stranger who had asked me to play in the first place grab my horn and passport in one fell swoop.
“He ran down the U-baan (subway) with me hot on his heels. I didn't look to see what had happened to the cop, the new guy had my sax AND my passport. The train was just pulling out and he said to follow him and we made the train. His name was Erich and he told me that the cop was finding out how much my horn was worth and then was going to deport me to New York. Erich had heard the entire conversation. We arrived at a little town that boasted just one little bench and he said we should sit there for a while until things cooled down.
“There were no people around so he welcomed me to play there if I wanted. I didn't see any reason not to, so I played for him. I played for about fifteen minutes. There was no one to be afraid of disturbing but then I noticed that on the other side of Erich, on the bench, was a man, about thirty years of age, sobbing. I stopped and asked him if he was alright. He said that he was feeling much better. He explained that he was on his way to kill himself but after listening realized what a fool he would have been to throw his life away that held things of such beauty as the music I was playing! Music works in mysterious ways. Thank you Phil!”