At 90, jazz drummer is still on the beat

DETROIT/GROSSE POINTE CITY — His hearing might not be as sharp as it once was, but at 90, acclaimed jazz drummer Bob Pinterich, of Marge’s Bar Band, doesn’t need it — he feels the rhythms from his fellow musicians and keeps the beat as precisely as he always has.

“It’s never the same,” Marge’s Bar Band bassist Rich Kowalewski, of Sterling Heights, said. “He’s always in the moment.”

Pinterich, of Dearborn, celebrated his 90th birthday in the best way possible — playing a show April 24 at the Cadieux Café in Detroit with Marge’s Bar Band.

“When COVID hit, it knocked me and the other players out of work,” Pinterich said. “It feels good to be back in action again.”

Pinterich is one of the last of the early members of Marge’s Bar Band, a traditional and swing jazz group founded in 1970 at the Grosse Pointe Park bar of the same name. He joined the group circa 1976, when his now-wife, Becky, told him about them. Pinterich said he met the musicians, sat in on a gig, and nearly 50 years later, he’s still with the band — although the lineup has changed with the deaths of longtime band members and legends including jazz trumpeter Joe DeFoe, cornet player Tom Saunders, saxophonist and clarinetist Jim Wyse, and bass player Bill Bolle.

The band’s last gig at Marge’s Bar was on March 12, 2020 — just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the state to a standstill. Bandleader Terry Kimura, of Howell, a trombonist who formerly lived in Grosse Pointe Park, said they hope to return to their home base, but at press time, that still hadn’t happened.

Kowalewski, at 70, is one of the original members of Marge’s Bar Band, with whom he played as a musician just starting his career. He’s now back with the band, following Bolle’s death in 2021.

“Bob was my idol, my hero, my mentor,” said Kowalewski, who first met Pinterich in the mid- to late-1980s. “I had never played with a jazz musician of that caliber before.”

Marge’s Bar Band has been selected twice to perform at the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, Kimura said.

“That’s the Woodstock of traditional jazz,” explained Kimura of the event, named for cornet player/composer/pianist Beiderbecke.

But those aren’t the only times Pinterich has rubbed elbows with jazz royalty. Over the years, he’s performed with many other bands and artists. He was once the house drummer for a club called Act 4 near the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, where he played with Mel Tormé, Kimura said.

Pinterich’s son, Jason “Jay” Kure — he started using his mother’s simpler maiden name as a professional rock musician in the 1970s — remembers his father performing the drum roll for comedian Rodney Dangerfield when he was a kid. Kure said his dad taught music through the famed Grinnell Brothers Music House in Detroit, where his students included rockers such as Rick Ferrante (of Sasquatch and The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic) and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“It’s amazing how many people he affected,” Kure said of his father.

Kure, a horn player who laughingly blames his mother bringing home a record by Chicago for turning him into a rocker, said his dad taught “a lot of my friends” to play music when he was growing up.

“There was always a piano in the house, and there were always instruments in the house,” Kure said.

His aunt, singer/pianist Nikki Dee, performed with Tormé and other music greats, and it was at one of his aunt’s shows that Kure said his parents met.

When classical musicians like Luciano Pavarotti would play shows in the area, Kure said his dad often backed them. He could have toured the world, but for Pinterich, family came first.

“His love, always, was jazz,” Kure said. “When people would come into town, people would ask who’s the best (drummer) around, and his name would come up. Many (musicians) would offer him positions out of state, but he would not take them because he had five children.”

Kure said his dad, instead, stuck to regional shows in places like Chicago and Ohio.

“For the most part, he wanted to make sure he was around for his kids,” Kure recalled.

Kure, the only one in his family to go into music professionally, started as a janitor at United Sound Systems Recording Studios in Detroit, where he would perform with artists including Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker and George Clinton.

He may have gone in a different musical direction than his father, but Kure said his dad’s basic influence on him was strong.

“Musically, it was always meter and time, because a lot of the younger generation were not fortunate enough to be in a home with a human click track,” he said with a chuckle. “Dad literally had holes in his dashboard because he would tap on his dashboard with a drumstick. Every car he had, had that damn dot.

“Even if you eat with him, he eats in time,” Kure continued. “He walks in perfect time.”

On vacations at the family cottage, Kure — the youngest in his family — said his two children would hang out in the garage with his dad, playing music on whatever happened to be around, including a shop vacuum.

“He would make drums out of stuff in the garage,” Kure said.

At 90, he said his father’s memory is starting to falter. His musical memory, however, remains strong.

“If he sits behind a (drum) kit … all of those things go away,” Kure said.

Years of playing have worn away Pinterich’s hearing, which is why Kowalewski sits so close to Pinterich when they’re performing.

“He feels the pattern that the bass player is playing in his seat,” Kure said of his dad.

Kimura said Pinterich never misses a beat.

“During our solos … Bob would be right there, supporting us on the bandstand,” Kimura said.

Kure and his wife, Jennifer, now run hockey and figure skating stores in Grand Haven and Hudsonville, Michigan; he said he quit music professionally in 1994 to become a husband and dad. During the COVID-19 lockdown, though, he and fellow bandmates started writing a new record of progressive rock music that he said they hope to record next year under the band name Jay Kure.

His father — his first music teacher and biggest influence — is never far from mind as Kure returns to playing.

“I’m so proud (of him),” Kure said. “He’s always playing. … It’s still so bizarre to him that people have been following him all these years.”

Pinterich said playing music has kept him going all these years and “makes me feel good.”

“I like to communicate with people. … I can use the language of music to communicate with the trumpet player or the bass player,” Pinterich said.

It’s also a way he can communicate and connect with audiences.

“He’s steady,” said musician and jazz singer Chris Schwartz, of Ann Arbor, who was on hand to see Pinterich perform with Marge’s Bar Band April 24 at the Cadieux Café. “He’s always there, but he never overpowers the other (musicians) like other drummers do. He’s always got a smile on his face.”

Marge’s Bar Band’s most seasoned member “brings authenticity, energy and soul” to the band, Kowalewski said.

As life starts to return to some semblance of normalcy, despite the continued presence of COVID-19 cases, the members of Marge’s Bar Band — which today include trumpeter/vocalist Dave Vessella, reed player Stephen Grady and pianist/vocalist Mike Harrison — hope to book more shows. Pinterich will be right there with them, keeping impeccable time.

“He’s been a terrific joy to play with and work with,” Kimura said of Pinterich. “We were determined to make it through this horrible pandemic and look forward to continuing to make music together.”

Marge’s Bar Band will be performing a free outdoor concert from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 11 on a stage at St. Clair and Kercheval avenues in Grosse Pointe City for Music on the Plaza, the popular Village series that returned this year after a two-year, COVID-19 pandemic-imposed hiatus.

For more information on the Music on the Plaza concert, visit thevillagegrossepointe.org or The Village Grosse Pointe Facebook page, or call (313) 886-7474. For more about other upcoming Marge’s Bar Band shows, visit facebook.com/MargesBarBand.