Ditmas Park Musician Brings Jazz To Flatbush Lobbies & Burrito Joints
Ditmas Park musician Albert Marquès doesn’t boldly go where no artist has gone before, but he is on a mission to seek out — well, not new life and new civilizations, but new venues for improvisational music.
In the past several months, Marquès has recruited jazz combos for concerts sponsored by a property management company that owns multiple buildings in Flatbush. Most recently, he’s established a residency at Don Burrito restaurant at Newkirk Plaza, where he runs weekly jam sessions with a revolving cast of musicians.
Born in a town near Barcelona, Marquès started singing in a choir when he was three and began piano a couple of years later. “I also play drums and the gralla, a Catalan traditional instrument,” he said. Inspired by Miles Davis and John Coltrane, he started playing jazz when he was a teenager. He has many other influences, including Michel Camilo, Arturo O’Farrill, Brad Mehldau and Chick Corea. “I loved improvisation, and jazz is all about improvisation.”
His passion for bringing jazz to unlikely audiences springs from two complementary impulses. “I’m a piano player, a composer and a teacher, but also a political activist. Most of the time only very educated people have access to music like jazz or classical music. I try to bring jazz to people who might never listen to this kind of music otherwise.”
Marquès finds that a few blocks can make a big difference.”Cortelyou Road is too gentrified. In Newkirk Plaza, there is no live music and most of the people who listen to us there never saw that kind of performance live. And guess what… They like it! I call these concerts ‘Jazz for the community.’”
Check out a clip from ‘Jazz for the community’:
Marquès moved to Brooklyn five years ago from Paris, and met his wife in Fort Greene. Together, they moved to Ditmas Park and rented an apartment in one of a score of buildings managed by Shamco Management. A punch list of problems in the newly renovated unit led to an unexpected opportunity for his “jazz for the community” initiative.
“Albert and his wife moved in, and the turnover contractor did not do a good job,” Shamco’s Alan Shamah recalled. “She called the office to complain, and I overheard the conversation. ‘Hand me the phone,’ I said. ‘They just moved in. How can they be having problems?’”
The phone call ended with a promise to dispatch a workman to make repairs, but also a collaboration between Marquès and his landlord. Shamah proposed that Marquès recruit a band to play free concerts for tenants in the lobbies and courtyards of Shamco’s Flatbush buildings.
“I did it for two reasons,” Shamah said. “To be in touch with tenants and to promote community in the building.”
“My father started this business in 1980 with one building, and he was there almost every day,” he said. But by the time Shamah took over in 2007, the company had grown, and he spent most of his time in the office. “You can lose touch with the tenants. The company is faceless; tenants like to know who to call when there’s a problem.”
Attending the concerts gives Shamah a chance to meet his tenants face-to-face. “Believe me, tenants will tell you if there is problem in the building,” he said, “and you can respond more quickly.”
Shamah also believes the concerts help forge relationships between his tenants. “I started thinking that sometimes a human connection is lacking,” he said. “People are in their apartments alone and lonely.”
“It’s like waiting for a train,” he explained. “If a friend is waiting with you, it doesn’t seem like it takes as long for the train to come.” Building community with the concerts, he believe, gives tenants a better experience, which benefits the company.
“Many times I have seen tenants dancing in the lobby,” he said. “I see kids that are 7, 10, 11-years old. Some of them have never seen a musical instrument, never seen a band performing. What kind of impact will that have?”
A recent concert on Caton Avenue unfolded much as Shamah described. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, tenants gathered around tables laden with food in the cool of a shady courtyard between two buildings. Marquès led a six-piece band in extended improvisations over jazz standards, little kids danced and neighbors chatted. Tenants buttonholed Shamah, who checked in with the building’s super as the band played on.
While a band playing modern jazz is often the stereotypical marker of a gentrifying neighborhood, both Shamah and Marquès contend it can be just the opposite.
“Some of my tenants have been in their buildings for 20 or 30 years. When they see that the neighborhood coffee shop is now a Starbucks, it can be threatening. I want to make those people comfortable, to let them know I want them in the building for another 20 or 30 years.” The concerts are one way to do that, Shamah said.
That same impulse sent Marquès to Newkirk Plaza to find a place to host his weekly jazz sessions. He found the absence of live music in that part of Ditmas Park a symbol of divides within the neighborhood and wanted to reach neighbors who might feel left behind by changing times. He approached Aida Torres, who has owned the Don Burrito restaurant for 15 years, and asked if he could invite musicians in to play. “I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’” Torres explained.
At a session about a month after Marquès debuted the series, most of the tables in the restaurant were full, evenly divided between fans who had made a special trip to hear the jazz and diners nonplussed to see a double bass, drums, keyboards, guitar and three horn players setting up in the small room.
The players change week-to-week, drawn by word of mouth. During a break from the music, when asked how they’d heard about the gig, each musician pointed to somebody else. But when they launched the set, they quickly locked into a groove. Soon the Don Burrito regulars were nodding along with the dedicated fans, and it looked like Marquès’ jazz for the community was a success.
Marques’ next jazz set at Don Burrito (5 Newkirk Plaza between Marlborough Road and East 16th Street) is scheduled for Thursday, July 28, from 7pm to 9pm. The group will include trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, a third generation jazz player in a family that includes his Grammy-nominated grandfather Chico O’Farrill and Grammy-winning father Arturo O’Farrill.
