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CEA 2005 Hall of Fame: The Baron Gets His Due

Celebrated drummer John Von Ohlen's rich, accomplished history has earned him the latest seat in the CEA Hall of Fame

At the age of 14, three years before he ever sat behind a kit or held a drumstick in his hand, John Von Ohlen became a drummer

John Von Ohlen Photo By Jon Hughes/photopresse.com

He'd already been playing classical piano for a decade and trombone for half that long when he attended a Stan Kenton concert at some forgotten ballroom in his Indianapolis hometown in 1955 and witnessed the fluid brilliance of Kenton's gifted skinsman Mel Lewis. The event transformed him.

"I didn't know anything about drums or even think about them, but when I saw Mel Lewis that night the next day when I woke up, in my head, I was a drummer," says Von Ohlen, whose career as one of the most gifted Jazz drummers in the city and as the co-founder of the legendary Blue Wisp Big Band has earned him the Michael W. Bany Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame. "From then on, I was hooked."

With few family resources, Von Ohlen's drum dream remained well out of reach until fate took a hand and delivered him a brand new Gretsch Jazz set by way of a friend.

"All of a sudden, he went into the Navy," Von Ohlen says. "So he said, 'Why don't you take the set and pay me $12 a month?' So I had a great new set."

Von Ohlen was so smitten with his newfound love that he began cutting classes in order to stay home and practice. After his parents left for work, he pretended to go to school then doubled back to practice on his kit with the family stereo blaring.

"Honest to God, I cut school big time," Von Ohlen says with a laugh. "I didn't go to school. You won't believe this, but it's true. I've got the hi-fi as loud as it'll go and I'm playing the drums all day long, and the whole family that lived next door to us was deaf. We lived very near the deaf school in Indianapolis, and the whole family went there. Was that an omen or what?"

With his relentless practice schedule, Von Ohlen's success was a matter of time. It was his father who noticed his progression.

"My dad would hear me play at night when he got home from work," Von Ohlen says. "He never played himself, but he's got a pretty good ear. He said, 'For the first few months, I didn't know what you were doing in there. It just didn't make it. One night, you were playing and all of a sudden it sounded good. It was really overnight.' I just kept playing until it clicked. I taught myself. I never took lessons. For a long time I couldn't use the high hat. I didn't know what to do with it."

After taking over for the mediocre drummer in his school Jazz band, Von Ohlen finally graduated from high school and attended the prestigious Jazz school at North Texas State University. In addition to classes, he lined up working gigs with local bands, a form of minor league work experience that he bemoans as being lost to today's young Jazz players.

"I tell my students it's a shame we don't have that natural system," Von Ohlen says. "Instead of going to school, you'd start working. It's different than school."

After a year-and-a-half stint with Ralph Marterie and a two-year stretch in the Army (where he continued to play in a stateside Showmobile), Von Ohlen returned to Indianapolis as a supper club drummer. When Billy Maxted brought his Manhattan Jazz Band to the club, Von Ohlen decided he wanted to join the band. By sheer coincidence, Maxtead had already scouted Von Ohlen and offered him the job.

After working with Maxted for a year, Von Ohlen took a job with Woody Herman's legendary big band, which led to major U.S. and European touring opportunities. After a brief break, Von Ohlen got an unexpected call from his idol, Stan Kenton, in 1970.

"Stan said he was going out on the road year-round, so I went with him," Von Ohlen says. "That was my dream to play with Stan Kenton. I played with him for two years. It was a completely over-the-top band. He was a great leader, and he gave me all the confidence I ever needed."

Von Ohlen gained his worldwide reputation as a flawless Jazz timekeeper during his stint with Kenton. Perhaps more than anything, it was the range of experience and the rotating cast of big name players that inspired Von Ohlen to new heights every night.

"One night we played in a softball stadium in Iowa and the next night we were in a Jazz club in New York," Von Ohlen says. "You just never knew where you'd be playing next."

It was Kenton who christened Von Ohlen with the nickname that has stayed with him for three-and-a-half decades: The Baron. On Von Ohlen's 29th birthday, Kenton made an announcement over the band bus intercom that from that point on everyone was to address their drummer as The Baron.

"I know why he did it," Von Ohlen says. "It was a handle for the audience. Everybody's named John, but there's only one Baron. I have no idea where he got it from. Stan always tried to make his musicians into stars. He always mentioned me in publications, and it helped. One year when I was with Stan, in the popularity poll in Downbeat I made the Top 10. And that was because of Stan."

After two years with Kenton, Von Ohlen once again returned to Indy. He put together the Baron Von Ohlen Quartet, an Electronic combo ahead of its time, but gave it up because the sonic frequencies aggravated his tinnitus. He then started a big band with Indiana writer Steve Allee, which remained active throughout the '70s.

Around this same time, guitarist Cal Collins -- inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame in 2001 -- enticed Von Ohlen to Cincinnati with job offers that became so plentiful that the drummer bought a farmhouse halfway between Cincinnati and Indianapolis to work both markets.

