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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 2016)
A REINVENTION John Orr recently left his Astoria law practice to pursue recycling work and music I It seems unlikely that an attorney would give up a successful practice of 25 years for a life of music and recy- cling. But that’s just what John Orr did. Yes, you’ll occasionally see his name in the paper as a Municipal Court Judge, but not often. You’re more likely to see his face in the paper as a member of the global music group Acústica or of his new jazz quartet. Orr explains that he became inter- ested in the law, “because of one of my boyhood heroes, Robert F. Kennedy.” Orr once saw Kennedy when he came to Orr’s hometown of Kalamazoo, Mich- igan. “I was enamored of his idealism and personal charisma,” Orr says. “His assassination was my introduction to mortality.” Orr decided to either go into politics or to become a legal crusader. “It didn’t quite work out that way,” he says. He became a lawyer, but not a crusader: a small town lawyer in private practice in family law and criminal defense. Still, the idealism never left Orr, nor did his love of music, which predated his interest in the law. As a youth, he says, “I had competing parts of myself. I had to please my mother by establishing that I had middle class respectability, but I had a bohemian side, too.” It was this bohe- mian side that brought Orr from Kalam- azoo to Oregon via Arizona and Califor- nia. “I had wanderlust in my youth,” Orr recounts. “I traveled in search of musical experience, and I fell in love with the wide American West.” Along the way, Orr took college courses in jazz and played in various groups, including jazz bands and a coun- try rock and Western swing band. Even- tually he quit music as he concentrated on the law. It’s not uncommon, in midlife, to look Coastal Life Story and photos by DWIGHT CASWELL 4 | March 17, 2016 | coastweekend.com back on the decisions one has made, and to wonder what might have been. What is unusual is returning to that youthful idealism and use it as a basis to reinvent one’s life. John Orr closed his legal prac- tice, returned to music, and took a job with Trails End Recovery, a material re- covery and recycling facility in Warren- ton. “I like the transition from law to recy- cling,” Orr says. “It was hard on my heart to do that kind of work so long, and recy- cling is so much less adversarial. It com- ports with what I thought I’d be doing when I had a law degree. Environmental law would have been more congruent with what I wanted to do with my life.” Now he has a lot more time for play- ing music, too, and for songwriting, and he has written music for Acústica. He plays guitar, pedal steel guitar, Dobro and À ute. “I’ve dabbled with alto sax and harmonica,” he adds. In addition to playing with Acústica, Orr is on the board of the Astoria Music Festival and is forming a jazz quartet, which he jokingly calls the “Trio Quar- tet.” Now that they’ve found a bass play- er, though, the group is an actual quartet and may soon be playing local gigs. The quartet plays the bop and cool jazz of the 1950s and ’60s, “and it is forcing me to raise my game,” Orr says. “Jazz is in¿ nitely more intellectually and aesthetically challenging. You can’t just do it, you have to express with homage to the original melody and rhythm.” Orr’s interests go beyond music and recycling. His bookshelves are lined with thick tomes that reÀ ect his interest in his- tory (he’s currently working on a book about World War II and original ¿ ne art hangs on the walls. His major interest, though, is his ¿ ancp, Teresa Brownlie, who has resolutely supported Orr as he reinvents his life. John Orr is a contented man, with no signs of a midlife crisis. “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been,” he says, “due in no small part to Teresa. My happiness is equal parts being done with the law and having found Teresa.” Teresa Brownlie has supported her i ance, John Orr, as he made a career change from being an attorney to working in recycling. John Orr plays guitar, pedal steel guitar, Dobro and fl ute, and he has dabbled in alto sax and harmonica.
