Serving up gumbo and side of jazz
N'Awlins musician ready to mix eats, beats at Senator
Geoff Chapman
music critic

BERNARD WEIL/TORONTO STAR

TASTY TUNES: Kevin Clark is bringing Cajun flavour to brunch at a local jazz club starting tomorrow. Clark will perform with sous-chefs who double as a pianist, drummer and bassist.
That's muskrat on the menu? You have to "dip your mouth" into Southern cooking? And wrap your truffles?

Not really. Tell your muddled friend it's trumpeter Kevin Clark playing tunes like "Muskrat Ramble," "Dippermouth Blues" and "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams" as he cooks jambalaya in his grandmother's cast-iron skillets on the bandstand of the Senator jazz club.

Clark is bringing the complete New Orleans experience to Victoria and Dundas Sts. tomorrow and for succeeding Sunday brunches from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., with his band playing Dixieland music and him in chef's gear, preparing mouth-watering Cajun dishes during the second of three sets, after he's soloed and before the "out" chorus.

What he cooks up on bandstand burners (after a solo or two) the audience gets to eat, and that dish — different each week — will also be part of the club's brunch menu.

Clark's gourmet playing on trumpet and cornet began more than 30 years ago in the circus for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey. He's also arranged, conducted and performed music for Walt Disney bands, composed for film, television and radio, produced many records and performed on more than 40 albums.

He's played with the long-running Dukes of Dixieland, the Crescent City Moonlighters, the Dixieland Ramblers, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the New Tuxedo Brass Band. He co-founded the New Orleans Nightcrawlers brass band, which plays brand-new New Orleans music, and has performed with Louisiana legends such as Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, bluesman Gatemouth Brown and country's Junior Brown.

His "jazz kitchen" idea began about 18 months ago, not long after he met his wife-to-be, Meaghan, from Etobicoke, on a riverboat. "I was playing in a horn section on a rhythm and blues studio recording by a chef with a reputation, and I thought, `I can cook better than him — and I know I'm a better musician.'

" I discussed the idea with pianist friend Tom McDermott, a writer with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and I thought that if (trumpeters) Wynton Marsalis and Ruby Braff can make a duo record with (pianists) Marcus Roberts and Kenny Barron, so could we. This became the 14-cut New Orleans Jazz Brunch (on the Summit label), and after it was released with some recipes on the CD sleeve for dishes like Huevos Rancheros, I got to cook after each live set.

"In New Orleans, food has always been part of the jazz scene. You'll find, say, a bowl of red beans and rice in every bar.

"I think the jazz brunch idea works because it attracts all the senses — sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste. I'm using my grandmother's recipes and my mother's recipes, and it's not complicated at all. This concept is in no way a mockery of the music. I'm serious about traditional jazz."

Clark, whose warm cornet playing is in direct succession to musicians like Braff and Bobby Hackett, has demonstrated his culinary and performance skills at the Tranzac Club and at Amis de Jazz in Sonya near Port Perry (and last weekend on Christine Cushing's show on the Food Channel).

His sous-chefs tomorrow are the Joking Olivers (which, if you think a while, is a play on words — Joe "King" Oliver signed a young New Orleans player to his band, Louis Armstrong, way back when). The Olivers are pianist Peter Hill, bassist Ka-Cheong Liu and drummer Chris Lamont.

As for food futures, expect dishes like Southern Man Gumbo, Bananas Foster, Black-Eyed Peas, Chick Pea Salad, Chicken Fricassée and Trout Bread. And he's hoping to put together a TV show with Canadian musicians showing off their favourite recipes as well as their artistry.

Musically, you can expect a wide-ranging menu from Clark, who since his arrival in Toronto last fall has been very active. He has played with Bill King's Saturday Night Fish Fry (naturally!), NOJO and the major trad bands (Climax, Ragweed, Hot 5 Jazzmakers). He's also a regular at Wednesday's Sax On Yonge gig in singer Alex Pangman's group.

He's also started the Semi-Famous Road Show, which delivers the funky sounds of New Orleans, music akin to Kool and the Gang. It has double helpings of instruments — two horn players, two guitarists, two drummers and, next time out, two sousaphones. This band does street festivals, last month in Port Hope and at Toronto's Junction bash, for example.

In jazz parlance, it's a big compliment to say someone's really cookin'. At brunch time tomorrow he really will — just don't ask to sample his Viper Oil. That's the special formula he markets to lubricate valves on brass instruments.