In 1979, Von Ohlen and a handful of friends asked Blue Wisp owner Paul Wisby if he'd like to feature a big band on their traditionally slow Wednesday nights. He agreed, and thus was born the Blue Wisp Big Band, an outfit that's become one of the longest-standing musical staples in the city since its inception 26 years ago.

"All the guys in town that were really good players did a lot of show work, playing behind singers," Von Ohlen says. "I talked to some of these guys and said, 'Why don't we start a band and play some shit?' We rehearsed in the back of a music store for a month, and the band felt good. Big Band can be an animal that's hard to control, but this group swung by itself."

Trumpeter Don Johnson cleared the way with the local union for the BWBB to play for the door at the club, and the band became an immediate sensation.

"Man, it hit right away," Von Ohlen says. "People loved it. We didn't make much, but at least the guys got to play."

Oddly enough, the BWBB was never intended as a permanent situation. When Johnson petitioned the union for the door exemption, he told them the gig would probably last no longer than a month or so. Last year marked the band's 25th anniversary, which was commemorated by Mayor Charlie Luken with an official proclamation.

So how has the Blue Wisp Big Band managed to stay together for so long?

"We never rehearse, and we never ever have band meetings," Von Ohlen says with a laugh. "That seems to keep the band together. You have a band meeting and all that shit comes out and guys start bitching, so you just don't have one. The other reason is the band's good and the guys are proud to be in the band. It's one of the best in the world."

This year has been an active one for Von Ohlen, a welcome relief to the doldrums of summer 2004 when he spent three months away from his drum kit after a sidewalk tumble left him with a broken elbow. In addition to his standing Wednesday night gig at the Blue Wisp, he took over as house drummer at Dee Felice for the departing Ron McCurdy -- Von Ohlen sits in with the Lee Stoller Trio on Thursdays and Bill Gemmer's quintet, the New Sleepcat Band, on Fridays and Saturdays.

Von Ohlen also keeps busy a few hours a week coaching the Big Band rhythm sections at UC and taking drum students under his wing. As for his imminent induction into the CEA Hall of Fame, Von Ohlen is both honored and a little concerned.

"There's a little trepidation because I feel like I've got quite a few years left," he says with a laugh. "On the other end, it's a super honor, and I accept it happily. Anybody gets a lifetime award, they think, 'Here's your gold watch, you've done your bit, now move over.' I don't feel that way. I feel like playing. As long as I've got my fingers in a good big band, I'm happy." ©

You could stand in a check-out line at a grocery story in northwestern Cincinnati behind Joe McDonough and never detect that the guy unloading his cart before you is a playwright whose scripts have been enjoyed by audiences at theaters all over town and beyond, from New York City to Chicago, from Louisville to Denver.

Joe McDonough

In fact, McDonough, a self-effacing man who is disinclined to talk about himself at length, has been writing plays since 1988. This season he’s accomplished something no other local writer has ever managed to do: Two of his scripts will be given their world premieres almost simultaneously by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC).

Don’t let anyone tell you that a playwright has to live in New York City or even Chicago or Minneapolis to make it big: McDonough, who claims he’s lived all over Cincinnati, has done it right here in the Queen City. And for his continued success he’s been designated by the League of Cincinnati Theatres for its 2005 Award for Continued Excellence, to be presented at this year’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. By virtue of this recognition, he’ll also be inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame.

McDonough graduated from Purcell High School in 1980 and went on to major in English in 1984 at the University of Cincinnati. He focused on being a writer of fiction, but he points out that even his fiction had tons of dialogue. A grant to write a play tipped the balance toward the form he’s pursued ever since. He even spent a bit of time onstage — enough to learn he’s not an actor, he jokes — especially in a comedy sketch company, Carnivores in Action, in the early ’90s.

But his true theatrical home over the years has been at Ensemble Theatre. One of the theater’s founders, Ruth Sawyer, designed the set for his first show, American Gothic, presented in April 1988 during ETC’s second season. Another founder, attorney Gordon Greene, acted in it. McDonough laughs when he recalls the answer he received from ETC’s artistic director when asked why his play was chosen for production at Over-the-Rhine’s Memorial Hall: “We really didn’t like the other one.”

ETC also gave McDonough the keys to its holiday franchise: In the late ’80s and early ’90s the theater had offered a holiday “pantomime” for several seasons, a British-styled satire with political overtones based on a fairy tale. With two others, McDonough created the final one that ETC staged — at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theatre in 1995. In fact, he notes, “I’m the guy who killed the panto.”

Not long after D. Lynn Meyers became ETC’s artistic director, she put McDonough together with composer David Kisor to create a holiday fairytale musical, minus the satirical component. The result was the 1997 production of The Frog Princess, which audiences loved.

Meyers invited the pair to create shows with a moral that might be positive lessons for the children who come to see ETC’s holiday production before it opens to general audiences, and that model held true for close to a decade — including a reprise of The Frog Princess in 2002, plus Alice in Wonderland (1998, reprised in 2003), Around the World in 80 Days (1999), Sleeping Beauty (2000 and 2004) and The Adventures of Pinocchio (2001).

