Jerry Marotta and Pete Levin – my New York Jazz friends

Jerry Marotta and Pete Levin
My NY Friends

So, with one auction under our belts so to speak, we figured we could continue our project and do better with the next auction. We decided to meet for coffee once a month and compare notes. At this point in the project, we still were wanting to concentrate on actors, and our own ‘Hollywood North’ film industry seemed to be suddenly teeming with A-list stars all filming movies here. My partner had a few contacts in the ‘biz’ and got a few contact addresses, and we formulated a letter to send. Country and Folk artists Gary Fjellgaard and Valdy, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson and Deep Space Nine actor Alexander Siddig all gave us permission to use their names in those introduction letters, which we hoped would convince participation from others.

We didn’t have any luck whatsoever with actors. Not one response back, not even a negative response. We were frustrated, so decided to try musicians again. A brand new band that had been on tour with U2 were coming to Vancouver to headline their own show and they supported Save the Children, so we sent off a request and received our first ‘no’ answer. We were crushed. Looking back on it, it makes sense though- their manager didn’t want the band to be affiliated with our charity, but affiliated with Save the Children. At the time it was a bitter one to accept though.

wanna-be drummer

Around this time, my friends all migrated from Livejournal to various other blogs including Facebook. I didn’t like Facebook, so ended up at (the original) Myspace. I didn’t know much about HTML but tried to put together a profile and all of a sudden I had bands ‘friend requesting’ me like crazy! At first, it was the unsigned bands who wanted me to “join their street teams” or “vote for me in this crazy poll”, or “buy our merchandise”, and it was strange and a bit disconcerting until I began to find my way around and figure things out.

I started finding A-list bands but also realized: there were 10 ‘Bono’s’ and probably not one of them was the ‘real’ Bono. Same for many other bands – lots of Myspaces claiming to be the official band, but not really. I think it all started with me finding Tony Levin. He’s Peter Gabriel‘s bass player when Peter goes on tour, and I’ve always thought he was an amazing musician. I ‘friended’ him when I realized the profile was indeed his, that he himself looked after it, and blogged about his touring (not blogged by an assistant.) I started looking at his friends list, and found his brother Pete Levin. Pete’s a jazz musician, not rock and roll, but he looked like a very nice man, and his profile had a really cool blurb on it:
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It’s great making new friends here on MySpace and catching up with many old friends. Making the world smaller is what the Internet does best. But I’m not here to just “collect” friends. So here’s the deal:

I’m going to deny your add request if I don’t know you and …

your profile is blocked, or
you show only a screen name and hide your real name, or
there’s profanity on your page (posted by you or your Myspace ‘friends’), or
your page glorifies drugs, drinking, scantily clad babes, etc.

I’m not being judgmental about your page, but I need to be comfortable with it to post a comment there. If you need any of that qualified, we’re not going to be friends anyway, so save your energy. I’m just telling you.

Pete
Woodstock, NY January ’08
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I love that blurb!  I thought ‘this man has a great sense of humor and I must know him‘, so I sent him a friend request but forgot that I had written on my profile that I didn’t like jazz music at all. I got quite an interesting response back from Pete, but it was tongue in cheek and superbly funny, and he accepted, and I started listening to his jazz. (which I now absolutely love btw). From Tony and Pete, I found Jerry Marotta (drummer for Peter Gabriel as well as session drummer, producer, writer, and singer), and it just kept growing – but I’m getting ahead of myself 🙂

Jerry Marotta

I found that Jerry was coming to town to play with Todd Rundgren (along with Tony Levin) in August 2006, so I sent Jerry a Myspace message and he responded and said “yes, I’d love to do a photo.” He was so unpretentious about the whole thing – gave me his cell phone number (I was surprised!), told me to call him when he got to town and we’d set up the meeting at the venue, etc… and it helped tremendously to have someone so down to earth and approachable for my first Myspace request/encounter.

Arriving at the Commodore Ballroom, I was able to watch Jerry tune his drum kit and do a sound check, and I was like a kid in a candy store – I’m a closet wannabe drummer 😉 It was remarkable and comfortable. I wasn’t nervous in the least.

After his sound check, Jerry posed with the doll in various locations in the club to ensure I had enough light to get the shot (I still didn’t know how to use the camera on anything but ‘Auto’ and I was still using a film camera). I took a few shots; by the tables, by the windows, sitting at his drum kit etc, and it was unhurried and un-stressful and I really appreciated it, and still do. It was a unique experience.

Working with Jerry enabled me to have hope this project could work, and that most musicians were going to be very much just regular, real people. It felt good.

Find our first chapter HERE if you missed it.

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photos by comfort doll project