Mr. Jazzman, bring me some beans

Jon Filson
THE FOOD DUDE

FOOD AND MUSIC make one of those perfect combos like television and supper or Moses and Commandments. Sinatra is so fine with wine — if you haven't already, try "Fly Me to the Moon" with a bottle of red. Life doesn't get better.

Mixing jazz with Cajun food has the same kind of perfect mesh vibe — combining jazz and gefilte fish would not have the same effect at all. Which is why I paid attention when just after I had chronicled a trip to New Orleans, a Meaghan Clark sent me an e-mail urging me to come listen to her husband play some jazz and cook some Cajun at the Tranzac Club on Brunswick Ave.

It was, I thought, both a nice offer and a gutsy move. After all, I had just come back from the world's jazz and Cajun capital. Meaghan had just pitched me a softball — had her husband been a bust, a column on how our Cajun culture can't measure up was right there.

But enter Mr. Kevin Clark, jazzman extraordinaire, a Southerner living in Toronto since last fall. Along with his knowledge of jazz and Cajun cooking, he had the smarts to combine the two in a show he calls Kevin Clark's Jazz Kitchen. And, as Steve Martin used to say about himself on the banjo: "This guy's good."

And, naturally, there's a story behind how this gig came about in New Orleans.

"I was in the recording studio, with this famous chef, who shall remain nameless — not Emeril, but the next most famous guy," says Kevin, "and he had written these rhythm and blues tunes. And it wasn't bad, he had some really great players on it, and everything. But I was playing these horn lines, and I was thinking, `You know, I can cook better than this guy can sing. I'm going to put recipes on my next CD.'"

Clark sold Summit Records on it and that's how the classical jazz disc New Orleans Jazz Brunch was born. And just like you're always amazed how good red beans and rice can taste when properly combined, you'll be surprised by how slick a cornet and a piano can sound with talent behind them.

Clark says the CD, and the recipes on it, which include Curry Chicken And Mushroom Noodles and Chick Pea Salad, are ideal for lazy Sundays. And he's right. It's a fun disc and his Huevos Rancheros, for one, are a hit-the-spot kind of meal. The recipes are harder to follow than they should be, but that's not to say he doesn't know anything about his food.

"I know all about black-eyed peas and collard greens," Kevin says, recalling growing up in Florida. "That was normal."

The Jazz Kitchen show evolved from the disc. He's put it on a dozen times, and it features him playing and cooking, stopping to explain how he's preparing Cajun fare like jambalaya, gumbo or red beans and rice, which he serves to the crowd — the last of which I tried. It was as hearty as anything I ate in Louisiana.

"It's something I have always wanted to do, attack all the senses," Kevin says. "If you don't like the music, at least you can eat."

How Kevin met his wife and came up here is one of those sappy-sweet love stories that Disney puts on screen but seems totally unbelievable. The guy's hanging out in New Orleans. He's lived there about 10 years. Then one day he's on this riverboat ride and he sees this girl, down from Toronto with some friends on vacation.

"She thought it was a deal like the Love Boat," he says. "So her and her friends had dressed up. As they say in the South, they `put on the dog' — like putting on a mink stole. Of course, they stuck out. My wife would stick out anyways, but especially then."

The two hit it off. So they visited each other. And then, down south one New Year's Eve, Meaghan decided not to come home. Quit her job. Shipped her clothes down. Ran away to New Orleans for a jazzman. Just like that. Shocked the family, shocked the friends, but followed her heart. It's been hearts and flowers, a couple of kids, and happily ever after since.

Kevin's making a go of it up here, but he's finding Toronto's is not New Orleans. At least not modern-day New Orleans.

"I feel a lot of similarities between Toronto and New Orleans years ago, when this new jazz style was formulating. There were over 90 different ethnic groups. (Toronto's) got that kind of feel."

He'd love to work a regular gig at a restaurant and has met with a network about a jazzed up food TV show. His next Jazz Kitchen set at the Tranzac is July 18, with a $10 cover. And he'll be at the Junction Arts Festival on Sept. 15.

Check out Kevin's Web site at kclarkjazz.com to order CDs. But the gig is a natural for the jazz joints — so don't be surprised to see this guy, and his food, popping up again.

Food writer Jon Filson and Jennifer Bain take turns chronicling their eating and drinking lives. E-mail them at food@thestar.ca