Louis Polak

**Louis Daniel** **Polak**(18 December 1986) is a Lower Duckling pianist and composer. Currently, he writes music and plays piano and keyboards for The Mariott Street Band, while making ends meet by working as a pianist at Paulie’s Bar.

## Biography

#### Early Years

Louis Polak was born in Lower Duck Pond in December 1986 to David and Laura Polak. He was the second of three children: his older sister, Meredith, was born in 1984, and his younger brother William was born in 1988.

He grew up in a council house on Mariott Street in Lower Duck Pond. At the age of four, he started taking piano lessons from Mrs. Matthews who lived on the same street.

While his childhood was relatively stable and happy, his parents got divorced in 1994. Shortly afterward, his father got remarried and moved to the closeby town of Redburg. In 1997, his half-brother Dylan was born.

Louis attended primary school in Lower Duck Pond and became close friends with Daniel Mercer, who lived close to him on Mariott Street.

### Teenage Years

As a teenager, Louis attended Richland High School. He claims not to have enjoyed his time there, but does not blame Richland High for that.

Generally, while in high school, Louis paid more attention to his music than to his studies.

In 2000, he and Daniel Mercer (who played the saxophone) founded a soft/pop-rock  duo named “The Narwhals”. By Louis’ own description, The Narwhals were not very good and were very short-lived, too.

By 2001, Louis and Daniel Mercer had founded a new band, together with drummer Sidney Calloway. They were still playing or attempting to play pop-rock and the band was baptised “The Affordables”.

While The Affordables were certainly not any better than The Narwhals, they enjoyed moderate success among other Richland high schoolers. At one of their performances, Louis attracted the attention of Mary Braglia. The two started dating in early 2002.

Despite their relative success, The Affordables were also a short-lived band: by the end of high school, its members were getting bored with pop-rock and were looking for more expressive and experimental forms of music. They ended up settling on jazz as a more challenging and interesting genre to play and decided to change the band’s name to signify the shift in musical genre. Since all three of them happened to live on the same street and since they didn’t want any particular member to be bandleader, they ended up settling for “The Mariott Street Trio *."*

While in his last year of high school, Louis started working at Paulie’s part-time for a couple of nights a week.

Louis graduated from Richland High on time.

### Adulthood

Louis was admitted to Rosewater Conservatoire to study Piano Performance in 2004. During his university years, he kept living with his mother and commuted to Rosewater. He kept working part-time at Paulie’s bar. He graduated in 2008.

Between 2003 and 2009, The Mariott Street Trio gained more members (eventually becoming a sextet); after briefly being renamed “Mariott Street Quartet” in 2004, they officially changed their name to “The Mariott Street Band”.

The Mariott Street Band were one of the acts that played in the First Annual Lower Duck Pond Jazz Festival in 2008. While they did not play in the festival in 2009, they have been apart of it for every year since.

At some point after graduating, Louis started working full-time at Paulie’s bar. His son, James, was born in 2010.

He and Mary eventually got married in early 2012.

Ever since 2019, Louis has been giving private piano lessons. In March 2020, he started giving those lessons online.

## The Mariott Street Band

The Mariott Street Band is a jazz collective that was founded in 2003 in Lower Duck Pond under the name of “The Mariott Street Trio” by Sidney Calloway, Louis Polak and Daniel Mercer. The band gets its name from the street that the three founding members grew up in, however as of 2020, none of the band members live on Mariott Street.  The Mariott Street Band is a staple at the Lower Duck Pond Annual Jazz Festival, aside from being known to play at various locations in the area. While the members generally say they play jazz fusion, they have been known to play unplugged sets.

As of 2020, the band’s lineup is:

Sidney Calloway: Drums, percussions

Louis Polak: Piano, keyboards, synthesisers, accordion

Janice Quinn: Guitar, banjo

Daniel Mercer: Saxophones, flute

Marty Stornoway: Trumpet, additional percussions

Josephine Francis: Bass

## Trivia

Louis played baseball for the Richland High School team, although he and his team were notorious for being terrible players.

Louis enjoys musicals and his favourite is "Sunday in the Park with George".

Louis has said that his favourite musician is Bill Evans and that his favourite composer is Beethoven.

Louis is left-handed.

During his free time, Louis has been known to play rock songs in the style of famous classical composers.

## Reference List

1. ↑ Daily Discussion 13/02/2020
2. ↑ "Offering piano lessons", post on the town forum
3. ↑ Daily Discussion 02/01/2020
4. ↑ "Where are the classes listed below?" post on the town forum
5. ↑ "The Mariott Street Band will be performing at the 13th annual Lower Duck Pond Jazz Festival", post on the town forum
6. ↑ "Reflections on the Jazz Festival", post on the town forum[1]
7. ↑ Daily Discussion 03/02/2020
8. ↑ Daily Discussion 26/03/2020
9. ↑ Daily Discussion 05/02/2020
10. ↑ Louis Polak Interview on The Stream 94.5
11. ↑ Daily Discussion 02/01/2020
12. ↑ Daily Discussion 2702/2020
13. ↑ Daily Discussion 02/06/2020