Baristas mixes music with themed tastings at the Marquette tower

On Nov. 2, the first of what will be a weekly event,Music at the Marquette, paired jazz music with chocolate tasting at the Marquette Tower.

Managing partner of Primo brands Keller Ford said the goal of the event is to get people in the door and check out the awesome building that is the former Marquette hotel.

He also said they tried a similar event when the building opened a year and a half ago but the end result did not meet expectations, so they decided to postpone further plans until the Courtyard hotel was open.

“We have this awesome lobby down there,” Ford said about the Marquette Tower. “It’s ornate and it’s beautiful. It’s got kind of boomy acoustics. It’s a really pretty cool setting.”

Pianist Beverly Reece and Ford’s father, 2015 winner of the Spirit of America Award, and horn player Jerry Ford were the night’s jazz performers.

Throughout the show, Ford took song requests some from the audience members, with whom he’d interact.

At the same time, the attendees got the opportunity to taste seven different specialty chocolate samplings of Askinosie, an award-winning chocolate company out of Springfield, Missouri.

Ford said they are trying to bring different musical genres to the event, noting blues guitarist

Ivas John who will be performing in December.

Former Southeast professor Dieter Jedan said he came because of his friends, Ford and Reece.

Ford, who has been playing the horn since fifth grade,said jazz is his favorite genre.

“I played some other genres, I do some classical work, but jazz is my favorite,” Ford said. “When I was in junior high, rock ‘n’ roll was just starting, so my buddies were listening to rock ‘n’ roll and I was, too, but I was still playing the LP albums of all the songs of the American songbook.”

Ford said he has a lot of fond memories of the hotel, and playing there was a bit of homecoming for him.

“I was born and raised one block away and so even as a kid I was in this building, a lot, and I played in what was their bar years ago,” Ford said. “The lobby is almost exactly like it was in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”

Ford was named Missouri Arts Council individual artist of the state in 2016.

The next event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 9 and include coffee sampling.