Hudson Report, 16-Nov-14
By Joanne Hoersch
Weehawken resident Derwyn Holder is a self-described serial musician. “I started out with tenor sax,” he says, “and then bass, oh that was for a long time, and then…” he catches himself and thinks it’s best to start at the beginning.
He is 75 years old now, and the beginning for him, the way he came to love music, was on a particular day when he was six years old, walking up a hill to catch a bus in his home town in New Hampshire. There it was, running through his head: “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” by Duke Ellington.
“The way it changes on the 16th and 17th notes. It’s…”
Instead of finishing his sentence he walks over to his piano (he plays that too) and taps out the first notes of this classic tune. The opening phrase is catchy. When the phrase repeats itself, the harmony sounds different, slightly minor, but Derwyn says that’s wrong. “It’s just black key notes in a white key melody.”
It’s the harmonies more than the melodies that he’s drawn to, harmonies he uses in his own work as well. He once composed a guitar concerto for Charlie Bird. “He never performed it, but he carried it around in his pocket all the time.”
That was during his time in Washington DC, the time when he realized playing saxophone was not getting him gigs. He looked around and saw a lot of bass players, specifically a lot of bass players who actually had jobs, so he switched to bass. It worked. He wound up in a trio with Gene Rush, but after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, the city was under curfew for six weeks, and the gigs dried up.
He stayed with the bass for a long time, until he was 55 years old, moving from DC to New York and enjoying the pleasures of getting around town in Checker Cabs. “They were the best,” he laughs, “the only car big enough for me and my bass to ride comfortably.”
Setting down roots
In 1982, he ended his peripatetic life style. He’d lived in Canada, New Hampshire, Washington DC and New York. But he had been to Weehawken and decided that was where he wanted to settle down. He bought a little house, then because he had problems with his lungs, moved to the country.
But there were things in Weehawken that he missed; the artists who loved there, the proximity to New York, the cultural life, and, best of all, a woman named Lia. He came back.
“And you know what?” he says. “The air here is a lot cleaner than it was in ‘82.”
Looking back, he says he’s had a lucky life. But there have been multiple health issues, serious ones that kept him from performing for a long time. “Not just my lungs but my heart, my eyes,” he waves his hand around the room as if to indicate that illness is not worth discussing. Except for one thing: Medicare.
“If it wasn’t for Medicare, I wouldn’t be alive. I’m not rich and I could never have afforded the medical bills.” He is deeply grateful to a system that helped him not once, but several times over the course of many years. To show his gratitude, he composed a “Medicare Symphony.”
Another piece of luck – Derwyn’s next door neighbor and friend is Alan Brady, an accomplished musician who plays clarinet, saxophone, flute. “And a great guy,” Derwyn adds. “He’s the one who got me into this.”
This, being a comeback performance.
“I’d run into Alan and he’d ask me, ‘When?’ And then one day, I saw him in Montclair where he teaches music, and he didn’t ask ‘When?’ He just said, ‘Let’s do this.’ He got out his calendar and started penciling in dates.”
Derwyn brought a CD of his music to The Deerhead Inn, a jazz venue near the Delaware Water Gap that has been continuously running since 1953. They knew him and they liked what they heard.
So, on Nov. 16, Derwyn Holder will make his comeback, an evening of his own compositions played with some of the best musicians he knows, including Alan Brady on alto sax, Sue Terry on tenor sax, Ron Naspo on bass, Bob Beck on drums, all accompanying Derwyn Holder on piano.
The Derwyn Holder Ensemble will appear at the The Deerhead Inn, Nov. 16, from 5 - 8 p.m., at 5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.
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