Toledo Jazz Newsletter -- Speical Update -- Mark Kieswetter
Toledo Jazz Newsletter
Special Update
Photo by Rick Luettke; Photo Courtesy Lori Lefevre
Mark Kieswetter, Dan Faehnle, Lori Lefevre
Mark Kieswetter – Toledo to Canada – On The Piano
It is with great sadness that I report the death of former Toledoan and noted pianist Mark Kieswetter. The first person I called to get his take on Mark is Toledo’s most senior piano technician and piano man, Jim Gottron. Gottron said of Kieswetter, “He was a great player, man! He was right up there. Everybody liked him.” Gottron had heard Mark perform at numerous gigs all around Toledo and even sold him a concert Baldwin piano that Mark would not part with until 2024.
Mark Kieswetter grew up not far from Toledo, “Up North,” in Adrian Michigan. Mark told the author once that he was “playing piano by the time [he] was five years old.” Adrian was not a hotbed of jazz, so he turned to other musical pursuits, and after his teenage years Mark was playing in a show band called Taste of Honey in the 1970s. In that era, Mark married his first wife, Cindy, and she convinced him to move to a place where jazz was happening. Around the time he was 20 years old, Mark and Cindy moved to Toledo, which finally put him in proximity to excellent jazz musicians and the hotbed of jazz at Rusty’s Jazz Café. He admitted to being into Oscar Peterson at an early date, then Bill Evans, discovering Art Tatum after them. He said of Tatum’s style, “I didn’t try to play it because it was so astoundingly difficult. My God, how could anybody do this?” In Toledo, almost immediately, Mark walked into a gig at the old Wittenburg restaurant, which was located on Sylvania Avenue, where he heard some guys playing outstanding jazz; the cats were Bob Emmerson (b), Jimmy Cook (t) and Gene Parker (sx/vibes, etc). They found out he played piano and he was asked to sit in. Parker, Cook and Mark hit it off and they began hanging out. Mark indicated in a 2017 interview with the author that his “first serious jazz gig was with Gene Parker.” He said, “Parker took me under his wing, I could barely get through a blues, and…man, but he heard something, he hung with me, I owe him more than I can ever repay.” The guys played a variety of venues in Toledo after Mark took up the piano slot in the Parker-Cook Quintet. They played at the Club Westchester, Alfie’s, Rusty’s Jazz Café, Murphy’s Place and many other venues in the city throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Parker recalled Mark with fondness, saying, “I was his first jazz gig and it lasted 25 years.” Parker indicated that Mark was not initially knowledgeable of jazz in the early 1970s, but “he was very musical, very intellectual; whatever he wanted to learn, he’d pick it up very fast.” Mark became so adept in the jazz idiom that Parker described the situation this way: “When I had a gig, Mark was my first call, he was my right-hand man, I could rely on him for anything.” Parker expressed deep gratitude for Mark’s friendship, sharing, “he was always supportive, no matter how far out I got.”
In the late 1970s vocalist Lori Lefevre walked into Lindy’s Lounge where Gene Parker was playing, along with bassist Jeff Halsey and Mark. She began sitting in with the guys and she and Mark became friends. In the early 1980s Mark, Lori, and guitarist Dan Faehnle formed a band called Triple Play. Of note, Faehnle, already a monster guitar talent at this juncture, went on to play with Diana Krall, Joey DeFrancesco and many others. So, Mark was playing with some very talented company in the 1980s. Later in the decade, Lori, Mark, Ernie and Izzy Evans, and John Mitchell formed a group called Detour which played for the Department of Defense, touring bases throughout Europe.
Either after local gigs or when they had time, Mark, Lori Lefevre and just about everybody mentioned in this article invariably could be heard performing at Rusty’s Jazz Café which in its heyday was the third oldest jazz club in America. Lefevre said of Mark, “He was a fabulous accompanist for a singer, he was so talented…he had a way of lifting your talent and ability." Also, in the 1980s, Mark was one of the pianists in the Bob Rex Trio, which could be heard on Sunday and Monday nights at Rusty’s. Drummer Bob Rex said of performing with Mark, “I felt I was playing with the real thing with Mark. He was such a professional…he was a musical leader.” Rusty’s wasn’t a competition, it was an uplifting community of musicians and Rex shared this, “Whatever Mark played on the piano, I wanted to play on the drums…when I was with Mark I was on a higher level.”
Mark played with the Toledo Jazz Orchestra, he performed with Henri Mancini, Zoot Sims, and has performed with several groups at churches in Toledo, including St. Paul’s Lutheran church in downtown Toledo. Mark’s daughter, Sarah, indicated her father was influenced by Eric Dickey’s organ work in the church scene. She also said of her father, “My dad always had a church gig.
