Doreen Ketchins
Appearances
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Oh, La Vie en Rose? I set myself up for that, didn't I? Let me see here.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
When you speak, angels sing from above. Every day what seems too tight into love songs. Give your heart and soul to me and life will always believe.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, I didn't realize it at all. I was just doing what I do. I was just learning songs and playing songs. And somebody asked me when I was... And I was singing, you know, they said, how do you do that with those words? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And, you know, just Louis spoke like my dad, you know. And so without realizing it, you know, instead of saying word, I say void.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, stuff like that, you know, because that's what, you know, I grew up with. You know, you change with society. You know, you go to college and you say, well, that boy, and they're like, what the heck are you talking about? You know what I mean? So, but, you know, it always comes back when I do that.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And a lot of the melodies, you know, the way he interpreted the melodies and stuff, I really, really, really liked it, you know, and it appealed to me. So, you know, sometimes, you know, I start off like I learned a melody.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
right from him, you know, I'll do exactly what he does, but as, you know, as I play it, as I develop, you know, with the song, it becomes me, you know, I change a few things, you know, because he played a trumpet and I play a clarinet, you know, and he was a much older man, I was a much younger woman, and just other things that come into play that you don't expect, but they do, because it's human nature, you know, so, yeah.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I didn't realize it, but once I realized it, I embraced it and just rolled with it, you know, and I'm still rolling with it.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I grew up in the Treme. And, yeah, a lot of people are familiar with that neighborhood because of the TV series. And I grew up in the house that I was christened in, actually. It used to be a church. It was a church. And I was christened in that very house. And then it became a whole bunch of other things. But, yep, right in the middle. And my parents had a sweet shop. And they named it after me.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yes. Yeah, and that's a whole other New Orleans traditional story in itself. Like naming stores and things after each other? Oh, no. See, I went to a nursery school called Marietta Bottery. And like any other institution, you know, people need to raise money. And so we have these innovative ways of raising money here in New Orleans.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, I mean, you could sell things like world's finest chocolate, which everybody has at least tried once. And, you know, oranges, jams and other candies. But I wanted to be queen of my nursery school. And every year they would have a fundraiser, which would be a Mardi Gras ball. And that Mardi Gras ball, you get to dress up and walk down the aisle.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And there's a king and there's a queen in their court. And I just thought it was the coolest little thing. I went there two years in a row. But so it came time to raise the money. And what you do is you do things. So my mom, she decided to sell candy from the front room. So she'd go and buy some wholesale candy. And we were right down the street from the school.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
So naturally, kids would come and get on the doorstep and buy candy. You had to be pretty popular. Yeah, yeah, learn how to fight, too. But so, you know, she was pretty good, you know, sell candy and cookies and stuff like that and raised some pretty good money and turned it in. But when we turned it in, I wasn't queen. I didn't have enough money to be queen. I was...
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And it was cool, you know, I got to wear this big, beautiful yellow dress, but I wasn't queen. When the queen walked up, you know, the aisle, I was like, man, look at her, man, I could be queen. So we started early that next year, you know. Of course, they never stopped coming to the door anyway.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And by the time it was time to turn in the money, we had a whole lot more money than we had the year before. But it was my last year there. I had basically aged out. So my mom, she explained that to me. I was four. And she said, now, I know you want to be queen, but we could do one of two things. We could take all of this money and turn it in and you can be queen.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You walk down that aisle as queen. I'm like, yeah. She said, or we could take half the money and you probably won't be queen, but you could still walk down the aisle and you'll have some money saved. You know, you start saving money and, you know, you grew up, you have more. I was four. So what I wanted to do was take all the money and even add some more and be queen. I mean, I just did, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But I looked at my mom and I know what I was supposed to say. Even though I was four, I knew what I was supposed to say. So I said, okay, we'll do that. And that's what we did. And I still wound up being first maid. But I was okay with it because when the queen walked down the aisle this time, I'm like, yeah, I gave you that.