This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: If you’re a fan of the HBO television series, “Treme,” you know that over its first three seasons, the show’s episodes have been filled with an array of musical artists from the New Orleans music scene, including Doctor John, Allen Toussaint, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, Irma Thomas and Kermit Ruffins to groups like the Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic and the Treme Brass Band.
But “Treme” episodes have also featured another New Orleans musician, one who has a strong St. Louis connection – pianist/composer Tom McDermott.
McDermott, who will return to perform at Joe’s Café this Thursday, Aug. 29, was born and grew up in Kirkwood. He started playing piano as a young child after hearing his mother play ragtime tunes and early standards from the 1920s.
Then, when he was his early teens, ragtime music began to gain renewed popularity through “The Sting,” a movie featuring compositions by Scott Joplin.
By that time, McDermott was also listening to St. Louis ragtime legend Trebor Tichenor’s weekly public radio show featuring Joplin’s music as well as other piano music from the early-to-mid 20th century. McDermott was exposed to other legendary pianist like Eubie Blake and Fats Waller – and became intensely interested in New Orleans piano legend Jelly Roll Morton’s music.
“I heard Jelly Roll early on and I loved it,” recalls McDermott during a recent telephone conversation from Minneapolis, where he was finishing a round of performances before heading to Chicago and then St. Louis to wind up a cross-country tour that began in mid-July. “I was playing Jelly Roll stuff by the time I was 16. And that led to my fascination with New Orleans music.”
Going to New Orleans
McDermott visited NOLA several times as a teenager. And after graduating from Saint Louis University in 1978, earning a master’s degree in music from Washington University in 1982, working during the early ‘80s as a freelance music critic, he decided to make the move there in 1984.
“I ended up getting a gig playing at the 1984 Worlds’ Fair in New Orleans; and by that time I had become obsessed with the music of James Booker,” says McDermott. “But Booker passed away in late 1983, before I moved down there.”
McDermott worked hard to establish himself on the NOLA musical scene, playing regularly on the steamboat Natchez and at small local clubs. He eventually became a member of the Dukes of Dixieland in 1990, and played with the group off and on through 1998 while working on his own music.
Over the past 20 years, McDermott released 10 recordings under his own name, as well as playing or arranging music from many other artists and groups – including Irma Thomas, John Boutte, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the new Orleans Nightcrawlers ( a group McDermott co-founded).
And as McDermott delved deeper into his studies about the unique musical history of New Orleans, he began to discover interesting relationships and influences from other traditions in the Big Easy’s musical melting pot.
For example, recordings by McDermott like “Danza” and “Choro do Norte” explored the relationships between the Brazilian choro tradition as well as tangos, ragtime music, and Cuban rhythms that influenced New Orleans music.
Partnership with Parks
Those intriguing musical explorations – along with recordings that McDermott had made of the music of New Orleans composer Louis Gottschalk - eventually created a connection with legendary composer and arranger Van Dyke Parks, known for his collaboration with Beach Boy Brian Wilson during the ground breaking “Smile“ album recording sessions, as well as his own acclaimed recordings as a leader such as “Song Cycle.”
Parks recently put together a compilation of McDermott’s recordings and released it on his own Minky records label. According to McDermott, his connection with Parks came about through the efforts of one of McDermott’s St. Louis University High School friends, Ken Kwapis.
“I actually made the connection with Van Dyke through Ken,” McDermott says. “Ken and I went to St. Louis High, and he played the piano as well. Eventually, Ken moved to LA and became a movie producer and director. He did a film called, “He Said, She Said,” and I had a small part as a member of a band. Ken eventually directed a Sesame Street movie called “Follow That Bird,” that featured Van Dyke as a composer.
“Over the years, Ken shoveled my CDs to Van Dyke, and eventually we communicated. He evidently really liked my ‘Danza’ recording, and we had a mutual interest in Gottschalk. He said he wanted to curate a collection of my recordings. So I ended up sending him eight of my CDs and a list of things I thought would be good to include.”
When Parks played in St. Louis last year at the Luminary Center for the Arts, he commented in a Beacon article on McDermott’s music and his decision to curate a compilation of his music.
“I listened to Tom’s music and was astonished by his ability,” Parks says. “I asked him if it would be possible to release a compilation of his music on my label, because I was very interested in stirring up the pot to get more awareness and public interest in his music.
According to McDermott, he and Parks didn’t quite agree about which recordings should be on the compilation, but everything eventually worked out.
“Van Dyke’s list of what he wanted on the compilation was quite a bit different from mine,” says McDermott, “although there was overlap. He wanted to focus on the classically influenced side of my music – not the things that came out of my love of traditional jazz or Booker’s music.
“I remember he told me at the time that he wanted to avoid the dreaded word, ‘eclectic’ with my compilation. So essentially, the music on the CD is focused on tangos, choros and French musettes. And even when I perform a Scott Joplin piece, it’s framed in that approach.”
“Bamboula” is set for official release on Sept. 24, but McDermott recently received an advance shipment of the CD during the course of his current tour – which has taken him over 7,000 miles on a giant loop than began in New Orleans, wound its way to the west Coast and then to Minneapolis and ends in St. Louis Thursday.
McDermott booked the entire tour himself – something he’s done in the past in other jaunts that have taken him to Europe as well as Alaska and South America.
“It took a fair amount of work to set it all up,” he says. “I had some built-in gigs that I already had booked in Albuquerque, Prescott, Arizona and Berkeley, Calif. From there, I used the connections I’d made from all the people who have come through New Orleans, have heard me play there and wondered if I would think about playing in their home town. So I call them up and see what we can work out.”
According to McDermott, his appearances on HBO’s “Treme” over the past three seasons have increased his profile to a certain extent, but he’s not sure it’s really affected the number of recordings he’s sold.
“I've only had five short scenes in the first three years,” McDermott says. “But when I play in New Orleans, I do have tourists tell me they saw me on the show. I play myself, and the first season I got to do a couple duets of Jelly Roll Morton tunes with violinist Lucia Micarelli.
“It’s actually pays a lot more to have one of my recordings played during an episode than it does to appear on the show myself. And since the upcoming season – which will be the last – has only about five episodes, I’m not in any of them – although I do have some music on there.”
After his St. Louis concert, McDermott heads back to New Orleans, but already has plans to travel to France in October.
“My next project is something I’m calling “Frenchified” a recording that will hopefully examine different manifestations of French music,” says McDermott. “I’m going to give some of my demo recordings to the French musicians I meet there, and ask them how I can finish the music – ideally using other people’s money!”