Celebrating the Life and Music of Ken Peplowski – Lee Mergner | Substack

Today would have been Ken Peplowski’s 67th birthday, so I’m sharing this piece about the memorial service for him that was held earlier this week in New York City.
On Tuesday, May 19, roughly 500 members of the jazz community came together in Saint Peter’s Church in NYC to celebrate the life and music of my friend (and a friend to so many) Ken Peplowski, who died earlier this year on Feb. 2, the last day of The Jazz Cruise. Saint Peter’s is renowned as the “jazz church,” where many jazz greats including Miles Davis, Sheila Jordan and Roy Haynes have been feted in the past. The jazz ministry was founded there in 1968 by the Reverend John Gensel, who had befriended Duke Ellington and other legends of the music.
This particular event, which featured an even mix of remembrances and performances, was organized by Ken’s friend Pamela Stark, with assists from Loren Schoenberg, David Ostwald, Mark Lopeman, Ehud Asherie and me, who all endeavored to pay proper tribute to Ken both as a musician and a man. Not that the two could be easily separated with someone as both talented and colorful as Ken. During the course of nearly a dozen remembrances, a common theme emerged: that of Ken taking the music seriously, yet not taking himself (or any of us) seriously. It seemed that just about anyone who knew Ken had stories about his self-deprecating wit, which could also be turned into a razzing weapon onstage or off.
As the emcee, Ostwald, a longtime bandleader and friend of Ken’s, used short video clips of Ken to introduce the speakers and performers. I think Ken would have appreciated that David enabled him to narrate his own memorial in his own inimitable fashion. Friends who spoke movingly and often humorously about Ken included Loren, Mark, Spike Wilner, Paquito D’Rivera, Dick Hyman (in absentia), and Ken’s brother Ted.
Photo of John Pizzarelli by Steven Sussman
Of course, the artists who performed musical numbers couldn’t help but share remembrances when introducing their songs. Those songs, all exquisitely performed, included: “You Must Believe in Spring” by Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg; “When You Wish Upon a Star” by Glenn Zaleski, Martin Wind, Terell Stafford and Wycliffe Gordon; “Here Comes the Sun” by John Pizzarelli, Madelyn Pizzarelli and Jessica Molasky; “Why Try to Change Me Now?” by Katie Thiroux and Matt Wilson; and “The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else” by Catherine Russell and Ehud Asherie. Guitarist James Chirillo closed the event with a solo version of “Under the Rainbow.”
David did his best to keep the trains running on time, but of course folks went long, more with the remembrances than the music. In addition to all the talk and music, we showed a 9 ½ minute slideshow of photos spanning his whole life, mostly through images of him with other people, rather than solo shots of him playing. I put that together drawing from more than 200 photos supplied by dozens of his friends and family. There were many that produced that “aw” reaction, but my favorite is of one of his early bands, which looked to be sort of a Blood Sweat & Tears inspired outfit, whose “publicity shot” was clearly taken in a men’s room, with two urinals directly to the right of the bandmembers.
You can watch the entire photo slideshow here:
Many jazz fans would be surprised to know, given Ken’s stature in the mainstream jazz world, that he was a dedicated fan of both the Beatles and Elvis Presley, perhaps the latter with a bit of irony. Or not. The service ended with two clips of Ken performing Elvis’s “Love Me Tender,” 40 years apart, one as a vocalist and the other on his favored instrument of the clarinet. Seeing a clip of a young Ken doing an Elvis impersonation for a Christmas Eve gig along with friends like Chirillo and Vignola was priceless. Then a video of his performance later with a heartfelt instrumental along with John Pizzarelli provided a touching coda to a very powerful event. You can see for yourself and watch a copy of the livestream on the Saint Peter’s Church YouTube channel here:
It seemed as though just about everyone who knew Ken had stories about his wit, warmth and talent, so a Legacy.com page was created to enable friends and family to share their Ken stories. I myself have many. How about this one? Onstage during a set on The Jazz Cruise, he announced, “I’m so glad my agent is sailing with us this week. In fact, he’s backstage eating 15% of my chicken.”
As has been documented elsewhere, Ken had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2021 and, over the next five years, he dealt with that illness as bravely as could be imagined. Ken asked that in lieu of flowers in his memory, people donate to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation here.
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