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But the kids kept coming to the door, you know, and there was a barbershop next door run by two twins. And they closed up. And, you know, my dad got the bright idea of, hey, people come to the door anyway, come to the shop, you know. So he inquired about, you know, renting a shop and got it. And we lived next door and we had a sweet shop. Right there. And my mom started.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yep. I mean, I don't want to get haunted for the rest of my life, you know. That's what he'd do. He used to always tell me, you know, you got to play no matter what. So that's what I'm doing. And it's working. It's working. I get strength from just thinking about the times he's been in the audience, you know. And giving me a nod, you know, one way or the other.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And that's why they named it Doreen's Sweet Shop, because it all was brought upon by me wanting to be a queen.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Oh, I mean, sugar. Sugar. Sugar. That's what they came there for. Cookies with sugar, candies with sugar, drinks with sugar. You know, on the way to school, my mom would get up early anyway and she'd be open and she'd open all day long and close at about 9 o'clock at night. And she would be in there because my dad, you know, he worked for the park service. So, you know, he had a 9 to 5.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But she was okay with it because it was hers, you know, and she was home. And my mom would cook three meals a day, every single day, and run the shop. I don't do that now. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I was really popular, you know, because, you know, my parents had a sweet job. Of course, you know, you get the negative influences, too.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And, you know, people tell you, you better bring me some candy or I'm going to beat you up. Yeah. I mean, were you helping your mom make the candy, too? No, no, no. It was—we didn't start making stuff until I got to, like, college. But before then, it was just, you know, just buying things wholesale, like chips and, you know, candies and cookies and stuff like that.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And they'd come—you know, I was made to work in the store and didn't really like it that much, you know. So a typical kid, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, it was amazing. We were at my favorite subject, which was music. And there was a talk of a pop quiz. And it's like, they said we're going to have a pop quiz when we go back. And I'm like, we ain't never had no pop quiz, you know. Well, of course, we got back up and there was a pop quiz. And I got the stink eye from so many people, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But the quiz was as such because there was like 30 kids in the classroom. And he'd go down the line. He'd ask one question. And if you got it right, you passed. If you got it wrong, you failed. And I looked out the window and I said, oh, God, he'd get me out of this. I'll do anything. And about two minutes later, the principal came on the loudspeaker.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And she said, anybody interested in joining the band, report to the band room immediately. And I'm like, oh, my goodness gracious. I raised my hand. Of course, everybody else raised their hand, too. But by God's grace, he picked me. And we were running down the hall, and I was so happy. And we went to the band room, and we spent all our time in that classroom.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But when I got to the band room, it was a huge room, and it was beautiful. They had music notes and pictures of instruments all over the walls and stuff like that. And I saw the flute, and I was like, oh, wow, look at that. I said, I'm going to play the flute.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, the band director, Mr. Birkeland, you know, he started out, you know, introducing different instruments and saying different things. And then he asked, you know, you know, he went row by row asking, what do you want to play? Well, I already knew what I wanted to play because the flute was so sleek and so silver and so beautiful. But the girl in front of me, she said the flute.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
The girl next to her, she said the flute. And it went on and on about seven to nine times. And by the time he was getting close to me, I was like, well, I don't want to play that now. It's a pretty common instrument, you know. And the clarinet was right next to it. So I said, I'll play that. And that's what I was playing with clarinet.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Of course, they had about five or six other girls that said clarinet because they were boy-girl instruments and girl instruments, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Oh, that Lawrence. We were in college and he knocked on my practice room one day. I went to this performing arts school called NOCA, you know, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. And I used to practice in this closet, the janitor's closet. And in the janitor's closet, you could hear the clarinet all through the school. But since it was a performing arts school, nobody complained, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And one day, Ellis Marcellus knocked on my door. And he said, hey, you sound pretty good on that. You know, you ever thought about playing some jazz? And I'm like... No. And he said, well, why don't you listen to some jazz clarinetists and see what you think? You know, I'm like, okay. And Ellis Marcellus always did intimidate me, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, so, you know, I was like, he said, why don't you take a listen and, you know, let me know what you think. And I'm like, okay. And see, I wasn't enthused because that's homework, you know. In addition to everything else I had to do, now I got to go to the library because, you know, you can't just take out your phone and go and look for, you know, I got to go to the library.