BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE Music Makers of Walden

By Estelle Rodis-Brown

Music enriches our lives in countless ways, from stirring our emotions, to setting the mood for a special occasion, to making the miles melt away on a long road trip. And while most of us enjoy listening to a certain style of music as a backdrop to our daily lives, relatively few of us actually make that music.

That’s why we asked the musicians in our midst to allow us to showcase their talents in Walden Life magazine. These music makers represent a diverse group of creative souls who call Walden home, representing a wide range of genres, from jazz and blues to rock-n-roll, standards, sacred music and everything in between. Some have made music their vocation while others pursue it as a hobby or volunteer passion. In any case, we hope you enjoy this sampling of Walden’s noteworthy vocalists and instrumentalists (listed alphabetically) below.

THE MUSIC: Diversification was an early skill mastered by Tracey Bell. She taught herself how to play the piano, organ, guitar, fiddle and more instruments. While pursuing her graduate degrees, she graced various piano bar venues in Ann Arbor and Detroit during the ’70s and ’80s with her Baldwin (Model L) grand piano.

After earning her Montessori Certificate, Tracey went on to own and operate a Montessori School for preschool through third-grade levels, and wrote musical theater pieces for young children. She has provided musical support for the Lutheran Church, and toured with a vocal group, Roots & Wings, which performed all original songs for faith-based audiences.

After her school was forced to close due to mounting insurance costs, Tracey ran Black Sheep Tavern in Manchester, Michigan as an interim diversion. Taking yet another sharp turn, she left cooking and music behind for a career in finance with an airline to secure a better retirement.

Tracey says, “Now, I play piano for my own enjoyment, strictly by ear, mostly show tunes and jazz.”

THE BACK STORY: Tracey was born in Cleveland, but was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. “Growing up in tiny Lititz, I was a life-long member and child soloist with the

Moravian Church, a Bavarian sect with a rich music tradition,” she explains. “That experience turned out to be my roots for future wings.”

Tracey earned a bachelor of arts degree in theater from Connecticut College, then a master’s in musicology and music theory from Indiana University, and an MBA from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). She also earned a Montessori Certificate in London. Even after all of that professional training and exposure, Tracey says she has “no

THE MUSIC: Greg got an early break as a teenage trumpet player who found himself performing with the Cleveland rock band, Tom King and the Starfires, which later became The Outsiders. (Remember the 1966 national hit, “Time Won’t Let Me”?)

After leaving the Starfires, he joined Starfires drummer Jimmy Fox to form The James Gang (prior to future Eagles member Joe Walsh joining the band). Not one to hide from the spotlight, Greg grew into his musicianship and never stopped performing, adding vocals to his repertoire.

Decades later, Greg is still singing and playing live shows as a member of his latest band, Still Standing. He and fellow “Old School” band members Jim Mass (bass and vocals), Jimmy Miragliotta (keyboards and vocals), and Tony Mazzone (drums and vocals) play cover songs ranging from rock and blues to R&B and funk, “bringin’ it every night we play!”

Greg says, “I love playing ferociously. I try my best every night, giving it everything I’ve got. Otherwise, I might just as well stay home. I live for the moments when we’re out playing and it’s right. We call them magic nights. I’m 74 now, but I still need to let the tiger out. I feel positively 65!”

If you want to see and hear Still Standing in and around Greater Cleveland, check out the band’s Facebook page, #stillstandingohio, for updates.

THE BACK STORY: Greg describes his early teenage self as “a pudgy little guy with black-rimmed glasses from Cleveland Heights.”

He’s been in too many bands to name, playing British rock, American pop, rhythm-n-blues and Motown. Notably, he fancy certifications or Hollywood interest.”

THE WALDEN CONNECTION: After her many travels, Tracey finally relocated to Walden, where she is enjoying a legacy home left to her by her mother, Audrey May, who was one of the first residents of the Meadows. Tracey adds, “Walden also embraces my husband, Gary Bell, a retired petroleum engineer, who manages to put up with my creative flights. He fixes stuff. Our daughter, Erica Bell, lives in Connecticut as a marketing executive with Pitney Bowes.” was a vocalist and guitar player for the Rainbow Canyon rock band that recorded with Capitol Records. Along with having one of his compositions recorded by Three Dog Night, Greg toured with Rainbow Canyon, playing The Agora Ballrooms throughout Ohio, and opening shows for Queen, the Beach Boys, Aerosmith, Argent, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Mott the Hoople.

“Because I was basically a yeller, good for rock-n-roll, but not a real singer, I eventually lost my voice toward the end of Rainbow — so I went into hotel lounge bands as an instrumentalist,” Greg recalls.

