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Hank Mackie:
Jazz Guitar Virtuoso, Teacher, Mentor
story and photography by
Craig M. Cortello
Ensuring the continuity of the lessons and traditions from one generation to the next can be a delicate process. It often requires the care and sensitivities of someone with a unique balance of admirable qualities. With respect to the arts, it calls for someone who has both respect for the masters and an appreciation for the innovation of a new breed. It calls for the ability to convey the fragile balance between theory and inspiration. Perhaps most importantly, it requires a mentor who can introduce the lessons of the virtuoso and encourage talented youth to learn them as a foundation, yet achieving that end through infectious admiration and example rather than browbeating.
By all accounts, Covington jazz guitar instructor and performer Hank Mackie possesses an abundance of all of those qualities.
Mackie enjoys the relaxed lifestyle that the northshore has to offer, a seemingly paradoxical existence for a man who’s an integral part of the history of the New Orleans area jazz scene. When you speak to Hank Mackie, talk to his colleagues and students, get a sense of his personality, understand his performance style, and examine the nature of his career as it stands today, the laid-back lifestyle that Covington has to offer makes perfect sense.
Mackie lived in and around the uptown and Lakeview areas of New Orleans all of his life until 16 years ago. He relocated to the northshore when he and his wife, Becky, were married. (Becky’s father owned Marsolan’s Feed and Seed store on E. Gibson Street.) Covington offers a central location for his current mix of professional endeavors. He now teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, at the University of New Orleans, at Todd’s Music Express in Metairie, and at his Covington home for private instruction. Mackie also spends three nights a week playing his recurring solo gig at Michael’s Restaurant and Lounge in Slidell.
For a span of four decades, Mackie has displayed equal parts instruction, artistry and patience for hundreds of aspiring musicians. As one of his most extraordinary young protégés, Davy Mooney, says, “I don’t think I know anybody that came up playing jazz guitar [for a span of roughly 30 years] in New Orleans that didn’t study with him.”
The fact that Mackie has relocated and decided to make the northshore his primary performing locale is a considerable addition to the music scene here. He can usually be seen at Michael’s Thursday through Saturday. He previously played regularly for nearly a decade at Coffee Rani’s two locations in Covington and Mandeville, and he mixes in an occasional gig at Mandalay Jazz Café in Mandeville.
While listening recently to New Orleans clarinet virtuoso Tim Laughlin’s “Great Ballads... Past and Present,” the 1999 album for which Mackie’s guitar provided the sole accompaniment, I was reminded of how the late Mel Torme once described his relationship with pianist George Shearing. “Two people with one musical mind,” said Torme. Mackie is perfectly in step with Laughlin throughout, the ideal complement—intertwining interesting textures with Laughlin’s beautiful tones, yet never overbearing and respectful of the melody.
The album is one of six recordings on which the two collaborated.
“Hank’s playing is very much like his personality. He’s very giving,” Laughlin says, explaining why he sought to pursue Mackie to record the Ballads project, an album that was ambitious in its simplicity and can best be described as a musical conversation. “It was basically just about two instruments talking to each other and playing off one another,” he adds, “and I don’t think anybody does it any better [than Mackie].”
The Ballads album gives us some insight into Mackie’s personality and his musical taste. Mackie’s true love is a style of solo jazz guitar influenced by jazz-guitar greats such as Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery and George Van Epps, the inventor-master of the 7-string guitar. Such a style of performance is aptly suited for the venues of the northshore that offer jazz—a mix of coffee shops, martini bars and restaurants. While some jazz purists might take a condescending attitude toward playing venues where the performance is essentially background music, the reserved Mackie seems to thrive on it. “I tell my students that I’m musical wallpaper, and that’s OK. I just love the music. Sometimes I’ll look at people’s feet under the table—they don’t even know they’re listening, but you’ll start to see them tap their feet. Afterwards they come up to you and tell you how much they enjoyed it. It’s gratifying.”
Jazz on the northshore has been a hit-and-miss proposition, as some business owners have tried and failed to use jazz as a drawing card. Where it’s been successful, it’s generally because the performers are ideally suited to the ambiance of the venue and because the owner demonstrates a passion for and a commitment to the music. Michael Frederick, owner and chef at Michael’s understands that concept. “He’s a great person to work for. I get to play anything I want and he loves it,” says Mackie. “It’s just a great, great job.”
While Mackie’s body of recorded and live performance work is considerable, it will likely be his role in bridging the time continuum of jazz guitar to a new generation of guitar wizards, however, that will ultimately serve as his crowning achievement. Steve Masakowski, Phil Derby, Bill Solley, Ted Ludwig and the aforementioned Mooney are among the jazz guitar greats emanating from the New Orleans area who have come under Mackie’s tutelage at one time or another. Players to watch among his up-and-coming northshore jazz guitar students are Wilson Marks and recent graduate Andrew Powers from Southeastern and Andy Burglass in Covingtom.
Ludwig speaks of Mackie’s guidance with almost fatherly affection, and provides insight into Hank’s mastery of the art of music education. “If I could sum it up with one sentence, he got in the trenches with the student,” says Ludwig, noting the propensity of some teachers to demonstrate a condescending attitude toward students. “He didn’t sit up there on a higher level, look down at you and say OK, this is the thing you need to learn to get up here. He came down to your level and he brought you up. A lot of teachers shoot things at you—if you get it, you get it, if you don’t, you don’t.
Ludwig adds, “Hank never was afraid to tell you things more than one time. When he was teaching, he let go of the fact that he was a great player. He always encouraged his better students to come out and sit in wherever he was playing,” offering further evidence of Mackie’s self-assuredness and humility.
Of the joy of teaching, Mackie says, “It’s just fun to reveal things. When you show somebody something and they get excited, that excites me. When you lose that, you ought to quit.” Hank adds, “Motivation means movement to me. They’ve [students] got to move themselves, but you can inspire. You try to inspire them by playing something that they’re excited about. It’s just watching that thing you see in people’s eyes when they have a secret revealed to them. They go, ‘Wow!’ It’s a Eureka! moment for them. That’s what you live for as a teacher.”
It’s nice to reach a point in your career where you can make decisions based upon lifestyle preferences. Mackie says of northshore life, “The quality of living is great—it’s beautiful over here, the trees and everything—I just love it. At [this stage of my career], quality of life is more important than the number of jobs.” While Hank loves to teach and play, after eight to ten hours a day of the guitar he simply likes to chill when he gets home.
Another perk of life in Covington is the opportunity for Hank to occasionally get together and play with longtime friend and local guitar maker Jimmy Foster. Like Mackie, Foster once owned a business in New Orleans, but relocated to Covington and loves the area and the lifestyle. Foster is widely acknowledged as a brilliant luthier—he has a host of performers who enthusiastically endorse his custom instruments, including Paul Simon. Mackie is quick to point out, however, that Jimmy is also one of the best guitar players in the country when it comes to the style for which both men share a passion—solo jazz guitar of the great American standards by songwriters such as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.
“You could have 10 lifetimes and not learn all those tunes. The chords are so interesting—the way they’re put together,” says Mackie. “When jazz musicians play standards, we don’t consider it ‘covering’ (playing a song that’s been previously recorded) the tune, we consider it trying to explore it and see how we can maybe change or enhance it and still maintain the integrity of it. And that’s a never-ending project to me. There’s always something new to find out.”
On behalf of jazz guitar fans everywhere, I hope that Hank Mackie never stops exploring.
(Certain excerpts of this article were previously published at AllAboutJazz.com and have been reprinted here with permission from the editors.)