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I got to check this out and all this other stuff. But I did because I knew he was coming back, you know, and I listened and I heard a lot of clarinetists, you know, George Lewis, you know, Pete Fountain and, you know, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw. And I respected what they did, but we were different.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, I was concentrating more on tone and technique and they were more concentrated on jamming, you know, bending the notes and not really concerned about tone and stuff like that, you know, so it wasn't my thing. And so, you know, a few days later, he knocked on the door again, and he said, well, what did you think? And I was like, you know, it's really not my thing.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I can appreciate what they're doing, but it's not my thing. And he said, well, you're entitled to your opinion. And as I tell you that, I can still see him saying that. before he closed the door, and I thought the world was going to end because I just made Mr. Marcellus angry. He wasn't angry. He was just chilling. And then I went to Loyola.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And just to cut the story short, I was practicing in the practice room, and there was a knock on the door. And I looked at the door. It was in a cubicle, so the doors were glass. This gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous dude was knocking on the door. And I'm like, may I help you? And he said, almost verbatim, I kid you not, he said, you know, you sound really good on that clarinet.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, you ought to try playing some jazz. And I was like, okay.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Well, how about just, Mary Had a Little Lamb, and I'll just give you an idea. ¦ Right? So, you know, straight tone, fill the horn up with air and stuff like that. And, you know, when you go high. So, but when I play jazz, you know, I still consider those qualities, you know, the quality of the tone and the quality of the technique and stuff like that. But, you know, guys would do it.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know what I mean? Stuff like that, which was great in its own respect, you know, but just not, I mean, it's like taboo, you know, for somebody who, you know, played classical clarinet, you know. But, you know, by the grace of God, I figured out a way to combine the two because I wanted to hang with this tuba player, you know, this gorgeous tuba player. So I'd go something like...
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I mean, we'd be in that same fifth grade class where we had the pop quiz, and a second line would pass by. Sometimes they'd let us take a break and watch them through the window, and other times we just had to keep going while a second line passed. And we had a funeral home.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
you know in my neighborhood they had like four or five funeral homes so there was always a jazz funeral and I thought we were the only ones in the world that did that up until I became an adult and I started doing master classes and workshops you know around the world and started studying this stuff but you know it's an old African tradition and those Africans were enslaved and
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
They were spread all over the world. So you can find, you know, the celebration from this life to the other, you know, through some kind of music and song all over the world. You can find it in Japan, Germany, especially South America. You know, I think we do it the best. You know what I mean? We've grown up with being able to express ourselves through music.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Even if you didn't play an instrument, you could dance. You know, my dad never played an instrument as far as I know, but he was a member of a social aid and pleasure club. And those were the guys that dress up and dance, you know, in front of the band. So when Lawrence and I would come to the living room to learn new songs, my dad knew all the songs. He called the titles to all the songs.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
So we grew up here. The music is in us, you know, and it's all around us. You can't avoid it. It's not like in the French Quarter where people with a whole lot of money can complain to the police about the music, you know, and the police could come down and actually...
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
ask you to stop in the hood you know somebody playing music or practicing their trumpet or something like that you can't call the police please police not gonna even listen to you you know but people don't anyway you know what i mean lawrence used his mom used to make him play outside you know go outside i don't hear all that you know right right so the neighborhood was used to hearing him play and he was used to playing you know whether you liked it or not you know what i mean so yeah
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
No, I haven't been out in the street yet. I mean, I played his memorial, but it's Mardi Gras, and we wouldn't be out there anyway this time of the year. They're too crazy around Mardi Gras time. And everybody's asking, hey, when are you coming out and all that stuff. And I say, oh, the weekend after Mardi Gras. And it'll probably be there. I'll probably do it. I have to. I mean, in the beginning...
