“I try to do a little bit of everything to bring as many people into my music as I can.” –Mark G. Meadows
Mark G. Meadows
MARK G. MEADOWS – a DC-born, classically-trained pianist, keyboardist, and composer– moved to Dallas at the age of five, and lived a bi-regional life (in Texas and DC), due to his family’s ties to both areas. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the Peabody Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department, and the rest, as they say, is music history! In his May 2017 interview for the Washington DC Jazz Oral History Project, Meadows, who had just returned from travels and performances in Africa, discussed his efforts to create music that he described as “genre-less.”
“I am influenced by many genres. My dad used to always play Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind, and Fire; Ahmad Jamal, and Miles Davis. We were also a big Gospel family. We went to church every Sunday. Although I did not play my entire life in the church, I was around the music, and I heard it.”
“I went to St. Luke United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, which is where an amazing keyboardist named Bobby Sparks was the organ player. Bobby Sparks tours with the best, the greatest. Just hearing that music every single Sunday had a huge influence on my writing. Although I did study jazz and classical music, I think there is no way to hear my original music without hearing Gospel, R&B, Pop, and all these different influences that I was fortunate enough to have been around.”
“It’s not my doing. It is just whoever you believe in who put me in the world surrounded by all the people that have been giving me new music—and beating me over the head with hearing these recordings. It has definitely come out in my compositions and the way I play. . .”
“I hope that my music is a music that speaks to all different generations, and can touch everybody in a certain way: the people that like Straight-Ahead, the people that like Contemporary, the people that like R&B, Neo-Soul, Cool Jazz. I try to develop a sound that is almost genre-less, which, in many ways, isn’t the smart move, because, you want to have a sound so people can say, “Ooh, that’s this, and that’s what I like . . .”
“Part of who I am as an artist is someone who tries to really connect to people, and not always put a label on things. Just accept it, and let it be. That is what I aspire to and try to bring forth with my music . . .”
“So, I don’t really have a specific sound. I love Straight-Ahead, and you will hear that in my music. I love R&B, I love Gospel, I love Contemporary. I try to do a little bit of everything to bring as many people into my music as I can.”
Interview Date: May 3, 2017
All Interviews Conducted, Recorded, and Reviewed by
Dr. Regennia N. Williams
Life Member, Oral History Association
Founder and Director, The RASHAD Center, Inc.
For more information, please visit: https://rashadcenter.wordpress.com/.
*Photograph (Still from Oral History Video, Shot at Gibson Guitar, Inc.) Courtesy of Dr. Regennia N. Williams
Mark Meadows, “Somethin’ Good”
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