Doreen Ketchens — from New Orleans to Sisters By Ceili Gatley Correspondent
It’s a long way from the street scene of New Orleans to the Sisters Folk Festival stage, but f or Doreen Ketchens it’s all about that jazz. Ketchens, who plays the jazz clarinet, began her musical journey at 6 years old, growing up in the flourishing music scene of New Orleans. Ketchens picked up the clarinet in the school band and was happy that she chose that instrument, as every other girl in her class played the flute. She had the opportunity to play in some of the most renowned school bands in New Orleans, including John F. Kennedy High School. Ketchens got a scholarship for clarinet playing to Loyola University in New Orleans. Ketchens met her husband, Lawrence Ketchens, at Loyola. He was an arranger and sousaphonist. During her junior year, she transferred to the Hartt School, a performing arts conservatory in Hartford, Connecticut. She left the Hartt School to make a life with Ketchens, six credits short of graduating. Ketchens and her husband moved back to New Orleans, and she began finding her love for jazz music.
“I had grown up playing classical music and wanted to learn jazz, which in turn I figured out to be a lot about improvising and learning from others,” said Ketchens. Ketchens and her husband began playing in the streets of New Orleans, in the French Quarter, and Ketchens would sit in with other musicians on the clarinet. She was talented in the art of reading music, but quickly realized that jazz was a different type of musical genre entirely. “Jazz wasn’t the same. You have to be more creative and improvise with jazz and learn by doing,” she said. Ketchens played with a musician named Pud Brown, who could play any instrument. “I would sit next to him in the Quarter, and ask him questions about how he can solo so well, and I then started learning some of those solos and copying them,” she said. Ketchens learned to play jazz by interpreting solos and playing the melodies over and over. During their time performing in the streets of New Orleans, Ketchens worked as a chef and homed in on her passion for jazz. “If I wasn’t in love with my husband as much as I am, I would not be a jazz performer today,” she said.
The band and Ketchens was nicknamed “Lady Louis” Ketchens perform because of her ability to original jazz pieces, as hit and hold powerful well as requested covers of old jazz songs, high notes, and her love including lots of Louis of Louis Armstrong’s Armstrong. p e r f o r m a n c e s t y l e. “A l o t o f peoShe has performed ple request a lot of with Ellis Marsalis, Motown-style music, Jon Faddis, Trombone and we just try to figure S hor t y, The Blac k out the crowd and what Crowes, and other notable names in music. type of songs they are She played her first going to enjoy and like,” jazz gig at the 1987 said Ketchens. Republican National This will be Convention with her Ketchens’ first time husband and his band. to Sisters, performing for the Sisters Folk Her first band with Festival crowd. Creative Lawrence was called Director Brad Tisdel the Jackson Square Allsaw Ketchens and her Stars. That band evolved band performing in the into Doreen’s Jazz, New French Quarter during Orleans. After struggling to enter the world a visit to New Orleans, of jazz performances, and tried for a couple of they finally settled on years to get Ketchens to a formula of playing the Festival. This year, together, and have since the timing worked out. PHOTO PROVIDED been entertaining audiKetchens will be bringDoreen Ketchens brings her jazz stylings ences with their streeting her husband, playto Sisters Folk Festival for the first time. ing the sousaphone, as performance style. “It was sheer dumb luck; Ketchens and her band well as a guitar player, and people would hear us and like still perform on the streets drummer with her. Ketchens us and some of those people of the French Quarter every has over 30 albums to her were important in the music weekend, paying homage name, so she will be bringindustry, so we started book- to where they began, while ing some of those along with ing gigs. Nowadays, it is easier booking festivals and gigs her. “Come out and enjoy for people to hear us digitally throughout the United States. some of our music and hear and that’s how we get a lot of She has performed and been some jazz band music. I am festival bookings, instead of a part of several documenta- so excited to be there and applying to play at them like ries about New Orleans and see the mountains,” said we used to,” she said. the street-music scene as well. Ketchens.