Community Outreach: Hannah Marks Speaks

Photo courtesy of the artist.

by Stephanie Jones

Hannah Marks arrived in New York uncertain where she might fit in among the downtown clubs and emerging Brooklyn venues. Sure of very little, she reached out to her mentors. 

“I am someone who really leans on my mentors in times of doubt,” says the DesMoines native. “My first two weeks in New York, I shadowed Marcus Printup at some Jazz at Lincoln Center rehearsals, and would go see Dee Dee [Bridgewater] play, and talk to her. Having that support system built in was really important for me when I first moved.” 

Before leading projects and curating calendars, Marks began exploring layers of her sound at Banff and Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead. Each program helped empower her decisions as a band leader: “I remember when I finished the three-week program at Banff, I thought, ‘I don’t think I’ve swung for three weeks.’ At the time, that felt like, ‘Oh my God—how could I not be playing quarter notes for this long and also be playing so much music?’” 

Today, Marks leads multiple projects featuring different dimensions of her original music—and, frequently, lyrics—while maintaining a healthy schedule as a collaborator. To this week’s Gallery programming, she brings her quartet featuring Nathan Reising, Lex Korten and Connor Parks. 

The Jazz Gallery: You had the opportunity to be part of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead. Has your perspective on the advice you received from those program mentors changed or shifted as you've continued developing and refining your sound? 

Hannah Marks: What I’ve really kept with me has been more life-related than specific musical things. In times of doubt, I definitely refer back to the things that Dee Dee or Marcus or Jason [Moran] have said to me in the past. That’s been like a subtle guiding force. I don’t know if it’s shifted for me since I’ve found my way in New York. If anything, their words of encouragement have just come true. 

TJG: Can you share any specifics on their words of encouragement? 

HM: The main thing is when I arrived there, I was not sure if I was going to move to New York. So I expressed to them, “I’m not feeling confident about moving. I don’t know if I can ‘make it’ in New York.” What does that even mean? And they said that they saw something in me and my playing. That was really pivotal at the time, and it gave me some forward momentum. 

The other thing, without getting into too much detail, is that I had experienced some harassment from a man around that same time, and had talked to Dee Dee about it. She stood up for me. And she taught me that I don’t have to take any bullshit. I’ve done her Woodshed Network program as well, and she’s repeatedly reminded us that even as young women who aren’t super sure of ourselves, we don’t have to put up with anything, and to stand up for ourselves if people are trying to pull shit on us. 

TJG: That’s a helpful framing: we don’t have to be entirely sure of ourselves in order to confront the kinds of harassing behaviors that minimize us and our contributions. 

HM: Another thing that came up at her Woodshed Network Workshop was just knowing your worth and knowing that you should be respected by people you’re working with, by people on the scene. I still feel younger than a lot of the people I work with. So, in the past I’ve taken a more backseat approach in my band leading or when working with other people because I felt like I didn’t know everything. And sometimes it’s led to me feeling not super respected on the bandstand. Through those workshops, I started feeling confident with myself and knowing that if I bring that confidence and empathy to the bandstand, especially in my band leading experiences, that combination is the best way, moving forward, to get respect from the people you work with. I definitely have allowed myself to be walked on, kind of trampled by other people, especially older men. I’m not going to do that anymore. And Dee Dee really helped me work through that. 

TJG: Before you met Dee Dee and some of your other mentors, you had a couple internships in Chicago. 

HM: My first internship was at Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and my second was with the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Girls Rock! Chicago. 

TJG: I imagine you have real love for Chicago—you’re from the Midwest. Something I think so many of us love about your playing is your connection to free improvisation, and how those sections emerge within your through-compositions and lyric songs. Would you talk about your connection to free improvisation, being exposed to the Chicago scene a bit before you came to New York, and how your relationship with it has evolved and refined? 

HM: The first time I ever free improvised on a gig was in Chicago. I sat in on—I can’t remember whose gig it was, but it was either Mikel Patrick Avery, who is one of my favorite drummers, or John Sutton, who is a Chicago bass player. Joel Ross was playing the balafon I think. They were doing a free improvised set and just had me jump in. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I think I was just following John Sutton the whole time and kind of watching him and just copying what he was playing. I definitely wouldn’t approach free improvisation in the same way now. But that was a great first experience of just being thrown into it. In terms of people playing free improvised music, Mikel was definitely one of the first people I really got to know on that scene and have followed since then. 