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
When he first passed, I couldn't even listen to our music without breaking down. And I thought about it when I was planning his memorial service. I said, you know, you play all of these funerals and second lines and stuff for strangers and friends, and you're not going to play for your husband? It doesn't make any sense. So I worked at it, and it's a state of mind. I got to be. I got to cross.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, I got to step to the right or something like that. And then I'm like, okay. And I play. And I can play. And like, he's here. I mean, I still feel his presence. I really do. And I thank God for that because... I don't feel alone. And then our daughter's husband was deployed. So, you know, you could say she just happened to be home. But there's God because she's there and her son's there.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And it's just beautiful, you know. And if she hadn't been there that morning when I woke up and he was gone, I would have been alone. in that big old house, you know. I'd have still been all right. I'm still impressed with how I handled everything, but I wasn't alone. You know, they were there, and that's God.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
It varies. You know, there's a buggy driver who says she can hold her breath for two minutes. I don't know about all that. But when I was a kid and I was in junior high school, I used to hold my breath for nickels, you know, and getting, you know, and I made a lot of money, you know, doing it. So I have, you know, it was no problem putting it in the clarinet.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Matter of fact, but it has to be a high note because they don't take that much wind. You know, it couldn't be a low note. I couldn't possibly do that on a low note because, you know, it takes too much wind. But with those high notes, sometimes, you know, instead of taking a breath at the end of it, then, you know, I have to release.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, it's called West Africa, and it's absolutely wonderful. It was a joint collaboration, but I just came up with the melody and the words, which came really easily because of what Lawrence established in the piece already. And my daughter and I, we have it on loop. You know, we just play it all day, every day. And it's just absolutely wonderful, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And even listening to it, you know, I tear up because so much of him went into it and you can hear it. I mean, I can see him in the studio, you know, because he was supposed to be doing harmonies. And he said, you're going to think I'm crazy, but this is what I'm feeling. And it just went on and it's just beautiful, just beautiful. Doreen Ketchins, thank you so much. Thank you.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
They call the rising sun It's been the run of many a line And now I know who I want
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
We had drummer problems. And the drummer didn't show up, and he was tired of it. And we were on the street. He said he wasn't that good anyway. I bet you I could play just as good as him and play the tuba. And so he sat behind the drums, and he took one stick in his left hand, and he just started to do it. I mean, just like that. And it was there.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
He can't play rolls and stuff like that, so he does the inflections. You know what I mean? So... If you're just listening to the drummer, you know, there's a lot of space in there. But if you're listening to the group, then he fills in all of these spaces that you would normally hear the drummer do. It's just amazing, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But Necessity is the mother of invention, and he invented the tuba drummer.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
People have asked me about that growl a lot. So I did it actually. I did some videos on it on YouTube during the pandemic when I was going absolutely crazy because I couldn't go out and play. But there are two ways of doing a growl. There's one with the throat, you know, like that, like you're gargling. And there's another one with a tongue, like a Spanish R, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And both of them basically sound the same when I do them. But you pick one, you know, and I picked the Spanish R because I thought the transition to and from was smoother. So, and that's how I do it. I just, that's how I do it. That's it.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Well, we were away in Connecticut. We met at Loyola, and we had really good scholarships, but when you get to be a junior, well, tuition continuously goes up, whereas your scholarship stays the same. So my junior year, you know, our junior year, we asked for more money. And, you know, universities, they don't really invest in, you know, student juniors that are already there, you know.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And it hurt my feelings. So I started applying to different places and got accepted into a few. But the University of Hartford, the Hart School of Music, you know, had the most money. And... I didn't realize the cost of living in Hartford was a whole lot more, but it still worked out okay. And I went there and I stayed on campus for the first semester, didn't like it.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
So I found me a nice apartment off campus for the following semester. And I stayed there, and it was good until they stole my car. I stopped in to take a nap, and when I came out, there was nothing there. My car was gone. My clarinet was in my car because I was taking a nap. I thought I'd just hop on back.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
But anyway, they eventually found my car, and they took everything out of there except the clarinet because the latch on the case came loose, and there were two clarinets in there. And so when they picked it up, all of the pieces just sprawled all over the trunk, and so they didn't bother picking them up or nothing.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And so my clarinets were intact, which was cool because that was the biggest thing that was in the car. But once they stole my car, and Lawrence was still here. He was going to Xavier at the time, and he said, man, she can't be out there by herself. She's too far and she's alone. I got to go. And while we were there, he got us some work with this company called Landerman Agency.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And they threw parties, you know, corporate events and stuff like that. And, you know, it was nice that they had this exclusive New Orleans band. And so, you know, we worked that way. And That's how I started practicing, basically, you know, just playing the music. I just played melodies in the beginning. But after a while, you know, I started, you know, improvising just a tiny bit.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And so we're in Connecticut and we're doing pretty good. And then Lawrence's father dies. And actually, his father was sick and we went down and we got married there because, you know, he wanted his father to see him married. I mean, we were going to get married anyway, but we pushed it forward at that point. And then his father died. And a month and a day later, my father died.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And, you know, well, you don't know, but I'm the youngest of three and he's the youngest of three. He had two sisters and I had two brothers. And we were caretakers, you know what I mean? We're the ones that took care of our parents and stuff like that. So we didn't want to be so far away.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
We wanted to try and be here for as long as we could with our mothers, you know, as they transitioned from having...
