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Jazzy Hiller Jimi Odell still going strong at 74
by LEN LEAR
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| Jimi Odell, who plays frequently at
area venues, is currently celebrating his 56th year as
a professional jazz musician |
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If you read jazz criticism, you ‘re likely to get the impression
that jazz riffs are more complicated and cerebral than a symphony by Stravinsky,
but the legendary Duke Ellington, one of the most prolific and profound
musician/composers in the history of jazz, once said his idea of jazz
criticism could be summed up in these words: “If it sounds good
to you, then it is good.”
Using that criterion, Chestnut Hill resident Jimi Odell, 74, who is currently
celebrating his 56th year as a professional jazz musician, must be mighty
fine because that, simply put, is exactly how he sounds every time up
at bat.
According to Donald True Van Deusen, longtime jazz critic and writer for
several Philadelphia area publications, “Jimi is easily one of the
finest guitarists working today, and he can sing the sweetest, saddest
songs or up-tempo scat in a bluesy voice that ranges from baritone to
almost-tenor with an electric guitar that fits tightly with the vocals.
His playing and singing are nothing less than pure poetry.”
Bob Perkins, local jazz historian and host of “The Voice of Jazz”
on WRTI-FM, recently compared Jimi’s signing to that of the great
Bobby Short. “Odell’s scat singing,” he wrote in the
Philadelphia New Observer, “would bring a smile to Ella (Fitzgerald)’s
regal countenance.”
Currently Jimi performs every Saturday, 8:30 to 11:30 p.m., at the Blue
Horse Restaurant and Tavern in Blue Bell; occasionally at the new LaRose
Jazz Club, Germantown Avenue and Schoolhouse Lane; and the Manayunk Brewery
and Restaurant one Sunday brunch each month. The next one will be April
16, starting at 10:30 a.m. Odell also has a new CD out, Jimi Meets George
(Mesterhazy) at the Merion Inn, which is played often on WRTI Radio.
After five-and-a-half decades as a professional musician, is Jimi thinking
about retiring? Not unless the sun stops shining on Philadelphia.
“There’s no way I’m gonna stop playing jazz,”
he insists. “God gave me a gift, and I ain’t about to give
it up until they carry me away.”
*****
Odell was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, with his eight brothers
and one sister. Although he was a mere 5’5”, 132 pounds, at
Armstrong High School, he still managed to play varsity basketball and
football. In fact, for a season he was a starting running back and kick
returner.
“I finally got tired of being hit hard so often,” he explained.
“I was crazy; to this day, I’m still hurting from all the
pounding I took. I decided to find something that little people could
do, and I was a music lover from the first time I heard Frank Sinatra
and Oscar Moore, the guitar player in the Nat King Cole Trio. Before I
had my own guitar, I strummed a broom.
“In elementary school I tried to play the clarinet and trumpet,
but I couldn’t play either one. I wanted to be like Harry James
and Benny Goodman, but that was not to be. Then my brother came home from
the reserves during the Korean War with a guitar. He was really good,
too, so I went right out and bought one. I taught myself to play it and
had a lot more success than with the other instruments.”
Odell’s first actual job was in 1950 with a group called the Hugo
Jackson Quartet. Down through the years he held down daytime jobs and
played music at nights and on weekends. (His longest job was as a door-to-door
salesman for an insurance company from 1972 to 1995.) He moved to Philadelphia
in 1968 because he considered our town a breeding ground for jazz talent.
“You can go anywhere else,’ he said, “and you will always
find great jazz musicians who started out in Philly. Maybe it’s
the water in the Schuylkill. Maybe it’s because the music education
in the public schools has been so good.”
Down through the years, Jimi has met legends like Duke Ellington, John
Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzie Gillespie and Wes Montgomery, and he has
played with almost every great jazz musician from Philly over the last
three decades, such as Bootsie Barnes, Tony Williams, Shirley Scott, Clyde
Terrell, Eddie Green, Clifford Adams, Larry McKenna, Stanley Wilson and
dozens more.
In 1985 Odell formed his own jazz band, Jimi Odell’s Change of Pace,
for the first time. At the time he was a security guard for Fidelity Bank
in center city on the midnight shift. “I would shut the doors and
practice my guitar,” he recalled. “One night there was a lady
who worked in the bank who was listening. She had tears in her eyes, and
she told me the music was ‘so beautiful.’
“She asked me where I was playing, and I said I play whenever the
phone rings. She said she would like to be my manager, even though she
had never done anything like it before. I agreed, and she picked up a
copy of Philadelphia magazine and began calling one club after another.
From doing that she got us a job at Jocelyn’s in Media. She kept
this up and for 15 years had us working four nights a week; then she moved
out of the area.”
One thing that bugs Jimi is what he calls the misconception about jazz
musicians. “Many people think we’re all junkies,” he
said. “I truly do not personally know any jazz musician who is on
drugs, and if it was so prevalent, I’d certainly know about it.
We are regular people with families and often daytime jobs. There’s
no doubt that many of the famous jazz musicians many years ago did use
drugs, but now I think rock and rap musicians are the ones doing it.”
How does Jimi feel about the fact that many customers in clubs and restaurants
consider jazz as background music as they carry on their conversations,
seemingly oblivious to the music? “Some musicians can’t play
at all when people make noise,” he replied, “because it shows
a lack of respect, but I am able to play,regardless of the noise. I do
find, though, that when I sing, people get quiet.
“For some reason I have found that clubs in the suburbs treat musicians
much better than some of the clubs in the city. For one thing, there is
no hassle finding a parking place, as there is in center city. I’ve
played clubs in West Chester and Chadds Ford where the musician’s
food and drink were included in the gig and where there were no hassles
with getting paid, but in the city that has not always been the case.”
Odell moved to Chestnut Hill in 1995 because that’s where his current
wife was living. His spouse, Dona, taught biology at Chestnut Hill Academy
for eight years and for many more years at Penn State and Temple Universities.
How does Jimi feel about the fact that from time to time pundits are pronouncing
the imminent death of jazz?
“It’s ridiculous,” he insists. “Jazz has never
died. For those of us who play it, it has not changed. Only the notoriety
has changed. I feel fortunate to have grown up listening to so much great
music. It doesn’t get the publicity it used to get, but there are
still lots of great jazz musicians around, and there always will be.”
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