Original photos of Peter, Stephen, Rich, and Susan courtesy of David S. Hachen Jr. Photo of Mary by Jeffery Miller.
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The Artists
Monika Herzig, pianist, composer, teacher, and jazz advocator, just released her second album this April, a DVD and CD combo called Come with Me (Owl Studios).
She's a German-American, who became an American citizen three years ago, 23 years after she and her husband, the jazz guitarist Peter Kienle, bought a one-way ticket from Germany to Northern Alabama. Monika earned her doctorate in music education (with specialty in jazz studies) in 1997, at which time she considered job offers that would have taken her out of the state, including an organist gig at a large Catholic church on Long Island. But she stayed in Bloomington, which felt like home. She remembers driving from Alabama to Indiana in 1991 and noticing the similarities between the hilly landscape of south central Indiana and that of her birthplace in Germany.
Peter was born in Metzingen, Germany, and playing guitar since age 13. In the late summer of 1995 Peter and Monika bought a house a little north of Bloomington - where they finally became Hoosiers.
Peter
Founded the fusion group BeebleBrox in 1983 in Albstadt, Germany. In the US, BeebleBrox reformed and recorded one more cassette and five CDs. He toured Germany in 1997 and 1999 with BeebleBrox and award winning saxophonist Peter Lehel. Other groups include the formation of 3rd Man and Freesome in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Peter's other accomplishments include
extensive studio work as a musician, engineer and producer, TV appearance on the Reggie Miller Show, composer of about 600 tunes in many styles, 50 works for classical guitar and several instruction manuals for guitar, addition of the Chapman Stick to instrumentarium, private guitar instruction for select students, as well as computer programming. He also works as a music copyist for David Baker, Bill Banfield, Fred Hersch and many others.
Susan Merriman developed a love and affinity for the American song book through her work in musical theatre. She has performed jazz in a variety of small group settings in clubs and festivals in northern Indiana. Susan also performs with and leads the vocal group "The Merriman Sisters", which consists of Susan and her four sisters. The group's repertoire draws from the Andrew Sisters, the Maguire Sisters, as well as vocal arrangements of more contemporary material.
Rich Cohen relocated to the Midwest from the east coast and has worked in clubs and festivals throughout northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and Indianapolis. Since moving to Carmel in 2005 with wife Susan Merriman, Rich has worked with groups at the Jazz Kitchen and the Chatterbox. Rich is also part of the house band at Trio's Jazz Club in South Bend.
Mary Merriman, co-founder of Merrimans' Playhouse with her husband, Stephen, began her bass career playing with various orchestral and jazz groups in Michigan. Mary studied privately at Central Michigan University beginning in high school, and was a member of several jazz ensembles, including the Faculty Jazz Band. Mary has performed with various groups in northern Indiana, but since relocating to South Bend, she has put her energy into the art of the jazz trio. She also enjoys teaching private study for double bass, including beginner orchestral students.
Stephen Merriman, co-founder of Merrimans' Playhouse with his wife, Mary, has been playing professionally since 1978. He has worked in a variety of musical genres from reggae to rock to jazz in places as varied as the Pacific Northwest, Canada, New York City, San Diego, and Boulder, Colorado. Some of his credits include the Boulder Jazz Improvisation Group Chiaroscuro, and the piano and drum duo The Great Leap, based in New York City. Since returning to South Bend, Stephen has focused solely on jazz, and has played with the jazz groups, Random Elements, Apogeebop, and currently The Merrimans.
Jazz Clinic: Monika Herzig will host a jazz clinic on Sunday. She will discuss the art and business of a career in music as well as the art of improvisation. Please bring your instruments. Monika's accomplishments include: a teacher of music industry courses for undergrads at IU-Bloomington and a jazz history class for continuing studies students at IUPUI; a community organizer, who has founded support and outreach groups for Bloomington jazz musicians (Jazz from Bloomington) and women in music (ISIS); a composer, whose analytical work often involves unusual chord changes and harmonies; she is knowledgable on how to organize any small group of creative thinkers, in business as well as the arts. Monika is also a soon-to-be published author, whose collection of essays on David Baker will become the first book on the jazz pedagogue and musician.
Monika, with vocalist Heather Ramsey, co-founded a group for women in music, ISIS of Indiana, the support organization for female musicians. ISIS, whose June 2 Divas of Jazz concert at The Cabaret at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis, exclusively showcased female musicians. This group evolved during the December 2009 release show for Peace on Earth, Monika's first album for Owl Studios. The "biggest goal of the organization is to reach a balance, to address a gender bias that Herzig thinks can be attributed to a lack of prominent female role models in jazz. She points to studies which show that, while nearly equal numbers of males and females are involved in high school music programs, college jazz studies programs see a dramatic drop-off in female involvement. 'There's something that happens when the question comes up, 'Should I do this as a profession?' Herzig says.
Most girls answer 'no,' but Herzig is hoping they'll reconsider. This summer, ISIS, in collaboration with the Civic Theatre (Indianapolis), will host a summer camp for girls called Girls Create Music, a sort of analogue to Girls Rock! Indy that will have components addressing songwriting, self-image and basic instrument instruction, and will close with a performance by the campers.
Not that Herzig is only in this to convert girls: She reaches out to groups of all ages and, sexes, from adults looking to catch up on the history of Indiana jazz to impressionable grade schoolers" (Scott Shoger, www.nuvo.net/indianapolis).
"In 2005, Herzig founded the organization Jazz in the Schools to teach about jazz in Central Indiana schools. Her programs focus on key Indiana jazz musicians: songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, guitarist Wes Montgomery, her colleague David Baker — and a few female instrumentalists who might well serve as historical role models for girls playing jazz: ragtime pianist May Aufderheide, who may not have the name recognition of a Scott Joplin, but whose songs are still among the genre's most widely played; and the Hampton Sisters, all of whom were instrumentalists and singers" (Scott Shoger, www.nuvo.net/indianapolis).
"...she is tireless, and one wonders just where she finds her passion. Herzig: 'It's all about the energy of creating a new project that came out of your mind, and molding it and making it a reality...That excitement is where my energy comes from, I think. It's obviously not the money.'
She's at no loss for ideas for the future, although she's presently occupied with her work on the David Baker book and with ISIS of Indiana, which will present its signature event, the Femmes Blu Festival, September 30 at The Cabaret at the Columbia Club. She has an idea for a solo piano CD that includes multimedia components, including an interactive score and video clips. And she'd like to tour more, despite the difficulty in finding gigs in the absence of an actual jazz circuit.
Looking back, Herzig doesn't think it so unusual that a German-born musician has ended up a steward for the Indiana jazz tradition. She points to her time as an instrumental arranger and director for the IU Soul Revue, an ensemble affiliated with the university's African American Arts Institute. 'We were presenting the black tradition and nobody said anything,' she says of her place in the ensemble, which she notes also included a Japanese guitarist at the time. "I wrote the arrangements, I did my job, it was in style and it worked'" (Scott Shoger, www.nuvo.net/indianapolis). |
