The Jake Feinberg Show: Recent Episodes
Jake Feinberg
On The Jake Feinberg Show (radio) and in Facebook Lives, Jake Feinberg has now conducted over 2,000 interviews with “The Cats”—popular musicians across the spectrum from rock to jazz, R&B to folk, pop to country, bluegrass to fusion. Jake’s unique interviewing style puts musicians at their ease and inspires them to reflect candidly on topics familiar or unexpected.
The Cats tell little stories, muse about life, uncover aspects of the music business, dig deep into overcoming adversity, revel in camaraderie, and open their souls. You will never see musicians in the same light again....
Dynamic musician and band leader talks about the subtle nuances of creating music in the modern era with Big Search.
Intuitive and improvisational bassist talks about the birth of Groove Collective at Giant Step in the mid 1990's and his desire to create an immersive musical experience for the audience.
Artist, drummer and human being talks about his intention for releasing Drums of Compassion at this time.
Musician from Jersey City talks about his concept of the word "jazz" and how he has tried to tell his own life story within his various collaborations.
Contemplative guitarist talks about getting out of his own way in order to be a conduit for the music on and off the bandstand.
Profound prodigal drummer talks about being thrown into many different musical settings as a young girl and how that has helped her make a living doing something she can't live with out.
Singer songwriter with a singular voice talks about how she has grown as a musician and how she finds balance within her existence in this life.
Norwegian born singer and band leader talks about the messages in her music and how she differentiates between other musicians in Americana music.
Cosmic pianist and composer talks about playing the Gulf Coast circuit with his father growing up in SE Louisiana. Part of his new album drops tomorrow!
Ukrainian jazzer talks about discovering John Coltrane through Kenny Garrett and leaning the language of spiritual music. Ukraine for the win.
Dynamic musician and old soul talks about her latest creation - Floreana - and how she is learning to get out of her own way to be a conduit for the music to come through her.
Bass player and producer talks about the greatest lesson he received at Berklee and his dedication to making good feeing music with his friends.
Drummer and teacher talks about learning to swing north of the border and playing with Dizzy Gillespie.
Melodic and tasteful drummer talks about his rock inclinations in music before meeting Joe Lovano and his father in Cleveland. A dance with life itself.
Producer and A&R man at Muse and HighNote Records talks about how he cultivated the label through artist selection and individual sound.
Legendary promoter of classic jazz and the current curator at Baltimore's Keystone Korner talks about the genius and unpredictability of Stan Getz
Gifted multi-instrumentalist talks about his intuitive approach to playing the bass with Guava Tree and other musical outfits in Logan, UT
Inspiring drummer who was part of the Mime Troupe talks about the music he plays and how he fits into the conversation.
Legendary entertainer and bandleader talks about how he and his brothers climbed the ladder in the highly competitive musical community of New Orleans.
Gifted drummer talks about creating a good feeling groove in his different musical projects.
Heavy world percussionist and educator talks about learning different rhythms and incorporating them into studio and live musical settings.
Leader of the Golden Eagles, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe of New Orleans, Louisiana talks about the indigenous regional rhythms of his community.
Multi-instrumentalist with a bent towards western swing talks about building a career as a musician.
Legendary band leader from a legendary New Orleans musical family talks about creating "funk/rock" with his brothers and playing football against King Floyd.
Bandleader and pianist talks about growing up next door to Milt Jackson in Yonkers and his early trips into Manny's Music in New York City.
Profound musical artist talks about honoring this country as a defense contractor and "freedom fighter" with Ultimate Spinach, Tim Buckley and Steely Dan. Rikki Don't Lose That Number...
Renown bassist and producer talks about stepping into the void for Government Mule after the passing of Allen Woody and the infinite wisdom he learned from Colonel Bruce Hampton.
Profound southern musician producer and arranger talks about working with Ray Charles, Elvis Presley and all the great studio cats in Nashville and beyond.
Decorated engineer and musician talks about the early recording scene in Boise and how he met Pinto Bennett and Muzzy Braun.
Musical drummer and composer talks about never playing the same song the same way once and being on the bandstand at nine years old with his father David Batiste & The Gladiators.
Children's author and illustrator talks about what it means to be human, his relentless touring schedule and why Paul Horn is considered, by some, to be the grandfather of new age music. Whale Song.....
New Orleans drummer talks about playing with Phamous Lambert, Ellis Marsalis and the legendary Ray Charles. Keep swinging.....
Multi-instrumentalist talks about producing mercurial jazz/folk artists on Racoon Records.
Jazz entrepreneur and promoter talks about the comradery of the musicians that contributed to spiritual live performances in the studio and on the bandstand.
Long form discussion on his rhythmic roots and personal and professional relationships with Vince Guaraldi and Cal Tjader.
Blue eyed soul singer talks about playing black music for black audiences in Flint, MI and the formation of RJ Fox.
Legendary jazz guitarist talks about meeting Wes Montgomery on the streets of New York and playing penuckle with Dizzy.
Rudiments are key and experience is key but learning how to dance on your instrument is true liberation.
Brilliant saxophonist and bandleader talks about singing through her instrument and touching people's souls.
Manager for David Grisman talks about originally meeting the gang from Old & In The Way and his roots as a jazz drummer.
My interview with a master teacher of meditation prior to his three year isolated retreat on Diamond Mountain. It also happened to be my first interview ever as a rogue journalist. So many roads.
Spiritual trombonist and producer talks about how he sings for his supper in the music racket.
