Mark Braun is ready to celebrate his birthday.

Known musically as “Mr. B,” the blues and boogie-woogie pianist turns 69 this month and is celebrating his big day with a February 13 show at Kerrytown Concert House.

Billed as “Mr. B’s Annual Birthday Bounce,” the show will feature a collaboration with drummer Ali Jackson. It also marks another milestone in Braun’s recovery from three recent hand surgeries.

“I hurt myself about a year ago pretty badly and had emergency surgery on one of my hands,” said Braun, who lives in Ann Arbor.

“And that recovery has gone as well as can be expected. It will never be exactly the same again, but I’m in pretty good shape. And then just lifelong overuse of my hands required more recent surgeries for carpal tunnel and trigger finger releases … and that has led into the wintertime.”

The early part of winter was the crux of Braun’s recovery period, but things are going well.

“I’ve noticed a lot of small improvements; they’re incremental,” said Braun, who also designs and builds furniture with his wife, Wendy Bauer Braun.

“They continue to accrue, just small, daily tasks that I notice that I can perform better than I could a while ago. As far as playing is concerned, if I were to play for you right now, I don’t think that anybody could tell that I’m not at full strength. I still have some surgical discomfort in my hands that will take quite a while for all the recovery to come back. But as far as mechanisms working properly, everything is there, and I’m so happy to be playing again.”

I recently spoke with Braun ahead of his February 13 show in Kerrytown.

Q: How does your recovery continue to progress?
A: Most every day, I give myself a B+ or an A-, I continue to work on the exercises, some [stretches], and things I need to do to get my hands back. Plus, I’m getting older, believe it or not, now I can hardly believe it myself. I’ve done a lot of things with my hands. I played hardball until I was 44. I’ve always been a carpenter and furniture maker, so I use my hands more than most people do. The recovery is super important to me, so I do all those things, and I will continue to do [them]. It requires a lot of attention.

Q: What type of furniture do you and Wendy make?
A: We’ve been making furniture together for about five or six years now. I did some furniture building prior to that, but I’ve been a lifelong carpenter, every kind of carpenter. I had a traditional path where, at first, I was a laborer on carpentry crews, and I had no skills, no tools, or anything. I just had a strong back, and I was willing to try. 

And then from there, I became a framing carpenter, a trim carpenter, and then a custom cabinet maker. And then from there, Wendy and I graduated to designing and building, and thankfully, selling quite a bit of our customized freestanding furniture. That’s all we do now. … Wendy has several other occupations, too, but as far as the woodworking, that’s all we do is just design and build furniture.

Q: Your latest album, Blues Piano Today!, was recorded live with drummer Pete Siers at Kerrytown Concert House in February 2024. How did you select the setlist for it?
A: I wanted to have a selection that was balanced. I write a lot of music, and in the last four or five years, I often do entire concerts where 95 percent of what I’m [performing] is original music. But in this regard, I wanted it to be a balance of some of [my] most well-appreciated original music that I had written, along with a handful of great standards of the repertoire that could represent Pete and me. I just wanted it to be overall representative of the feel of the whole lineage of piano that I’ve been attracted to.

There’s [also] a companion [video] piece, which is in the works. There is an acclaimed Emmy-winning videographer who filmed that whole concert, and eventually, that will be released, but not as an entirety, [only] portions of it. That was tied into some of the [song] choices, too. We knew that the choice of material we made would be filmed and could be used, both for people’s entertainment and concert promoters around the world.

Q: “Hillbilly Holiday” is a peppy and jazzy instrumental. How did it become the show and album opener?
A: In this context, oftentimes you’ll want to ease into a concert with something kind of mellow and get comfortable with the instrument and give something slowly to the audience. But in this case, I wanted to say, “Hey, it’s time to buckle your seatbelts; it’s going to be a strong night all the way through.”

Q: Blues Piano Today! also features several standards, including “Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” “St. James Infirmary Blues,” “Mojo Hand,” “She’s Tough,” and “St. Louis Blues.” How did these songs become part of the show’s setlist and the album?
A: All the ones you just named, for the most part, have been part of what I’ve been doing for a long time. When I realized we had an opportunity to work with such a skilled videographer, I also wanted to make sure that we [performed] the material we were most confident in. It’s important to me to very often play material, even in concert, that you haven’t perfected—that you’re still on thin ice with. That’s an important part of playing for me. But in that context of that night … it’s not that they particularly tied one to the other, or that a lot of thought went into it, they were things that just felt really natural to me that I had strength with and that I was just loving at that point in my playing, too.

