New Orleans legend plays Storyville Sessions at Kihei’s ProArts Playhouse
The Maui News
Bonnie Raitt once hailed New Orleans-based musician Jon Cleary as “the ninth wonder of the world.” A multi-instrumentalist who grew up in England, he’s played with greats like Raitt, Eric Clapton B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones, and won a Grammy Award for his album “Go Go Juice.”
A mainstay at the New Orleans’ annual Jazz and Heritage Festival, he performed on the HBO show “Treme,” and his city’s music awards include Best Piano/Keyboard Player and Best Louisiana Artist, and Record of the Year from OffBeat magazine.
Originally a guitarist, Cleary began playing at age five, and started his first band at 15. Raised on blues, jazz, and soul records, his love of New Orleans music drew him across the ocean at 18.
“I grew up in a house of a family of musicians and music lovers, and there was always New Orleans music being played,” Cleary explained. “I had an uncle that had lived in New Orleans in the early ’70s, and I heard great music and heard evocative stories. I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to go to explore this exotic sounding place.”
His uncle had once arrived back in England with “two suitcases full of 45s, and I was able to get a good education in fairly obscure New Orleans rhythm and blues from him. So I heard Professor Longhair, Snooks Eaglin, and zydeco guys like Clifton Chenier. And from my mum and dad, I knew about Fats Domino and Little Richard. I just couldn’t believe all this amazing music came from this one town. I got a one-way flight thinking I’d be there for a couple of weeks. That was 43 years ago.”
Arriving in the Southern music capital, he hung out at the legendary Maple Leaf Club and was offered a job painting the venue’s exterior.
“I didn’t have a guitar, but there was a piano in the house that I moved into. It was a piano town, not a guitar town,” he said. “So I started focusing on the piano. The best piano player in New Orleans played at my local bar around the corner, where I got a job. James Booker, who’s now acknowledged as being one of the greatest piano players that ever came out of the city. I got to hear him every day. I was very lucky. It was the Big Easy back then. It was very easy to get a job and get somewhere to live. I just landed in the right place at the right time. It could have gone really badly wrong.”
In time, he began composing his own material and formed a band, the Absolute Monster Gentlemen. After Bonnie Raitt heard his playing, she invited him to join her band. “Bonnie came about as a result of a session I was doing for Taj Mahal in Los Angeles. I’d been working with Taj for a couple of years in his band and written some songs for him and recorded with him. Bonnie Raitt was a guest on a record that he was doing, and then I bumped into her again when I was playing a gig with B.B. King. She was putting together a new lineup and asked me if I wanted to join her band. I did that for about 10 years.”
Touring with Raitt is how he ended up playing on Maui for the first time. “I played in Hawaii a few times in that 10-year period,” he noted.
Among his collaborations, he fondly recalls his time with Dr. John, the legendary, Grammy Award-winning musician known as the Nitetripper. “I played guitar in Dr. John’s band when I was about 20. He found out I could play piano, so then we switched. I would play piano and he would play guitar. Then I played with him again in his band around 2015. He was always one of my heroes. I’m proud to call him a friend. I learned a lot of stuff from him. He was a good cat. I was one of the last people to see him. I spent a few afternoons with him. He was not very well, but I would go over to his place and take a record player and bag of records over, sit there and hold hands, and listen to Professor Longhair. I said goodbye to him to go off on a European tour and I got a call the next day, his daughter saying he died.”
Heading to Maui after a sold-out tour of Australia, he’s looking forward to some beach time. “We were touring in Europe, and then we came back straight into the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Then we left the day after that to fly to Australia. I get to do a couple of gigs in lovely Maui. It’s a nice way to do a couple of shows and then actually have a little vacation. “It’s going to be great to get some rejuvenating beach action and some sunshine.”
Jon Cleary performs solo “Soryville Sessions” shows at the ProArts Playhouse on June 3 at 5:30 p.m. and June 4 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $65, $55 and $42, available at https://proartsmaui.littleboxoffice.com.