Ken Ormes

Description

Guitarist/singer Ken Ormes attended Berklee College of Music. He assembled the Seacoast jazz quartet Straight, No Chaser, with whom he composed, arranged and played until its passing about 1989, backed up Buddy and Sandy Hackett at the Hampton Beach Casino, opened for legendary jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, and worked with Elvis tribute act Stan Jr. the Seacoast Big Band, and in pit orchestras for many New England and New York musical theater productions. In recent years, Ken’s guitar helped drive ten-piece Motown revue Hello Detroit and Jim MacDougall’s Funky Divas of Gospel. Just Jazz Guitar magazine favorably reviewed Ken’s role in Larry Simon’s commemorative Gabor Szabo concert, and he’s been a featured performer on the cable TV production “Joan (Watson-Jones)’s Jazz Jam.” Currently he is delighted to be supplying the underpinning for Sharon Jones and her Downtown Express juggernaut.

Ken was once house guitarist for a Somersworth laundromat.