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
partners to not having any at all and so we came down and we started doing whatever we could you know to make ends meet um and we were walking in the french quarter one day and we saw some people playing on the street and laurence said hey look we could do that i'm like man you must be crazy i've been to college i'm not playing on the street yeah but love makes you do crazy things and
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You know, we went out there and we played, and I was okay because we were together, you know, and got a little following. You know, people liked us. We were young, cute, and all that stuff. I mean, three decades. Actually, yeah, it's approaching four. You know, yeah.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Oh, yeah. I mean, but we, you know, sometimes we sleep on the spot. I mean, you do what you have to do, you know, and it was the two of us, so it was easier to fight. So, you know, it was kind of set up for victory, you know, as far as, you know, as long as we weren't lazy. And, you know, you had to deal with the... People who, for some reason, they moved to the French Quarter and weren't quiet.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I don't understand that at all. But they called the police. Oh, you mean the people who live. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, man. You know, I don't want to hear that music. And we're like, bruh, you're in the French Quarter. You know, what do you expect, you know? But, yeah. Yeah, so, and then, you know, you got to deal with police who are having a bad day, you know, and stuff. So, yeah, it gets kind of challenging, but, you know, it's fun. And it was fun creating together. It was fun growing together.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
It was fun just making music and, you know, making people stop. I mean, because... You know, street chops are different. You know, you go out there and you set up and most people think, you know, you're on drugs or something's wrong with you. And so they pass by you or decide they're going to pass by you. But then you start playing and they stop. And, you know, you're on the street.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
You got to make people stop and listen and then give you money, you know. We're extremely blessed because, you know, we always seem to find that combination that makes people say, oh, my goodness. And they still do it. And it's grand.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I mean, just like with anything else, you know, if you're a parent, you want to be a better parent than your parent, even though you had a great parent, you know. But I just don't want to fall into a rut. People are growing up listening to what I'm doing, what I did. And, you know, I want to be above that. It's flattering.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
In some senses, you know, it's insulting because people steal your licks and everything else and they don't acknowledge it, you know. But it's still, you know, you want to stay ahead of the game. You want to be the best. Louis Armstrong is like a big influence on me.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
I have listened to, well, I thought up until the other day, actually, I thought I listened to everything that was out there about Louis Armstrong. But there's always something new, you know. But I can hear the same song over that I've heard for hundreds of times and find something new inside of it. It's amazing. It's amazing.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
Yeah, that is like asking about a child, you know what I mean? Because there's some that strike me in certain ways and others that strike me in others, you know? I mean, when you say that, you know, La Vie en Rose comes to mind, and probably because my daughter hates it. Oh, really? Why? She says. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
And then, you know, she fell in love and stuff like that, and she, like, understood it, you know, and stuff like that. La Vie en Rose comes to mind because, you know, he had a way of doing things, you know, sort of like Nat King Cole. You know, you can hear Nat King Cole singing French and Spanish.
Fresh Air
Mardi Gras With New Orleans Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens
He ain't the best French and Spanish, you know, but it's great, you know, because he had that respect, you know, for it. And you can hear Louis do all kinds of different kinds of music, you know, and still know it's Louis. First note, you know, I mean... So I just aspire to just be great. And in order to be great, you've got to keep aspiring to be great, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Yeah, it was amazing. We were at my favorite subject, which was music. And there was a talk of a pop quiz. And it's like, they said we're going to have a pop quiz when we go back. And I'm like, we ain't never had no pop quiz, you know. Well, of course, we got back up and there was a pop quiz. And I got the stink eye from so many people, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
But the quiz was as such because there was like 30 kids in the classroom. And he'd go down the line, he'd ask one question, and if you got it right, you passed. If you got it wrong, you failed. And I looked out the window and I said, oh God, he'd get me out of this, I'll do anything.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And about two minutes later, the principal came on the loudspeaker, and she said, anybody interested in joining the band, report to the band room immediately. And I'm like, oh my goodness gracious. I raised my hand, of course everybody else raised their hand too. But by God's grace, he picked me. And we were running down the hall, and I was so happy.
