Parlour Noir

Parlour Noir
Sunday, August 18, 2024 at 2pm

Haddonfield United Methodist Church
29 Warwick Road
Haddonfield, NJ 08033

Since 2017, Parlour Noir has been a well-spring of traditional jazz music from the historic Mt. Airy district of Philadelphia, PA. The eccentric six-piece ensemble brings joy and energy to the stage across a variety of venues, from bombastic swing dance weekends to intimate restaurant settings. Comprised of vocals, horns, piano, banjo, drums, and upright bass, the band swings hard through a repertoire that spans 1922-1945.

Made possible by funds from the Camden County Cultural & Heritage Commission at Camden County College, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts

Lineup

Paul Salter - clarinet
Adam Darer - piano
Timothy Hill - cornet
Marco Del Destino - guitar, banjo
Sean Dorn - upright bass
Peter Gregory - drums

Background

Paul Salter grew up in Haddonfield NJ. He first started playing music on the piano in the 70’s when there was a resurgence in the ragtime music of Scott Joplin due to the movie The Sting. He also got a good dose of jazz at that time from Marx Brothers’ and Abbott and Costello movies which regularly aired on local stations like WKBS channel 48. As a teenager, he learned how to play guitar and played popular music in bands in college. In 1998, he was part of the swing dance revival which in Philadelphia prominently occurred at a club called the 5 Spot. He learned to dance the Lindy Hop, east coast swing, Charleston, Balboa, and Collegiate Shag. Eventually, He was teaching these dances and traveling around the country doing swing dance competitions. Dancing to live jazz on a regular basis was a great avenue for learning how to play jazz. After ten years of dancing, he started playing guitar in some jazz bands. Not long after that he started playing saxophone and clarinet. With some friends, he helped form Parlour Noir, which specializes in playing 20’s and 30’s hot jazz music for people interested in the history of jazz, who like to dance, and have a good time.

Adam Darer is a transplant to Philadelphia by way of New York, Adam has quickly made his jazz and blues piano playing known in the Philadelphia scene. In high school, Adam studied Jazz, Theory, and Improvisation with Vinson Hill (Retired Prof of Jazz at William Patterson University). He found his style through listening to the great jazz and blues piano artists such as Red Garland, Fats Waller, Otis Spann, and Memphis Slim. Adam has performed at Philadelphia’s top music venues such as The Fillmore Philadelphia, Bourbon & Branch, and The Twisted Tail, as well as for countless Blues and Swing dances across the state.

Timothy Hill was born in Athens, Greece where he grew up listening to heavy metal and Greek folk music. He started playing trumpet at age 9 and soon after switched to drumset. He became a jazz and funk convert while attending college in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, and since then has performed and recorded in the US and Europe primarily as a drummer for a variety of jazz, pop, folk, and world music groups. He currently lives in Philadelphia where he writes and directs musicals with Yes! And...Collaborative Arts, plays horn, percussion, and sings with his Mediterranean group The Carryons, plays horn, percussion, and loops with his experimental-electronic duo Mixed Signals, and swings on the horn and vocals with Parlour Noir.

Marco Del Destino is a Denver-born, Philadelphia-based percussionist and guitarist who performs with Parlour Noir, Bill Haley Jr and The Comets, and Dibbs and The Detonators Marco's passion for jazz stems from hearing Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. He has appeared on "Good Day New York", on radio interviews and broadcasts from WRDV in Hatboro PA, and WDIY 88.1 Lehigh Valley PA. With Bill Haley Jr he has recently played in North Carolina, Iowa, and Florida. His teachers include Ron DiStefano (Michael Douglas Show), Alan Kinsey, Larry McKenna, Jake Sanders, and Albanie Falletta.

Sean Dorn moved from playing bass guitar in alternative rock bands to upright bass in 2000 out of a love of the expressiveness of jazz. For 24 years since then he's immersed himself in a variety of swing, trad jazz, blues and Americana musical settings. Projects include the danceable hot jazz of Parlour Noir, the Django-inspired gypsy jazz of the West Philadelphia Foot Tappers, the Delta blues stylings of Shakey Lyman, high energy bluegrass with the River Bones Band, torch songs and cocktail jazz with Deleware's Diamond Swing Jazz. Sean's playing draws equally from the slap styles of Pops Foster, Willie Dixon, Jake Erwin and the melodic inventiveness of Ray Brown and Paul Chambers. Mr. Dorn is a big proponent of the idea that good jazz should make you want to move your body even as it embraces the harmonic improvisation that makes it jazz.

Peter Gregory lived in NYC for twenty-years years working with such artists and ensembles as Ralph Towner, Bo Diddley, The Drifters, The Ink Spots, The Marvelettes, The Coasters, The Crystals, Candido Camero, Gary U.S. Bonds, and The Big Apple Circus. From 1991 to 2000 he  was an adjunct percussion instructor at The Juilliard School with the Music Advancement Program, a program dedicated to bringing music to inner-city children. 

Peter moved back to his native Denver, CO in 2006, performing with Richie Cole, Nelson Rangell, Billy Wallace, Lenore Raphael, the Colorado Composers Big Band, Freddy Rodriguez, Sr., The Hot Tomatoes, the Denver Brass, Joe Smith’s Spicy Pickles, What’s Cookin’,  Purnell Steen and Le Jazz Machine, the Ken Walker Sextet, among many other jazz and blues artists. He also played for shows at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts including The Taffetas and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. 

Since landing in Yardley, PA in 2016, Peter has performed with Mikey Junior, Gypsy Joe and the Groove Prophets, Slim and the Perkolators, Parlour Noir, DelVal Jazz Band, PA Jazz Society, Roger Girke, the Don Evans Band, the PCJB Alumni Big Band, and Riverview Early  Music. 

Peter is the owner of Gregory Tech Drum Center which is a state-of-the-art facility that features professional drum sets and the latest recording, sound, and video technology. http://gregorytechdrumcenter.com/ 

Visit Parlour Noir’s website