TJG: After that first experience, which I imagine was nerve-racking, did you develop a kind of appetite for that freedom of interpreting the moment, or did you step away from it for a while? 

HM: I stepped away, but not by choice. We weren’t doing that in school at Indiana University. Later on, by my senior year, Walter Smith would have us free improvise in class. But around that time, sophomore/junior year, that was just not a part of our curriculum, not really what any of the students were doing. So I just didn’t have that vocabulary and didn’t have anyone to really look towards to kind of model anything off of. I would say the first time I really got thrown into that fire was at Banff in 2018, the year before I did Betty Carter. 

TJG: What kind of transition was that experience for you? 

HM: It was a huge culture shock for me. My first combo was taught by Rajna Swaminathan, and she just opened up the very first rehearsal with having us free improvise. I’m not sure I even knew what I was getting into there; I was just kind of thrust into that. And it was a new world for me. I wasn’t prepared but I didn’t have to be prepared in order to learn there. 

TJG: You mentioned leaning on your mentors for support and feeling a sense of community. Now, you're out front creating these community opportunities. You have this residency at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Jersey, and you've become a curator for Green Lung Studio in Brooklyn. Do you have current plans for continuing this community-centered approach to your artistic development? 

HM: My hope is to start expanding out into the East Coast area with my band, getting to know different pockets of communities in a six- to eight-hour driving range. I feel very fortunate that I got to tour a lot of the Midwest in college. One of my favorite things when I’m on tour is being able to walk into a venue and knowing probably half the people that are going to be there. That’s the best feeling, seeing people over and over again, whether it be in Chicago or a smaller town like South Bend, Indiana. I just love seeing figures in that specific community come out.

I do have that residency in New Jersey, and it’s been amazing to drop in on that church community, see their numbers come back post-Covid and get to know fellow church members. My quartet played there yesterday morning, and the night before we played in Easton, Pennsylvania, which is really close to the church, at Lafayette Bar. That was incredible. There were 60 to 80 people at this funky dive bar. The owner was so passionate. Everyone was young. I couldn’t believe it. I enjoyed feeling like I was out of New York, in a completely different community. So I’m looking forward to returning to places like that, now on the East Coast, building up that audience and that community over the next five years. 

TJG: I imagine being able to return to these familiar communities is very energizing for you when you’re up there playing live. Do you find that experience is also energizing when you’re composing and thinking about bringing new music to these communities where you’re cultivating these relationships? 

HM: Sometimes I’ve gotten nervous when I’m bringing a new project to places I’ve played before. But everyone’s been really receptive. What I’m realizing is that these people are here for me and the music and they support my development as an artist. And so I really feel like I’m working on a long relationship with these venues and these audiences. That makes me feel like I have the freedom to bring in whatever I’m feeling is most authentic to me at the moment, and they’ll support it. 

TJG: Sounds a lot like The Jazz Gallery, actually. Gallery energy outside New York City…

HM: Mmhm. 

TJG: So now, in the midst of maintaining these strong peer bonds, and creating new opportunities to connect with other artists and other communities, emerges Outside, Outlier, which in part explores your search for belonging. How did that project come together for you conceptually? When did you realize, “Okay, I’m ready to present this project?” 

HM: I certainly do not feel like it’s finished. I was actually journaling about it this morning. This project has taken a long time to pull together just because I’m continuing to discover what it is. It’s still in the process of revealing itself to me. So it doesn’t feel settled and I’m okay with that. We’ve had some personnel change over, which has made it nice so that I can try out a lot of different people, but I’m ready to have a consistent band. We do have a tour in June and some dates in July. I’m not really going to know what this is going to sound like until I complete this tour. Then I’ll be able to reevaluate. So it’s ever-evolving and sometimes it makes me nervous that I don’t quite have my finger on what this project is yet. But I’m also just trying to be open to letting it evolve and figuring it out as I go. 

TJG: You don’t include lyrics in all your music, but they’re intrinsic to much of your original repertoire for certain projects. What do you find so appealing about incorporating words into your musical ideas? 