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Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And we went to the band room, and we spent all our time in that classroom. But when I got to the band room, it was a huge room, and it was beautiful. They had music notes and pictures of instruments all over the walls and stuff like that. And I saw the flute, and I was like, oh, wow, look at that. I said, I'm going to play the flute.
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Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And the band director, Mr. Berthelot, he started out introducing different instruments and saying different things. And then he asked, he went row by row asking, what do you want to play? Well, I already knew what I wanted to play because the flute was so sleek and so silver and so beautiful. But the girl in front of me, she said, the flute. And the girl next to her, she said, the flute.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And it went on and on about seven to nine times. And by the time he was getting close to me, I was like, well, I don't want to play that now. It's a pretty common instrument, you know. And the clarinet was right next to it. So I said, I'll play that. And that's what I played with clarinet.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Of course, they had about five or six other girls that said clarinet because they were boy-girl instruments and girl instruments, you know. Right, right. But I was the first one, so I was all right with that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
We were in college, and he knocked on my practice room one day. I went to this performing arts school called NOCA, you know, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. And I used to practice in this closet, the janitor's closet. And in the janitor's closet, you could hear the clarinet all through the school. But since it was a performing arts school, nobody complained, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And one day, Ellis Marcellus knocked on my door. And he said, hey, you sound pretty good on that. You know, you ever thought about playing some jazz? And I'm like... No. And he said, well, why don't you listen to some jazz clarinetists and see what you think? You know, I'm like, okay. And Ellis Marcellus always did intimidate me, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Yeah, so, you know, I was like, he said, well, why don't you take a listen and, you know, let me know what you think. And I'm like, okay. And see, I wasn't enthused because that's homework, you know. In addition to everything else I had to do, now I got to go to the library because, you know, you can't just take out your phone and go and look for, you know, I got to go to the library.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I got to check this out and all this other stuff. But I did because I knew he was coming back, you know, and I listened and I heard a lot of clarinetists, you know, George Lewis, you know, Pete Fountain and, you know, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw. And I respected what they did, but we were different.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
You know, I was concentrating more on tone and technique and they were more concentrated on jamming, you know, bending the notes and not really concerned about tone and stuff like that, you know, so it wasn't my thing. And so, you know, a few days later, he knocked on the door again, and he said, well, what did you think? And I was like, you know, it's really not my thing.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I can appreciate what they're doing, but it's not my thing. And he said, well, you're entitled to your opinion. And as I tell you that, I can still see him saying that. Before he closed the door. And I just, I thought the world was going to end because I just made Mr. Marcellus angry, you know. He wasn't angry. He was just chilling, you know. And then I went to Loyola.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And just to cut the story short, I was practicing in the practice room. And, you know, there was a knock on the door. And I looked at the door. It was in a cubicle. So, you know, the doors were glass. This gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous dude was knocking on the door. And I'm like, may I help you? And he said, almost verbatim, I kid you not, he said, you know, you sound really good on that clarinet.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
You know, you ought to try playing some jazz. And I was like, okay.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Right? So, you know, straight tone, fill the horn up with air and stuff like that. And, you know, when you go high. So, but when I play jazz, you know, I still consider those qualities, you know, the quality of the tone and the quality of the technique and stuff like that. But, you know, guys would do it. You know what I mean?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Stuff like that, which was great in its own respect, you know, but just not, I mean, it's like taboo, you know, for somebody who, you know, played classical clarinet, you know. But, you know, by the grace of God, I figured out a way to combine the two because I wanted to hang with this tuba player, you know, this gorgeous tuba player. So I'd go something like...
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Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Thank you.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Yep. I mean, I don't want to get haunted for the rest of my life, you know. That's what he'd do. He used to always tell me, you know, you got to play no matter what. So that's what I'm doing. And it's working. It's working. I get strength from just... thinking about the times he's been in the audience, you know, and giving me a nod, you know, one way or the other.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
They call the rising sun. It's been the run of many a line. And now I know who I want.
