[Dixielandjazz] Marie Marcus RIP

[Jim Beebe]

This  writeup doesn't mention that she was a part of Preacher Rollo's
Dixieland Breakfast club, a long running and successful radio show out of
florida. I used to listen everday to this show and Marie back in the late
40s, I believeve.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harry Epp" <heppkat at juno.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 9:10 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Marie Marcus RIP


> Hi All:
> I just heard marie marcus passed away. She was a real player
> Harry Eppp
>
> October 19, 2003
>
> Marie Marcus, 89, Jazz Pianist and Fats Waller Protégée, Dies
>
> By DOUGLAS MARTIN
>
>       arie Marcus, a jazz pianist who was a protégée of Fats Waller and
> appeared on Manhattan's 52nd Street, the prewar
>       epicenter of jazz, before becoming a summer fixture in nightclubs
> on Cape Cod, died on Oct. 10 in Hyannis, Mass. She
> was 89.
>
> In a book about jazz personalities, "Barney, Bradley, and Max" (Oxford,
> 1989), the jazz critic Whitney Balliett suggested that
> Mrs. Marcus's talent and experience elevated her into a higher league
> than the normal run of resort acts. "At first, her style
> seems a simple mélange of chunky chords and brief connective runs, but on
> closer examination it is a repository of the jazz
> piano playing of the thirties and forties," he wrote.
>
> Marie Eleanor Doherty, an only child, was born in Roxbury, Mass., on May
> 25, 1914. Her father, a plumber, and her mother
> were elegant ballroom dancers and had a player piano in the house with
> rolls by the likes of Waller.
>
> She started playing the piano at 4 and studied at the New England
> Conservatory of Music while attending Roxbury Memorial
> High. She started in children's radio shows and ended up in Manhattan
> playing the piano on a national radio show for NBC as
> well as in clubs, under the name Marie Doherty.
>
> When Waller persuaded her to play in an after-hours club in Harlem, he
> pointed to his heart and said, "For a white girl, you
> sure got it there."
>
> She asked him whether he knew a good piano teacher. He answered, "How
> about me?" and gave her lessons when he was in
> town.
>
> With the licks she absorbed from him, she made it to 52nd Street, the
> epicenter of jazz, where she played at the Swing Club.
>
> At the end of her New York years, she led a 12-piece band and, after
> several musicians were drafted, a six-piece one. Her
> agent sent her to the Coonamessett Club in Falmouth on Cape Cod, in part
> to help her relax from the exhausting work. The
> respite became a happy 40-year residency, and she became popular with
> both locals and tourists.
>
> President Kennedy came to hear her and Alma Gates White play as the
> "piano mamas" at the Panama Club in Hyannis.
>
> For many years, she also spent winters performing in Miami Beach. In the
> 1950's, she appeared on television shows like Steve
> Allen's "Tonight" show and the "Dave Garroway Show."
>
> In 1937, she married Jack Brown, a singer. They later separated, and he
> died. She later married Bill Marcus, a trumpet player
> and later a lawyer. He died in 1965.
>
> She is survived by her sons, Jack Brown, of Quincy, Mass., and William
> Marcus, of Fort Lauderdale; her daughters, Mary
> Liles and Barbara Marcus, both of St. Petersburg, Fla.; eight
> grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
> Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
> Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>