“Finally, in my early 30s, I took formal singing lessons, and my voice returned. My vocal coach, Marietta Richards, changed my life. I learned how to breathe, form my vowels, carry my body, work my diaphragm… She turned me from a yeller into a polished singer… and a much better trumpeter, as a result.”

Greg attended Baldwin-Wallace College, majoring in psychology and taking classical guitar and trumpet lessons at the B-W Conservatory.

While he went back to playing in bands after graduation, Greg also maintained a 38-year career in industrial advertising sales.

THE WALDEN CONNECTION: Greg married “a good Catholic girl” 12 years his junior. Kathy’s parents lived in Fairington Court and Kathy wanted to also live in Walden, so they moved to a condo in the Landings in 1989.

After Greg and Kathy started raising their sons, Sean and Kyle, they rented out the condo and bought a house on Cross Creek Oval. Eventually, they sold the house and stayed at the condo.

Sadly, Kathy passed away last year after battling cancer. “We will not see the likes of her again,” Greg says.

“I could have gone down the drain after my wife died. Kathy was everything to everyone. But our sons saved me, helped turn me around. I am still learning new things and having exciting revelations. I can still bring it!”

And Greg is always happy to come home to the Landings after a long night of music-making out in the city. “This is my safe zone, where I can close the door behind me and find peace and balance.”

THE MUSIC: Erin is a juggler of sorts. She is a professional jazz singer, a nursing student, a wife and a mother.

Specializing in vocal jazz and the music of the Great American Songbook, her most recent performances have been at The Bop Stop in Cleveland (including a recent performance with Ernie Krivda and the Fat Tuesday Big Band), BluJazz in Akron, and Con Alma in Pittsburgh. If you want to see and hear Erin perform, follow her on Facebook, where she keeps fans, friends and family updated on her upcoming gigs.

While she could enjoy a full booking schedule, Erin says, “I try to keep performances limited because I am very focused on my family and current studies as a nursing student.”

THE BACK STORY: Erin was born in Buffalo and moved to North Olmsted when she was in elementary school. She began singing for an audience by the age of 6.

“I performed for anyone that would listen — even if that meant standing on a table with a hairbrush as a microphone at a family gathering,” she recalls. “There was always music playing in my house growing up and my dad is a singer, too. He led a couple of bands in Buffalo in the ‘70s and ‘80s and even opened for Meat Loaf!”

Erin’s father bought her a Billie Holiday box set when she was 10 years old, introducing the budding singer to the Great American Songbook. Fortunately, Erin also had a teacher in high school, Chris Venesile, who had a passion for vocal jazz. He mentored Erin and prepared her for the respected vocal jazz program at Western Michigan University. “I sang there for a year and decided it wasn’t for me,” Erin says. So she returned to Cleveland and enrolled in the Tri-C Jazz studies program, where she became their first vocal major.

“The Tri-C Jazz Fest is very well known and their jazz education programs are wonderful,” Erin explains. “My teachers were also working musicians and they would eventually invite me to join them on their gigs. Ernie Krivda, a legend in the Cleveland jazz scene, was my improvisation

THE MUSIC: Since childhood, Marsha has been a jazzsoul singer and songwriter. It didn’t take long for her to find appreciative audiences, from her household to her church, then to legendary nightclubs, country clubs, jazz festivals and concerts teacher. He had a band called Ernie Krivda and the Fat Tuesday Big Band and invited me to sing with them when I was 20. He had never invited a singer to join his band until then. Twenty years later, I am still singing with him, including his annual birthday show — Still Swinging at 78.”

Erin spent most of her 20s singing every weekend in Cleveland and with a band in Pittsburg, The Boilermaker Jazz Band. She has also performed in New York City, Boston, Baltimore and Chicago. Most recently, she has been the featured vocalist on two albums — “Jive at Five” with the Boilermaker Jazz Band — and “Madd for Tadd” (a tribute to a Cleveland jazz musician, Tadd Dameron) with a band made up of jazz educators from the East Coast. You can listen to both on iTunes and Spotify.

Erin says, “These days, I sing to keep this music alive. They don’t write songs like they used to! Each song in the Great American Songbook is like a tiny piece of art. Some of them are so simple— but there is so much beauty in their simplicity. Others are surprisingly difficult, with winding and haunting melodies that make you turn your head and wonder, How did they come up with that? Did you know the song “God Bless America” was written by Irving Berlin? The same person that wrote “Cheek to Cheek” and “White Christmas”? There is so much history in this music.”

THE WALDEN CONNECTION: Erin lives in Walden Farms on Bonnie Lane with her husband, Joe, and their four children. “My husband’s parents have lived here for years (on Rainbow’s End) and we’ve been hoping to end up here since we moved to Aurora in 2011,” Erin says. “Our piano room overlooks the horse pastures and it's my favorite room in the house.” on tour. She went on to sing with her husband in the Art Company Orchestra and later created her own act, the Marsha Newman Jazz Quartet. Marsha also performed with The Dave Banks Big Band, The Dan Zola Big Band, and received a standing ovation at the Tri-C Jazz Fest’s Women in Jazz concert.