Q: “Hallelujah Train” is an infectious blues instrumental. What inspired the song’s steam locomotive-like rhythm?
A: There’s a very early blues piano piece, which uses the same kind of left-hand technique, which is called “Cow Cow Blues” by Cow Cow Davenport. I wanted to combine those elements, and it’s very reflective of steam train travel. I wanted to combine that element with more contemporary gospel harmonies and the feel of a choir. It’s proven to be, over the years, one of the pieces that I realized, as a gift to an audience, is what we should always be doing. We don’t come to take from the audience; we come to give to the audience. It’s always one that I noticed is received with the most affection, energy, and appreciation.

Q: What was it like to perform with drummer Pete Siers for the live recording of the album?
A: Pete, as I do, has a really high regard for the entire jazz spectrum. In the last few years, he’s really concentrated on the fundamentals of early jazz stylings, but Pete is also able to play with a very modern band and in almost any kind of context. He can and has many, many times [played] … with symphony orchestras, with jazz orchestras. Pete has a very wide path that he walks in the jazz continuum.

When you have those skills and that experience, it becomes easier in the moment to not be tied to any one of them, to create a sound that draws from all of your experiences, but that sounds like you and sounds natural. I think that’s something I recognized about Pete’s drumming. He’s also a really excellent accompanist, and he has a really excellent sense of dynamics. He’s able to pull me down and become very quiet, which then gives us a lot of room.

Q: What can people expect from the “Mr. B’s Annual Birthday Bounce” show with drummer Ali Jackson?
A: This will be my very first time with Ali. If you look into his resume, it’s startling. I think he’s one of the absolute finest living drummers on planet Earth. He also plays piano, composes, plays bass, and is very comfortable and accomplished in the world of classical percussion. There’s a very wide range of music he excels at. Because of his association with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, it’s a part of their ethos to represent early music, not exclusively, but to make sure that you’re well-grounded in the fundamentals of that. The idea of New Orleans-style drumming … Ali is really a giant in that regard.

This is a dialogue between two musicians, but still in some sense, I’m the ostensible leader on the gig because my name’s on it. It’s where I always play at that time of year. I’ll be making the determination for the most part of what we’ll play, but like any good band leader, you want to understand the strengths. I’m going to be picking things that I think will particularly well reflect his inclinations and his really profound abilities.

Q: “Mr. B’s 29th Annual Blues & Boogie Piano Celebration” is April 18 with Demetrius “Krayon” Nabors at The Ark. What do you have planned for the show?
A: This year, we’re having Demetrius, who is a really interesting musician to me. I’ve actually never heard him play solo piano. It’s going to be a really different experience for me as a listener, and even for him as a giver of music, because I know he almost always plays in the context of jazz bands that he leads or is a member of. They’re very groovy, soulful, R&B-infused, jazz-inflected groups. I’m excited to hear him in this different context.

I’m [also] bringing a really exceptional pianist as a surprise to the audience. There will at least be three of us at that event. I’ve never played with Demetrius, [I’ve] only gone to hear him. And I don’t know if he’s ever heard me play a note of music, so hopefully, this is going to be exciting and enjoyable for both of us. This is almost always about the opportunity to hear solo pianists. It’s a very particular thing in a very personal and intimate way to hear a musician.

Q: What plans do you have for new material?
A: Another important thing that I’ve done in the last couple of years is I formed a 10-piece band [with] some of the finest musicians in Southeast Michigan. We have members from the Stevie Wonder band, the Bob Seger band—just the cream of the crop of Southeast Michigan musicians. We’ve recorded 14 original pieces of mine, and that’s in the studio now. We’re putting the finishing touches on that—that should come out in this calendar year, I hope.

I [also] had a great opportunity to hear 14 of my original compositions performed and interpreted by a great trio, including Robert Hurst, who has seven Grammy Awards; Nate Winn, one of the most brilliant musicians in the Detroit area; and Rick Roe. Rick was the first-prize winner in the [Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition] and also a two-time semi-finalist in the [Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition] I was thrilled Rick was drawn to my music to record 14 of my pieces with these guys. It’s out, it’s released now; it can be found at Rick Roe Music. It’s called The Bridge: The Music of Mark Braun. That has been an exciting part of the last year.

Lori Stratton is a library technician, writer for Pulp, and writer and editor of strattonsetlist.com.

Mark Braun performs February 13 with Ali Jackson for “Mr. B’s Annual Birthday Bounce” at Kerrytown Concert House, 415 North Fourth Avenue, Ann Arbor. The show starts at 7:30 pm. For tickets, visit Kerrytown Concert House’s website. Before the show, people can attend Wendy Bauer Braun’s artist reception for “Distances: Views Observed and Interpreted” from 5 pm-6:30 pm at Kerrytown Concert House. The reception is free and open to the public.