While performing was important, teaching was a big component of Mark’s life, and a trio of his students has moved into the upper echelon of jazz. He taught Jacob Sachs, who has become a well-regarded pianist in the NYC jazz scene. Mark also taught Ron Oswanski who has become one of the most recognized Hammond B3 guys around. In his career he’s played with James Moody, Jack Sheldon, and for three years he was the musical director for Jon Hendricks. Oswanski said of his former teacher, “I studied with Mark until I left for NYC to go to college.” Oswanski was ten years old when he began exploring jazz piano with Mark, first at AJ’s Music School and then at his home. There were two educational icons he referenced in helping him understand jazz, saying, “The amount I learned at Rusty’s and from Mark put me on my way.” Another budding jazz pianist, Larry Fuller, also studied with Mark on the East side of Toledo at AJ’s Music Studio. Mark commented that Fuller was already well versed in the ways of jazz because he hung out with the great Floyd “Candy” Johnson. Mark said of Fuller, “I’d show him something and he’d come back with it all done, and in ways I never would have [done].” Fuller went on to perform all over the world, playing with greats like Ernestine Anderson, Ray Brown, John and Bucky Pizzarelli and so many more. Fuller wrote, with great fondness, of Mark,
[He] had a huge impact on my development as a musician. I began studying with him in high school. He showed me the fundamentals of music and harmony. Foundational elements of music and piano playing like the circle of fifths and rootless chord voicings and scales and how they worked over harmony. We would apply all this to tunes during my lessons where he would often play bass along with me, so I would get experience playing with another musician all while making lessons so much fun. He was a terrific teacher and musician and I’m very grateful for all that he showed me which truly set me on my journey as an improvising musician. Thank you, Mark. You will be missed.
In early 2001, Mark had moved to Los Angeles, where his wife at that time Amy was working on her fellowship in geriatric psychiatry, and Mark performed in throughout the region, performing with the Beach Boys, Cher, and other entertainers in the area. However, in November he received a phone call informing him that Jon Hendricks was teaching at the University of Toledo. That was all it took; he met Hendricks and without a formal interview he became Hendricks’s musical director and moved back to Toledo. Mark spent several years “lifting,” or altering arrangements to help fit in with the vocalese stylings Hendricks preferred. He once told the author of an excited phone call he received from his wife, Vivia, who was a teaching assistant to Hendricks, telling him she found among Hendricks’s papers the original, handwritten lyrics that Hendricks penned for Thelonious Monk’s tune, In Walked Bud. He recalled that incident with great fondness. They knew they were gazing upon a historic American music document of great importance. Working with Hendricks and the Vocalstra at the University of Toledo, Mark accompanied the group when they performed in France and at the Sorbonne in Paris.
In 2006 Mark and Vivia moved to Toronto and Mark quickly amalgamated into the musical scene in Canada. Mark’s reputation preceded him, and he quickly began working a cavalcade of Canadian artists, many of note in the jazz world. Mark was involved with several albums that were nominated for the Juno Award, Canada’s highest award of musical excellence. Mark worked with Harry Manx who fuses jazz and Hindustani musical styling into something unique. He also worked with Dave Young, who is Oscar Peterson’s former bassist. Mark also performed with Juno Award winner Emilie-Claire Barlow and with Heather Bambrick. Additionally, Mark toured in Tokyo and was the musical director for many groups as they produced new albums for release. The number of Canadian-based musicians and vocalists Mark performed with would fill pages; the demand for his musical skills was endless.
In 2016 Mark’s battle with neuroendocrine cancer underwent a turn as he was afflicted with a rare side effect, ataxia, which impeded his ability to perform. His condition slowly deteriorated, and he stepped away from the musical life he cherished, but not completely. Up to two months ago he was working on charts and thinking about music, as his daughter, Sarah mentioned. She also shared that, “being productive was very important to him.” Mark passed away on Monday, April 21, 2025, and the torrent of testaments that poured in from musicians and vocalist prove his capacity in the field was boundless.
In Toledo the loss is felt at every level of the jazz community. Anyone who has been around the scene recalls Mark with great warmth and deep respect. Bassist Norm Damschroder, who began as a bartender at Rusty’s Jazz Café and who is now a professor in the music department at the University of Toledo, and who has performed with a veritable alphabet soup of jazz musicians at every level wrote,
Mark was one of the most underrated pianists in jazz. He had an incredible harmonic sense and could be so delicate with a melody. He was also a very giving teacher and accompanist. Always a pleasure to work with and to just be around.
Vocalist Ramona Collins, who was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in music from the University of Toledo and who’s made a name for herself throughout the region said, “I’ve known Mark for about 40 years, we all started connecting at Rusty’s.” She shared of Mark’s piano work when it came to vocalists, “He would make you shine. He had that instructor instinct in him. He was very patient…he helped us improve.” Echoing every vocalist that one could contact about Mark’s skillset, Collins said, “He got hired to play with a lot of singers! Mark was always one of the best pianists.”
Our sincere condolences go out to Mark’s daughter Sarah Kieswetter Boerst. There will be a funeral service for Mark Kieswetter in Toronto on May 3, 2025. There are plans to have a Toledo-based Celebration of Life to honor Mark. No tentative date has been put forth, but when that information is available it will appear in the Toledo Jazz Newsletter regular edition or as a special edition.
*Video of Emilie-Clare Barlow (v) with Mark Kieswetter on piano – Cotton Club, Tokyo Japan, 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZfjJT7y6lg