Pianist plays, tells tales of blues in local shows

Mr. B, Mark Braun, has stories to tell.
The Michigan-based boogie and blues pianist learned his craft directly from blues masters including
Little Brother Montgomery, Boogie Woogie Red and Blind John Davis.
During two local shows this weekend, he’ll share the music inspired by his idols and stories about those
blues legends. Braun will perform Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Pemberville Opera House and Sunday at 2
p.m. at the Grand Rapids Opera House, above the town hall. Tickets for shows are $12 for each show and
available at Beeker’s Country Store, Pemberville and Washers Laundromat, Grand Rapids.
Braun grew up in Flint, Mich., with his father’s jazz records playing in the background. His father was a
music enthusiast, Braun said, who loved "solid swinging jazz’ with a grounding in the blues.
Growing up he fooled around on the piano his parents won in a raffle. When he was about 15 his father
presented him with a record by Jimmy Yancey, "the father of Chicago blues." While the
sobriquet was suspect, the music was as authentic as could be. At the time in the late-1960s, Yancey was
"off the radar," but it was right on target for Braun.
"It was just a pivotal recording for me to hear," he said.
From then on, he started listening to every blues pianist could good get his ear on and figuring out
their licks on the piano.
"It was just a solitary adventure being home alone with the piano," he said. Though he was a
social guy and an athlete, those session communing with the instrument felt good. "They still
do," he said, Tuesday by telephone from Ann Arbor, Mich. where he lives.
Braun also started making the 50-mile trek from Flint to Ann Arbor. The jazz and blues festivals there
had cultivated a scene, including the original Blind Pig Cafe.
They brought in musicians from Chicago, "real genuine blues pianists," including Sunnyland
Slim.
Braun’s large stature helped him gain entry into the club even though he was underage. That gave him a
chance to get to know the performers.
"I was lucky beyond belief," he said. The masters of the music were still healthy enough to
travel and perform. And, Braun said, they were taken by their young acolyte. "I was just wildly
enthusiastic and respectable."
For their part "these were very dignified guys," he said. They wore the nicest suits and
favored the best pianos.
By 18 he moved to Ann Arbor "ostensibly to go to college." But that didn’t last long, "I
wanted to be a piano player."
Braun’s fashioned a music career in tandem with carpentry and furniture refinishing.
From that love of traditional blues and boogie, Braun developed his own style. "My interests of a
fan of music are a lot wider" than the genre" he’s associated with. "I have a lot of
influences outside of those strict parameters. … I have my ears and heart open."
That ranges from the piquant sounds of Duke Ellington, the blues-drenched jazz of Horace Silver and the
avant-garde acrobatics of Cecil Taylor.
Playing in a small concert hall for an audience with diverse tastes is "very freeing for me,"
he said.
Braun said he’ll play piano and talk about the blues piano tradition.
"Bearing witness to the music of those guys, that’s about the most remarkable thing about my
life," he said. "That’s worth relaying."