Ken Peplowski was a phenomenally gifted and internationally acclaimed jazz clarinettist and tenor saxophonist who, for 30 years, was a favourite of Scottish jazz audiences. A popular draw not just for his musical virtuosity, he was also renowned for his witty repartee – never better showcased than when he was teamed with fellow American musician Marty Grosz, with whom, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he regularly appeared at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival.
Anyone who arrived midway through a “Ken ‘n’ Marty” gig might have been surprised to find the audience convulsed with laughter – and musicians who were due onstage in other venues joining the punters in relishing the perfect, joyful mix of world-class jazz and top-notch banter which could have come straight from one of the old Hollywood comedies which the pair enjoyed. Both musicians were firm subscribers to the view that jazz could and should be entertaining rather than po-faced and self-indulgent; a view espoused by Louis Armstrong whose music they celebrated on a rare recording together, Remembering Louis, for the jazz legend’s 2001 centenary.
By 2005, their annual Edinburgh appearance had become something of an institution – “a mental one,” quipped Peplowski when the notion was suggested to him. It was the gig to which aficionados could take their jazz-fearing partner, pater or pal, safe in the knowledge that even if they couldn’t get into the swinging jazz, they would at least get a few laughs.
That was the year in which Grosz – who Peplowski said was “working on an all-singing, all dancing version of Caligula” – broke a guitar string during their opening number. The veteran guitarist, renowned for his hilarious and often long-winded monologues, changed the string while telling the story of what happened when the classical heavyweight Andres Segovia found himself in a similar situation at the Carnegie Hall. For him, Grosz lamented, “a guy in a tux brought on a replacement guitar … “
As Grosz continued his story and string-changing, “Peps” sat down at the piano beside the stage and began to play Feelings before shouting to the jazz festival staffer on duty: “Derek! Start the car!”
Peplowski – whose name the great comedian and jazz fan Spike Milligan once described as “the sound of a custard pie hitting the wall” – had been a regular visitor to Scotland since 1990 when, during his debut week at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, he played in American-Scottish line-ups alongside such stalwarts of the local scene as pianists Alex Shaw and Stan Greig and bass players Ronnie Rae and Ricky Steele. Seven months later, he played the Glasgow Society of Musicians with the Sandy Taylor Trio.
Over the years, he played at other Scottish festivals – including Nairn and Lockerbie. His last appearance in Scotland was at the 2016 Edinburgh Jazz Festival, in a memorable duo gig with the late Scottish pianist Brian Kellock.
His was an eclectic, hugely varied repertoire which reflected the vast spectrum of his musical interests: the Beatles, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker were among his particular passions and their music was well represented in the 70 plus albums he recorded under his own name. As a sideman he was featured on a wide range of recordings, amongst them albums by singers Leon Redbone, Peggy Lee and Mel Tormé. His tenor sax sound was wispy and seemed to float. On clarinet, he had a clean, warm, woody tone – and he would often bring the house down with a stunning, unaccompanied interpretation of Duke Ellington’s The Single Petal of a Rose.
Kenneth Joseph Peplowski was born in 1959, in Cleveland, the younger of two sons of Norbert Peplowski, a police officer and amateur accordion player, and Estelle (née Hamacek). He grew up in the suburb of Garfield Heights and started performing in public at around the age of 11, having been given a clarinet by his father when he was eight years old.
In his teens, he and his elder brother, Ted, a trumpet player, formed a professional Polish polka band, the Harmony Kings, which played for Polish weddings and became well-known in Cleveland thanks to appearances on local TV and radio. Peplowski “fell in love with” playing music and entertaining people.
He used his earnings to start a record collection, and, as a clarinettist, he inevitably came across the records of Benny Goodman, the “King of Swing”, who became a primary influence. School workshops with the many big bands which passed through Cleveland helped him resolve to become a professional jazz musician.
In his late teens, while he was briefly studying at Cleveland State University, he formed a trio which was invited to play at the Cleveland Jazz Festival. Buddy Morrow, the leader of the Tommy Dorsey ghost orchestra, heard him and invited him to join the band, playing one-nighters all over America. After 18 months Peplowski had had enough. Morrow offered him an out from his contract, on the condition that he didn’t return to Cleveland, and instead went to New York. “Buddy told me that you shouldn’t be a big fish in a small pond, that you should always play with people better than yourself.” Morrow also encouraged him to take up the tenor sax, which he studied with Sonny Stitt, who had made his name during the Bop era.
His first eight months post-Dorsey were actually spent back on the road with the touring production of the Broadway musical Annie, making enough money to afford to move to New York, where such young musicians as cornettist Warren Vaché and tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton were keeping the flame of swinging, lyrical jazz going alongside the surviving players from the 1930s and 1940s, and revitalising it for the next generation.
Peplowski recalled the Annie experience in 2003. ”Believe it or not, the time I spent with this show and the orphans and the Christmas trees and the dogs was the most decadent eight months I’ve ever played a part in. It was worse than any rock band’s excesses. I got out of there just to save my life.”
In the mid-1980s, he was playing in a 1930s-style big band when he finally met his hero, Benny Goodman. ”Benny wanted to put a band back together and he actually auditioned the band I was in. He was very late for the audition so we started playing. I was in the middle of my solo, playing with my eyes closed, and all of a sudden I felt the band tense up as a unit – the sound of 14 pairs of butt cheeks clenching at the same time. I knew that Benny Goodman was in the room.” Goodman took over the band, his last before his death in 1986, and Peplowski became something of a right-hand man to him.
From the 1990s onwards, Peplowski toured the world as a solo star and later added the role of artistic director, notably of the Oregon Coast Jazz Party, to his CV. He always said that he regarded himself first and foremost as ”an interpreter of music” who followed the advice he had been given by Sonny Stitt: ”You have to play for yourself.”
Ken Peplowski, May 23, 1959 – February 2, 2026
This obituary was first published in The Scotsman
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