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Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
We had drummer problems. And the drummer didn't show up, and he was tired of it, you know, and we were on the street. He said he wasn't that good anyway. I bet you I could play just as good as him and play the tuba. And so he sat behind the drums, and he took one stick in his left hand, and he just started to do it. I mean, just like that, and it was there.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
He can't play rolls and stuff like that, so he does the inflections, you know what I mean? So... If you're just listening to the drummer, you know, there's a lot of space in there. But if you're listening to the group, then he fills in all of these spaces that you would normally hear the drummer do. It's just amazing, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
But Necessity is the mother of invention, and he invented the tuba drummer.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
People have asked me about that growl a lot. So I did it actually. I did some videos on it on YouTube during the pandemic when I was going absolutely crazy because I couldn't go out and play. But there are two ways of doing a growl. There's one with the throat, you know, like that, like you're gargling. And there's another one with a tongue, like a Spanish R, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And both of them basically sound the same when I do them. But you pick one, you know, and I picked the Spanish R because I thought the transition to and from was smoother. And that's how I do it. I just, that's how I do it. That's it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I mean, just like with anything else, you know, if you're a parent, you want to be a better parent than your parent, even though you had a great parent, you know. But I just don't want to fall into a rut. People are growing up listening to what I'm doing, what I did, and, you know, I want to be above that. It's flattering.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
In some senses, you know, it's insulting because people steal your licks and everything else and they don't acknowledge it, you know. But it's still, you know, you want to stay ahead of the game. You want to be the best. Louis Armstrong is like a big influence on me. And I have listened to what I thought up until the other day, actually.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I thought I listened to everything that was out there about Louis Armstrong. But there's always something new, you know. But I can hear the same song over that I've heard for hundreds of times and find something new inside of it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Yeah, that is like asking about a child, you know what I mean? Because there's some that strike me in certain ways and others that strike me in others, you know? I mean, when you say that, you know, La Vie en Rose comes to mind, and probably because my daughter hates it. Oh, really? Why? She says. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And then, you know, she fell in love and stuff like that, and she, like, understood it, you know, and stuff like that. La Vie en Rose comes to mind because, you know, he had a way of doing things, you know, sort of like Nat King Cole. You know, you can hear Nat King Cole singing French and Spanish.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
He ain't the best French and Spanish, you know, but it's great, you know, because he had that respect, you know, for it. And you can hear Louis do all kinds of different kinds of music, you know, and still know it's Louis. First note, you know, I mean... So I just aspire to just be great. And in order to be great, you've got to keep aspiring to be great, you know.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Ahhhhhhh!
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Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
When you speak, angels sing from above. Every day what seems too tight into love songs. Give your heart and soul to me and life will always believe.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Yeah, I didn't realize it at all. I was just doing what I do. I was just learning songs and playing songs. And somebody asked me when I was... And I was singing, you know, they said, how do you do that with those words? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And, you know, just Louis spoke like my dad, you know. And so without realizing it, you know, instead of saying word, I say void.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
You know, stuff like that, you know, because that's what, you know, I grew up with. You know, you change with society. You know, you go to college and you say, well, that boy, you know, like, what the heck are you talking about? You know what I mean? So, but, you know, it always comes back when I do that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And a lot of the melodies, you know, the way he interpreted the melodies and stuff, I really, really, really liked it, you know, and it appealed to me. So, you know, sometimes, you know, I start off like I learned a melody.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
right from him you know I'll do exactly what he does but as you know as I play it as I develop you know with the song it becomes me you know I change a few things you know because he played a trumpet and I play a clarinet you know and he was a much older man I was a much younger woman and just other things that come into play that you don't expect but they do because it's human nature you know so yeah
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I didn't realize it, but once I realized it, I embraced it and just rolled with it, you know, and I'm still rolling with it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
I grew up in the Treme, and yeah, a lot of people are familiar with that neighborhood because of the TV series. And I grew up in the house that I was christened in, actually. It was a church, and I was christened in that very house. And then it became a whole bunch of other things. But yeah, right in the middle. And my parents had a sweet shop, and they named it after me. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
And that's a whole other New Orleans traditional story in itself.