Jazz, Jump Blues, Bebop, Swing, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Multi-instrumentalist, Ecclectic, Housecats, Melodic, NYC, New York .
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About
I’ve been playing music for considerably longer than I can remember. Some first vague recollections :
Hot Summer Sunday in a southern fundamentalist church. Nodding off to “Old Rugged Cross” in four-part harmony.
Lying on the living room floor Saturday night, listening to the magic of the Grand Old Opry pour out of well-used, fridge-size wooden cabinet radio. (We were living in Florida at the time, but I’d been born in Nashville and both of my parents had grown up near there.)
Late nights in my bed – I was probably around 12 – with the earphone of my crystal radio (Google it!) plugged into my ear. My first delicious tastes of Ray Charles, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Aretha, Nat Cole, Patsy Cline, Fats Domino, Dinah Washington, on and on… No wonder I couldn’t sleep.
The Beatles on Sullivan.
The first times I heard Miles’ “Kind of Blue” and Bill Evans’ solo piano album, “Alone.”
I’ve always had some variant of ADD when it comes to music. So many instruments; so many musical styles; so little time. The first instrument I picked up was trumpet, in sixth grade. Playing orchestral music, even in that primitive setting, was intoxicating. I stuck with the trumpet, but when I was in ninth grade, my brother brought home a guitar and I knew I had to play that! Later on I added bass and piano…
In 1973 I moved to New York City to find fame and misfortune as a musician. Put together a lot of bands and demo tapes, played a lot of gigs and showcases, auditioned for John Hammond and various other A&R folks, got a couple of mentions in the New York Times, taught a lot of guitar, drove a taxi (a gig that – surprise to me – included having a gun put to my head.)
These days I divide my time between Saint Augustine, Florida — a really lovely place — in the winter, and various points north in the Summer. It’s truly a wonderful life. Although my roots are in folk, blues and R&B, I’m also drawn to the imaginative chord progressions I find in jazz, especially the brilliantly crafted standards, and I hope that influence finds its way into some of my compositions and arrangements.
But whether it’s an infectious blues guitar riff that gets in your head and stays there, or a Billy Strayhorn composition that takes you for a wonderful, harmonic ride, it’s all just fine with me. As Duke Ellington famously remarked, “There are only two kinds of music – good and bad.”