HM: I’ve written lyrics sporadically since college. But then, especially during the pandemic, writing lyrics became a way for me to process everything I was going through. When you have a lack of distractions, you are forced to confront issues or past trauma. Really sit down with it. I think that’s why I started writing lyrics a lot more. I was like, “I have to deal with this stuff.” That’s kind of what Outside, Outlier has become. I don’t want to say a time capsule, but it’s been a way for me to process my life.

I was realizing the other day, I’m usually quite emotional when I’m writing these songs with lyrics. But now that I’ve gone through the process of composing the music, writing the lyrics and then performing it, I realize I’m not attached to it anymore, in a good way. I’m not transported back to that place of hurt or sadness or intense love. I’m able to just put it out there into the world. It feels good to have that processing feel like it’s come full circle. It was very healing. 

TJG: A lot of your compositions include all these different chambers—sometimes what can sound like meticulously orchestrated through-composed sections, free improvisation, of course lyrical songwriting. What are you currently exploring in your compositions? 

HM: With Outsider, Outlier I’m always trying to balance the through-composed with the free improvisation, and wanting to make sure that the message of the song and the lyric is very clear and put first, but that I’m also honoring every musician in that band. They’re improvisors, so why wouldn’t I let them improvise and have their own voice? That’s a delicate balance.

And with the quartet, I’m really taking a different approach and not prioritizing through-composed music, trying to go more bare bones with what I’m writing because I trust everyone in the band so much and I know that they want that freedom. I’m giving them less and less and trying to allow for more and more. That’s hard for me to do with my lyrics, and I don’t think that I necessarily need to do that with Outsider, Outlier. But for the quartet, I’m definitely wanting to prioritize improvisation, really putting that at the forefront. 

TJG: What about your upcoming Gallery performance with the quartet has you most excited? Seeing where that goes? 

HM: This band has been almost a happy accident. I did one initial gig with them last fall at Green Lung, just to try it out. When I’m doing my Outsider, Outlier project it’s all my compositions and I kept thinking I’d like to do some more instrumental music but I don’t have enough of my own compositions yet to do that. [Laughs] and then I finally realized: I don’t have to only present original music when I play. Working with people that mostly play their own originals, I haven’t been playing a lot of standards. I had just forgotten that that was an option. So then I started thinking about what songs that aren’t mine speak to me and how I can make them my own. So that’s how the quartet came about. 

I’m just excited because this band feels much more low maintenance for me. Everyone pretty much knows the music already so we get to just show up and play and see what happens. Every time I listen back to one of our sets, it’s clear to me what my weak areas are and what my strong areas are. They’re more accentuated in the quartet, whereas I can kind of hide a little bit more in Outsider, Outlier. So this band has been good for me in that it’s a challenge and that I now can’t ignore things that I feel I need to work on. They’re more present in this quartet setting where you’re taking more risks, playing in a more improvisatory landscape. 

TJG: Speaking of risk-taking and being exposed, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask about your recent trio date with Kalia Vandever and Savannah Harris at the Stone. Can you talk about your connection to these two other Jazz Gallery regulars? Can we expect more music from this trio? 

HM: I hope so. We don’t have anything on the books but I certainly hope we get to play again. I’ve long admired Kalia and Savannah. It’s super encouraging for me, being several years younger than them, to look up to them for a blueprint of how to be a young woman on the scene and how you can be really successful. You can be a successful band leader like Kalia is, or a successful sideman like Savannah is—and then they both band lead and are side people. That’s really inspiring to me.

Kalia has definitely influenced my own compositional process when I write for quartet in that I feel she leaves a lot of space for her musicians to interpret. In my first one or two gigs with her band, I was like, “I have no idea what to play because there’s so little information on this page.” And then I realized that meant I just have to play. I just have to be myself, and that’s what she wants—not, “you have to play this specific set of changes.” I just need to prioritize listening and letting my natural instinct come through. So I really enjoy that about Kalia’s music. I don’t know if she would agree with this, but I think it really allows for the personality of her band members to shine. Her tunes are great vehicles for improvisation. They feel good and they feel natural to play. 

Hannah Marks plays The Jazz Gallery on Thursday, April 21, 2022. The group features Ms. Marks on bass, Nathan Reising on alto saxophone, Lex Korten on piano and Connor Parks on drums. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. EDT, $15 general admission (FREE for members), $25 limited cabaret seating ($10 for members). Purchase tickets here.