Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: Big Bad Master Class

As Yamaha clinicians, the swing-revival aces take their fun-loving approach to schools across the country.

Glen “The Kid” Marhevka, featured trumpet soloist and lead clinician, reflects on music education and how the retro-swing movement changed the perception of band kids.

When trumpeter and educator Glen “The Kid” Marhevka looks back on all the shows he played at the legendary Derby nightclub, in Hollywood, one in particular comes to mind as a turning point in his musical life.

It was the fall of 1996, and Marhevka had been performing vintage jazz and blues at the hip, old-school spot for over a year, as part of the rising retro-swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Their regular Wednesday-night gig had become a scene for punk rockers, swing dancers, young actors and filmmakers—“a lot of misfits,” Marhevka says with a laugh. On any given Wednesday, the packed crowd might include L.A. skateboarders alongside Friends cast members and J.J. Abrams. The internet age hadn’t fully kicked in yet, so news of the band’s sets, which started at 10 p.m. and ended at 1 a.m., spread mostly by word of mouth.

“I’d usually get there on Wedsnedays at 4 in the afternoon,” Marhevka recalls, “and set up and then we’d have dinner. When I got there that week, around 4 o’clock … there was a line all the way up the street and around the corner.” Something had changed—but what?

The previous Friday had seen the release of Swingers, a small independent movie about would-be actors partying through their 20s. It was written by and starred a friend of the band named Jon Favreau. “Jon used to come and hang out at all the gigs, and he would come up to San Francisco with us,” Marhevka says. “He was kind of part of our posse.” In one pivotal scene, Favreau twirls Heather Graham on the Derby’s dance floor, as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy plays their jump-blues tune “Go Daddy-O.” Marhevka can be seen and heard blowing radiant lines on his trumpet, and shouting the song’s exuberant chorus.

The Derby, which closed for good in 2009, was never the same again; the cat was out of the bag. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy continued to play there through 1997, until their touring schedule made it impossible. In early 1998, they released a major-label album that went platinum. The ’90s swing revival was in full effect.

Paying It Forward

For the next three years or so following Swingers, Marhevka says, every show Big Bad Voodoo Daddy headlined was either sold out or packed to the gills. But as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, the Brian Setzer Orchestra and other retro-swing acts exploded in popularity, Marhevka began to reflect on his formative experiences in music education. He thought about all the generous teachers and clinicians he’d learned from growing up in Southern California, and about the time his college band director took him to meet trumpet giant Doc Severinsen during a Tonight Show rehearsal. Doc held an English bulldog and a stack of trumpet books. “He practiced out of all the classic trumpet books that I studied with my whole life, like Clarke Technical Studies,” Marhevka remembers.

Severinsen chatted with the young musician for the better part of an hour. “He was super cool to me, and I was blown away,” he recalls. “So my whole idea became, if I ever get into any position where anybody wants to listen to anything I have to say, I’m going to pay it forward. I’m going to make them feel how Doc made me feel that day.”

Under Marhevka’s guidance, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has made music education a priority for nearly three decades. In the late ’90s they spearheaded a school jazz-band competition, and they continue to give master classes and clinics throughout the U.S., including in Alaska and Hawaii. Marhevka is a consummate educator in his own right, who teaches at the college level, and when he speaks about mentorship in music, he lights up. “If I can inspire one kid at any of these clinics,” he says, “it’s worth the time.”

After the band broke through, Marhevka was able to see firsthand how the retro-swing movement changed the perception of big-band jazz and swing, in the process elevating the social status of band programs in schools. Marhevka was a “band nerd” growing up, he says, who struggled to get his friends to come out to his jazz gigs. Suddenly he was hearing his trumpet on alternative-rock radio, and his buddies were pleading for spots on his band’s guest list. Great older music, it turns out, could compete with rock and hip-hop when it was presented in a youthful, high-energy way, in snappy thrift-store duds.

This effect trickled down to the high schools where Big Bad Voodoo Daddy toured as clinicians. “We were rock stars,” Marhevka says. “I was in these high-school band rooms my whole life, and I was not cool at all. And then it’s like everybody’s having fun with it. I thought that was great.” Today, Marhevka often meets band directors and educators who were proud jazz-band teenagers during the mid-to-late-’90s, when retro-swing and the ska revival gave brass and woodwind students an entrée into popular music. “[I’ll meet directors who’ve] been teaching for 15, 20 years now,” Marhevka says, “and they’re like, ‘I was playing your music when I was in college or high school, and I’m so happy to have you guys here.’”

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What Makes a Master Class?