“My vocal style has always been soulful,” Marsha reflects. “While I’ve sung my share of pop — even rock gigs — my vocal style is jazz and soul. I like to improvise. I like the musical flexibility of singing jazz. Sometimes on a tune, you want to just sing the melody, but most of the time, I want to bring something else to it. We’ve all heard the song a million times; do something more — or less — just different, and see what happens.”

Marsha’s varied career has revolved around vocal music performance, band management and wedding/event planning.

These days, Marsha has been writing some gospel tunes. “I’ve been enjoying the sheer relevancy of church hymns. I’m rediscovering some artists I haven’t paid enough attention to, and listening to some new artists and what they’re bringing. Time to listen and create is essential.”

She is also planning to do some recording, which has been a missing component in her career. “It’s not for an event or on anyone else’s meter. It’s just for me, and what is born of that will be my what’s next.”

THE BACK STORY: Like so many musicians, Marsha started singing in church. “Mom loved country and Dad loved Big Band music. I loved gospel and anything that smacked at jazz and soul,” she recalls.

In school, Marsha got involved in glee club, choir, and all-city/all-state solo contests. At home in West Park, she listened to Carmen McRae, Karen Carpenter, Rev. Charles Watkins, Walt Wanderley, Burt Bacharach and Joni Mitchell. She says, “This music was a lot more interesting and evoked ideas beyond teen pop.”

After high school, Marsha studied vocal music at Ohio University but was lured back to Cleveland one summer for a role in a show at the State Theater. While that didn’t pan out, she auditioned for a lead singer spot with the Snapshots at Swingos Keg and Quarter. “It was a very respected group at the time and Swingos Hotel is … well, legendary,” she says.

“I got the gig and was there for a few years, six nights a week, with Joe Neira (piano/ arranger), Jesse Lozano (drums) and Phil Caruso (bass). Joe wrote some beautiful vocal harmonies for us. It was one of the most satisfying sounds I’ve ever been a part of. I owe those guys a lot.”

Afterward, Marsha traveled with the floorshow style groups of the ‘80s “until I got sick of the road, which didn’t take long. I went home, got my Associate in Business and began working in the wedding planning industry. I was missing singing when I met saxophonist Art Newman. Art was a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory and had led bands all his life. Amazing that we hadn’t met before. We decided to make up for lost time and got married in 1990. We’ve lived in Walden nearly all of our very happy 32 years.”

Art and Marsha formed the Art Company Orchestra for the benefit circuit and high-end weddings. The 12-piece orchestra carried a rhythm section (piano, bass, drums and guitar), five horns, Marsha and two other front singers plus sound and lighting. They had a harpist and a Latin percussionist, as well.

“Such full, exciting sound,” Marsha recalls. “We played every country club and major event space in Ohio and contiguous states for 30 years. We had some wonderful musicians and were blessed with success, playing for a lot of very special people. It was very rewarding work.”

Meanwhile, Marsha worked her wedding planning around that schedule, and pulled weeknight gigs in area restaurants with her pianist. That birthed the Marsha Newman Jazz Quartet so Marsha could sing more jazz.

“I’m one of a few female vocalists in town who have stepped into the leadership role and managed this size group. I did all the bookings, advertising, hiring, set-lists, you name it.”

THE WALDEN CONNECTION: Marsha first moved to the Walden neighborhood when she joined her then-new husband, Art, in his Claridges condo back in 1990. Soon after, the couple bought their dream home in Arbor Way, where they enjoyed family, entertained friends, rehearsed music and conducted business for the next three decades. Recently widowed, Marsha now lives in Fairington and works as Sales and Catering Manager for The Bertram Inn, planning weddings and other events.

“Now I’m taking a step back. Maybe two,” she says. “Concurrent with the COVID shutdown, Art passed away in 2020 and I miss him every day. The band was halted during COVID, and now is the perfect time to ask myself, musically, what’s next? Fresh starts are a blessing, if you take the opportunity. Change is interesting; the nexus of jazz and music and all creative process. Even artists get in a rut, supplying the expected. It’s a good thing to not have any expectations and see what you come up with.”

“A good singer or musician is going to be able to sell the soul out of something that speaks to them, based on what we know. Singing is telling a story. As we live and we have different experiences upon which to draw inspiration, we develop different and more tools in the toolbox. Right now, I’m enjoying getting to know my voice more intimately. It’s amazing how that doesn’t happen while you’re singing for everyone else.“