Albuquerque Jazz Hero
Somebody had Mark Weber in mind when they coined the term “jazz hero.” Like all true heroes — especially the superheroes — he is always there when you need him. Mark has lived in true service to ever-morphing jazz and its practitioners, investing every vestige of self in the effort from his teen years in 1960s California to now in Albuquerque. He’s unclassifiable, but let me try: a historian, collector, scholar, practitioner, documenter in both words and images, and perhaps most importantly, a loyal and dedicated friend.
Born in 1953 in Southern California, by age 15 he’d discovered via FM radio station KPPC recordings by Morton Subotnik, Ken Nordine, the Grateful Dead, Lenny Bruce, Indian music, then Bird! – at which point he became a jazz devotee. By age 20 Weber had found cornetist Bobby Bradford teaching at nearby Claremont Colleges, initiating a friendship that lasts to this day. Hanging around the Bradford-John Carter-Stanley Crouch-David Murray nexus, he immersed himself in the vibrant Watts/South Central Los Angeles club scene.
Weber started photography documentation in 1970 and began writing for CODA magazine in 1976, contributing an LA column for 18 years. In 1991 he and his wife Janet, who had been in medical school in Cleveland and Salt Lake City, moved to Albuquerque. In 1996 he began hosting a weekly noon-hour jazz show at KUNM, continuing for 24 years. It filters his deep knowledge and love of music through his unique personality. His broadcast interviews of internationally-touring artists, West Coast and New Mexico-based musicians and even street buskers are now held, along with 10,000 of his photos, at the Mark Weber Archive of Jazz & Blues at UCLA (30,000 more are at the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, NJ; his literary archive is at SUNY Buffalo).
Also a house painter, in 1998 Weber founded Zerx Records, releasing 83 albums, including 29 in the ALBUZERXQUE series. Many featured him as guitarist (he was in Connie Crothers’ quintet for 14 years), singer and poet; others, uncategorizable artists. In 2007 Mark started his still active website Jazz for mostly; he’s posted thousands of essays, pages, photos, memories, thoughts, poems.
For six years saxophonist Kenny Davern, who’d moved to the East Mountains outside of Albuquerque, was Weber’s KUNM co-host. They had a ball and passed the pleasure on to all. That’s been Mark Weber’s way right along. A jazz superhero, here, there and everywhere, lucky for us.
Tom Guralnick, Founder/Director Outpost Performance Space and New Mexico Jazz Festival, Musician