He’s also written scripts for Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, including Tom Sawyer, The Fantastic Toy Shop and Noah’s Ark. This season he pairs up with a new composer, Fitz Patton, for a new holiday musical, Cinderella (Nov. 30-Dec. 30).

But McDonough is considerably more than a children’s playwright. In 2001 he created a play for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, A Chance of Lightning, a Cincinnati-based re-telling of the story of the classical myth of Prometheus Unbound. In 2003 the Cincinnati Playhouse produced his three-monologue script, One, and it went on to a subsequent production in Florida earlier this year. The play was about three seemingly unrelated people — a troubled young nun, a self-centered actor and a Captain who served in the American Civil War — whose paths eventually intersect and affect one another.

“Writing One was a watershed,” McDonough says. “The interrelationships between the three characters were complex pieces of a mosaic that formed a whole.”

He says he’s fairly eclectic in what he writes.

“I’ve done both drama and comedy, although it’s been a long time since I’ve written ‘just’ a comedy,” he says. “However, my plays have a lot of comedy in them,” citing one of his works getting its world premiere at the Cincinnati Playhouse next spring, Stone My Heart (April 1-30, 2006), winner of the Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize.

It’s based on Shakespeare’s Othello, translating the classic story of love, hate and jealousy to people who work in a contemporary Chicago morgue.

Meyers has selected a second McDonough script for production at ETC, Wayfarer’s Rest (April 19-May 7, 2006), about an American woman living in rural England during World War II who finds a mysterious cottage deep in the woods inhabited by two strangers who can see the future. Meyers has selected two of the area’s best professional actors for her production of McDonough’s piece, multiple CEA nominees Bruce Cromer and Annie Fitzpatrick.

McDonough, who has a New York agent to seek productions of his plays around the country, has workshopped his plays elsewhere and attended retreats for playwrights. But Cincinnati is his base.

“I’m happy here, my family is happy here,” he says. “I have a wonderful situation here with Ensemble and the Playhouse willing to develop my work. It’s a situation other playwrights would die for.”

Both theaters have given him the opportunity to refine his work. The Playhouse, for instance, gave Stone My Heart readings using the casts from two different productions during the past season. ETC’s Meyers was “all over” Wayfarer’s Rest, he says, attending a reading of the script at the Players Club in New York City. He especially relishes the chance to work with actors and directors.

“I enjoy letting go and seeing actors jump at it, taking chances,” he says. “The process with actors and directors often leads to a better interpretation. It’s illuminating for you as a writer.”

The growth of McDonough’s career has paralleled that of Cincinnati’s theater scene.
“When I started Ensemble was in its infancy,” he says. “There was only the Playhouse and some community theater. I’ve enjoyed watching everything grow, and the improvement of quality.”

What McDonough doesn’t mention — although it’s apparent to everyone else who loves theater in Cincinnati — is that he’s played an integral personal role in the improvement in local theater. And that’s the principal reason why the League of Cincinnati Theatres chose to recognize him. ©

Joneal Joplin has portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge more than 300 times since 1997 at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. In doing so, the veteran actor became as familiar as Santa Claus to many area families who made a holiday tradition of checking in with the bitter penny-pincher who refuses to see the joy in Christmas.

Joneal Joplin

For his integral and memorable contribution to eight Cincinnati holiday seasons, the critics panel for the 2005 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Theater decided to accord Joplin a special recognition. He will be attending the awards program and presented to the audience by Ed Stern, the Playhouse’s producing artistic director.

The beauty of Joplin’s Scrooge was that, with each successive staging of Howard Dallin’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, he became more human and real. When Joplin replaced another beloved actor, Alan Mixon (who died unexpectedly after handling the role for several seasons in the 1990s), many wondered if he would measure up. But every year he added texture and emotion to his Scrooge, from his opening snarls, sneering at “love” and “Merry Christmas,” to his ghost-hosted visits, wandering invisibly among people from his past and present life (“I didn’t say that!” he would exclaim in exasperation more than once) whose occasional physical touch caused him to stagger and gasp.

Kids in the audience laughed out loud at his off-key renditions of “Deck the Halls,” unsuccessfully trying to hit the right notes.

Joplin is, in fact, a wonderful singer and has performed in several musicals at the Playhouse. His list of Playhouse productions includes The Voice of the Prairie (1994), The Brothers Karamazov (1995), She Loves Me (1996), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1997), Sweeney Todd (1997), The Little Foxes (1998), Much Ado About Nothing (1999), Wit (2000), Inherit the Wind (2000), the title role in King Lear (2001), Ah, Wilderness! (2002) and Mister Roberts (2004). In the Playhouse’s 2004 production of The Crucible, he played Deputy Governor Danforth, whose rabid manipulation transported several innocent characters to the gallows for witchcraft; his work earned him a 2005 CEA nomination.

Joplin is a veteran theater professional in St. Louis. His local credits include work at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati and Dayton’s Human Race Theatre Company.

At one point during last December’s production of A Christmas Carol, the specter of Belle, Scrooge’s long lost love, asked his younger self, “Who is the real Ebenezer?” The answer was obvious to everyone in attendance: Joneal Joplin.

— RICK PENDER