Today’s student musicians are less likely to be familiar with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy; after all, many trends in rock and pop have come and gone since the band played the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 1999. But once the Voodoo Daddy horns lock in, says Marhevka, the enthusiasm from band and students alike is as powerful as ever.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy tours the U.S. consistently throughout the year, so clinics are worked into the schedule whenever possible, and they’ve taken place both at schools and at concert venues during the band’s sound check. Schools and performing-arts organizations with an education component will reach out to the band online to inquire. Often, the daily schedule on the road is booked solid, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, Marhevka explains. If a clinic can’t happen on the band’s next visit to a particular city, then perhaps the following tour will present an opportunity.

Even when a clinic can be scheduled, Marhevka and his bandmates rarely have a surplus of time between gigs, so they’ve become experts at packing plenty of instruction and fellowship into a couple of hours. Although the entirety of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has participated in education programs, most often the five brass and woodwind players handle the master classes. “We became Yamaha artists about a decade ago,” Marhevka says, “and now we are Yamaha clinicians as the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy horn section.”

A typical clinic will begin with some background on the band’s history, before launching into an overview of their influences. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s music is rooted in jazz and urban blues that predate WWII, and during this period the most renowned artists put a premium on fun, charisma and entertainment. Over the house PA, Marhevka will play examples of Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie, or Louis Armstrong and other early New Orleans jazz, then follow up that focused listening with a breakdown of musical elements. Often, in the case of an artist like Cab Calloway, he’ll notice that students respond passionately to the music’s wild, zany, animated qualities—all of which, if they’re used to flashy modern big-band writing, they may never have associated with jazz before. “Part of our mantra is to keep this kind of music alive,” says Marhevka.

Performing for the kids is key, and Marhevka likes to demonstrate how the band is able to play big-band material with just five horns, owing to the strength of skilled arranging. The Voodoo Daddy horns might then sit in with the student ensemble, to help them through their current charts—especially if that current repertoire includes some classic bluesy swing, like Basie. Hal Leonard has published student-level arrangements of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s biggest songs, and those can be useful in master classes as well.

Big Bad Voodoo Tricks

“We’ll stand out front and listen to [the students] play a tune or two,” says Marhevka, “almost like we’re judging at a jazz-band competition. We have all our little tricks about how to make them sound better in a short amount of time. … ’Cause the band directors are in front of them all the time, every day. But when you have somebody new come in, it’s like you have their attention for a short time.” Among the strategies that Marhevka returns to are:

Soft-Loud Dynamics:

High-contrast dynamics are crucial to the era of jazz and jump-blues that Big Bad Voodoo Daddy explores. Marhevka likes to coach student bands through the oh-so-gentle approach he terms “Basie soft,” after the Count Basie band’s knack for maintaining terrific swing at a volume barely above a musical whisper. This helps students understand that power in a big-band setting relies more on time feel and tightness than on sheer volume. Then, Marhevka will flip the switch and guide them through a blistering shout section. That immediate soft-to-loud shift in dynamics is a jolting signature of swing-era arranging, and too many of today’s jazz-band students aren’t familiar with its thrilling effect.

Tighten Up the Releases:

Along with intonation, Marhevka points to the sharp, simultaneous release of notes as a fundamental that will improve a section’s sound instantly. “I’ll notice when a whole brass section is playing a long note and holding it, and they’re supposed to all be off on 4 or maybe go all the way to 1 of the next measure, but instead they all release at different spots,” Marhevka says.

“If everyone releases together—and it’s all marked in their parts—it tightens up the band in a really quick way,” he adds. “It’s really easy to do, but it’s often overlooked. If you can get dynamics and releases and attacks all together, in a 20-to-30-minute period the band goes from sounding really good to great.”

Annotate, Annotate, Annotate:

When he discusses the importance of releases, Marhevka often notices that none of today’s students have a pencil on their music stand. This is a big problem, since even the brightest musicians can’t remember every single accent and articulation that needs to be played throughout a book of 15 big-band charts. Marhevka tells students about how “there are notes and markings all through my books—all my method books and all my music that I play.” The specific annotations a player makes don’t matter, he argues, so long as they achieve the desired result in performance. “You could write the dumbest things,” he chuckles. “All [the audience] does is hear you.”

Clinic Coda

Ultimately, as long as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the students are listening, interacting and enjoying themselves, then the clinic is a success. Just as swing and R&B musicians like Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan taught Marhevka, the joy and vitality of music are paramount.

“I’m happy to help with technique and playing at the highest level possible,” he says. “But not everyone’s going to become a pro player, and that’s not what it’s all about exactly. It’s about inspiring and uplifting everybody.”

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