5/19 Mike Turk Trio

Live music is back on stage at The Mad Monkfish! For those who can't make it to the Jazz Baroness Room, Monkfish now streams live all of its performances on their Facebook page. 1st Show: 7:00-8:15pm   and   2nd Show: 8:45-10:00pm 

Mike Turk, chromatic harmonica

Ben Cook, piano

Bruce Gertz, acoustic bass

Mike began his harmonica career at age 14 in The Bronx, NY with Blues, Rhythm & Blues and singer/songwriter "Folk music".

By the early 1970’s Mike found his way to Boston where he soon became part of the local music scene . It was this period, in the mid 1970’s that Turk began to explore the possibilities of the chromatic or “Jazz”harmonica and spent the period from 1978 –1981 at the Berklee College of Music.
Turk began to formulate his ideas on the Harmonica using the techniques and jazz phrasing established by Toots Thielemans.

Sometime later Mike was awarded a 'National Endowment For The Arts' grant to study privately with the great saxophonist and jazz educator Jerry Bergonzi

Eventually, Turk’s influences would come from a virtual textbook of Bebop and Modern Jazz written by the likes of Charlie Parker, Sonny Stiit, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderly, Lee Morgan, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Pepper Adams, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, Milt Jackson, Bill Evans, Lucky Thompson, Hank Mobley…many more, East Coast Bop & West Coast Cool!

In the 1990’s Turk performed and collaborated with great Boston players such as Gray Sargent and Marshall Wood (both formerly with Tony Bennett) and had the great honor to play with Dave McKenna from time to time.
Other somewhat unsung, top-notch Boston players include Jeff Stout, Dick Johnson, Jon Wheatley, Lou Columbo, Ray Santisi, Paul Schmelling, Paul Broadnax, John Lockwood, Bob Guilloti,and with the great jazz drummers Joe Hunt and also Alan Dawson…..many more great players not mentioned here!

In Recent years, Turk had the great pleasure of sharing the concert stage with jazz vocalist Rebecca Parris and her band Brad Hatfield, Peter Kontrimus and Jim Lattini.

Here at the 'Mad Monkfish' ( formerly Thelonious Monkfish) From time to time Mike Turk has worked with many great Boston based players including Joe Barbato, Chris Taylor, Alexei Tsiganov, Bruce Gertz, John Lockwood, Gilson Schacknik, Ben Cook, Jeri DiMarco Bergonzi, Rusty Scott, Keala Kaumeheiwa; and has participated in the Jam sessions hosted by saxophonist extraordinaire Andy Voelker

You can read Mike Turk's complete story on his website blog  www.tinsandwichmusic.com