Local Jazz Vet Grover Kemble: 'The Arts Do Heal'

A long time ago, legendary reggae superstar Bob Marley famously sang, "One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain." 

That's the literal and figurative philosophy behind the long career of Parsippany jazz singer and guitarist Grover Kemble, who'll be the opening act for the 2012 At The Tabernacle concert series performance Saturday night featuring legendary vocalist Aaron Neville. 

Kemble has lived in the township off and on for 53 years. A graduate, Kemble said he didn't study music while at the High, but he did spend his teen years working on his craft.

"I started performing at the local sock hop dances the school often sponsored for us teens," Kemble told Patch. "I had a rough and tumble band doing Beatles and Stones stuff with James Brown and Motown mixed in too. We got people dancing or participating in various shenanigans and skits which enabled me to enjoy making people happy with music."

Kemble said that's been his approach since he first encountered the art form more than 40 years ago.

"My best friend's father had Dixie musicians at his house regularly and we neighborhood kids loved the fun they seemed to have blowing their brains out with hot Dixieland music," he recalled. "My friend's father was a huge influence and taught me all the old standards on guitar."

He grew up listening to early rock and roll and big band sounds and counts artists including Louis Armstrong, Louis Jourdan, Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis and Ella Fitzgerald as influences.

Eventually, the indigo sound became Kemble's primary interest.

"The freedom in jazz music eventually won out over rock," he said, but added that he's played a variety of styles over the years, including his stint with veteran doo-wop outfit Sha Na Na. "In the late 1970s and early '80s, I formed a swing act called Za Zu Zaz that got very popular and played many festivals. We opened for the great Count Basie numerous times as well as other big-band notables, and this was very inspiring for a young jazz entertainer like me."

His life took a turn in the mid-'80s, when he began working at the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital as an instructor counselor who presented music therapy programs for patients.

"My father was a psychiatrist and perhaps the therapy bent was in me," he explained. "This was a great way to see how music could heal and provide great therapeutic activities for very mentally ill individuals."

He never gave up performing, though. During this time, Kemble continued to sing and play his own jazzy gumbo of big band, blues, jump rhythm and blues, bossa nova and South American latin and calypso sounds.

"I've listened extensively to a lot of folk and spirituals and have a very wide range of music that I enjoy and try to interpret in my own jazzy/bluesy way," he said.

In late 2002, Kemble had to face a new challenge: a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

"Fortunately I've been able to stem severely disabling conditions, but it is definitely there and I have to deal with flare-ups and fatigue symptoms at times when I have gigs," he said, noting that he doesn't like to cancel performances.

He said he believes in "the old stage adage-the show must go on."

The singer-guitarist said his career highlight is his 2005 performance at New York's Carnegie Hall with musician and friend John Pizzarelli.

Kemble merged his many interests into starting a new music and art studio at Greystone, where he served as supervisor of activities until his retirement in 2010. While there, he hired music and art therapists to help keep patients happy and healing.

"Watching and working with these individuals and seeing the curative effects of music and art therapies has given me a great feeling of satisfaction for me," he said. "The arts do heal!"

Now, he performs with a new group, Brynn, Grover and Jazz Jump, which features singer Brynn Stanley. He also plays in various configurations ranging from solo to septets.

"On May 11, I'll be at Shanghai Jazz in Madison with the Brynn, Grover and  Jazz Jump, and looking way ahead I'll be at The Morristown Jazz Fest with the Jerry Vezza/Grover Kemble jazz quartet."

While audiences surely are fortunate to hear and be healed by the music of Grover Kemble, he said he sees himself as the fortunate one.

"I'm honored and lucky to have had this great rewarding career and I've avoided and survived the pitfalls that can be present in the entertainment business," he said.

"It's all been a ball and my goal is to keep going and keep creating."