Unsung local jazz hero Jymie Merritt gets well-deserved spotlight on NPR and at WCL

More than 40 years after the fact, Mike Merritt remembers his earliest experiences seeing his father, bassist Jymie Merritt, playing on New York stages alongside jazz legends like Lee Morgan and Max Roach.

"I wasn't a musician yet, and I didn't really understand jazz at all. I just knew I had a father that played it," Mike Merritt said by phone from Los Angeles. "But the intensity that came off the stage drew me in. It was obvious how much the musicians he was playing with and other musicians watching respected and loved his playing."

Those experiences had such a profound impact on the younger Merritt that he followed in his father's footsteps, leading to an illustrious career highlighted by his long-running stint with Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band, Conan O'Brien's house band on his TBS show, Conan. Mike will pay back that influence on Saturday night, leading Jymie's long-standing band, the Forerunners, in a sold-out program of his father's innovative compositions at World Cafe Live.

"The Music of Jymie Merritt and the Forerunners," presented by WXPN, WRTI, and the Philadelphia Jazz Project, will also be recorded for a forthcoming edition of NPR's Jazz Night in America, hosted by Philly-born jazz bassist Christian McBride.

Asked about shining the spotlight on Merritt, McBride said, "Phrases like 'musical genius' and 'unsung' are so casually and recklessly thrown out there, describing just about anyone these days, it's hard to separate who the real unsung musical geniuses are. Jymie Merritt is, without a doubt, not only one of the great bassists of his era, but also one of the great composers. It's an honor to cover such a giant."

On the cusp of his 90th birthday, Jymie Merritt is long overdue for such recognition. He's well-regarded in jazz circles for his sideman work with Lee Morgan, Max Roach, and one of the most popular incarnations of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. An early adopter of the electric bass in jazz, Merritt also worked in blues, R&B, and rock settings, including stints with B.B. King and Bullmoose Jackson.

He developed a groundbreaking harmonic and rhythmic language for the Forerunners that was influential on later forward-thinking jazz composers, even though it remains unrecorded and little known outside Philadelphia.

Recurring, debilitating health issues have sidelined Merritt's career throughout his life (and will prevent him from performing on Saturday), leading his name to be less well-known outside his hometown. Here, he's maintained various incarnations of the Forerunners for the better part of 50 years.

The band was named for the jazz pioneers whose mantle Merritt hoped to take up in his own music.

"People like Lester Young, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie left an enormous trail of ideas that we were following," Jymie Merritt explained from his Center City home. "For me, there were a lot of threads to be pulled together from all over the place to increase the vocabulary that we used."

Saxophonist Odean Pope is a founding member of the Forerunners and will join the band Saturday, along with longtime members Warren McLendon (piano and percussion), Colmare Duncan (piano), Alan Nelson (drums), and Terry Lawson (tenor saxophone).

"Jymie is an incredible player and educator and a very individual composer," Pope said. "To be a part of the Forerunners is like going to the highest university in the world."

Higher education is an apt metaphor for learning how to approach Merritt's music, his son said, while struggling to describe the compositions' unique sound.

"In order for a musician to be able to absorb and understand and play the music, they have to first study Jymie's concepts," Mike Merritt said. "He has a very unique and original voice. It's hard for me to find words to describe the sound, but I haven't heard anything quite like it."

Saturday's concert is merely the first step in finally broadening the reach of Merritt's name. In September, Mike Merritt and the Forerunners entered a South Philly studio to record a host of Jymie's recent compositions as the inaugural release on the Merritts' newly minted Forerunners Recordings label. The younger Merritt plans for the imprint to feature several new and archival recordings of his father's compositions in the coming years.

"I would like to see Jymie receive recognition and attention for his accomplishments as an original composer and an innovator in creating the concepts that underlie the music of the Forerunners, which only a small group of musicians and aficionados in Philadelphia are familiar with," Mike said. "This is an opportunity to bring his original voice to the jazz world at large."

At home, Jymie Merritt has been honored in recent years with the University of the Arts Jazz Heritage Award and the Clef Club of Philadelphia's Living Legend Award.

Of these honors and Saturday's concert, Jymie offered a modest response: "It might be a little premature for a person my age," he said with a hint of a chuckle. "But I appreciate it because it gives me the incentive to go forward. I feel that with whatever time I have left, I'll be plowing ahead."