Multi-dimensional keyboardist talks about playing with Philly legends Tyrone Brown and Pat Martino.
Soul singer talks about the spiritual qualities of music and his belief that love through rhythm is essential. Life is a constant journey home.
Gifted guitarist and singer talks about learning to get out of his own way on the bandstand so as to be a part of the musical conversation with his peers and elders.
Transcendent singer talks about creating space with his brother Johnny to allow the music, musicians and devotees to appear naturally.
General Surgeon in New York City talks about his personal and professional connection to Stan Getz.
Doctor of traditional Chinese medicine talks about the concoctions he created to treat Stan Getz' cancer in the mid 1980's.
Singer songwriter talks about his band RJ Fox and its cosmic connection to David Crosby.
Brilliant harpist talks about integrating hip hop samples into her different musical collaborations.
Cosmic fiddler and bandleader talks about developing a sound authentic to himself within his own project, Forecast.
Picking blueberries and talking Merry Pranksters at his home in Scapoose, OR from July 2023
A man who lives his purpose to its fullest through a devotional practice of meditation and inspiration.
Lead singer for the band Bolero talks about how the pieces have come into place for a regional band with a San Francisco sound.
Private practice MD. specializing in pain addiction talks about how he got connected with the Grateful Dead and specifically Bill Kreutzmann.
Blazing electric bassist talks about the free-spirited family he grew up with in Mill Valley, CA.
Burning rhythm maker talks about how the landscape of the music business has changed in the last half century and his New Orleans roots.
Modern day sound scientist talks about his introduction to improvisatory ambient music at Penn State and the fertile sonic stomping grounds of Seattle.
Brazilian musician and entertainer talks about memorable experiences on the street corner and the bandstand.
Decorated singer talks about finding her voice on the bandstand with the help of her husband David Freiberg.
Profound pianist talks about embracing all music's as a way to sing for his supper and his recent trio tour with Buster Williams and Lenny White.
Stalwart vibes player talks about how he grew his musical vocabulary over his storied career.
Transcendent musician talks about his deep relationships with the musicians and how that manifests itself in love on the bandstand.
Monster horn man and poet talks about learning on the bandstand in Richmond, Va to the Hollywood Bowl.
Ubiquitous musician and songwriter talks about gaining inspiration in his life creating real music with his peers.
Photo credit - Sam Hall
Transcendent spirit and musician talks about being a source of inspiration for his band Guava Tree and the greater Utah community at large.
Probing multi-instrumentalist talks about moving to New York and learning under the tutelage of Jason Loughlin and John Lee Shannon.
Cosmic drummer from rural Ohio talks about his early connection with drums and how his ears have grown on the bandstand.
Multifaceted drummer and band leader talks about the various ways he sings for his supper in the greater Phoenix region. Ride the Lovetrain.
Singer and guitarist turned bassist talks about the growth of Ultraviolet Communication.
Transcendent musician talks about following the muse, seeing through spiritual dogma and accessing the intergalactic on the bandstand.
Nasty angular hired gun talks about his early exposure to metal and the abyss that is spiritual music.
Drummer and composer talks about the European touring circuit, his appreciation for all music's and learning from masters like Ed Thigpen.
Mandolin player talks about crossing over genres in his musical career and having the opportunity to play with the late great Buddy Jones.
Inventor of the "Mutantrumpet" talks about his need to increase sonic expansion in a myriad of different settings.
Humble groove-based keyboardist talks about marinating in all forms of music with all different types of cats.
New Orleans drummer talks about the ways in which music is created in the Cresent City.
Stalwart session musician and jazz cat talks about the ebbs and flows of life and its illusions.
Divine inventive pianist from a musical family talks about the balance between learning in the academy and on the bandstand.
Co-leader of Color Green talks about getting into the zone with his bandmates through various methods.
Gifted musician and music lover talks about his room for growth in all areas of music and life.
Musician and songwriter talks about his psychedelic experiences and how that opened his heart to creating original spiritual music with Color Green.
Dynamic singer and vocal coach talks about her time in the Jerry Garcia Band and the upcoming Vault Release of 6/18/82 Cape Cod.
Pioneer songwriter and producer talks about staying on the bright side in the face of adversity.
Profound multi-instrumentalist talks about the contributions made towards fusing what was known as traditional folk music with hillbilly music.
Musician, producer and lawyer talks about the evolution of Sha Na Na to prominence in over-night fashion.
New Yorker writer and reporter talks about cultivating his craft as a writer/journalist and his pivotal live experiences at Grateful Dead shows in the mid 1980's.
Music producer at Capitol Records and a hit maker in the band business. Threw a no-no against West Point using the knuckler....
Divine singer songwriter talks about staying vulnerable to love on and off the bandstand.
Folk musician talks about interweaving the different styles of music he witnessed in his living room as a kid and how it came out in his own collaborations.
Chicago horn player talks about being called up on stage by Buddy Guy at 15 years old and how he joined the progressive rock band The Flock.
Dynamic singer/songwriter and performer talks about the need for cats to NOT settle for the low hanging fruit and seek wisdom through authentic experience.
Bass player who has become an institution in the New Orleans music scene over the last 60 years.
Blazing multi-faceted guitarist talks about the evolution of his playing style and a move towards intention and emotion over chops in his bandstand storytelling.
Committed rhythmist talks about keeping his soul focused directly on the music and how that has led to his longevity and Sunday gigs in Los Angeles.
Decorated sound engineer talks about his early days at Angel City Studios working under Tom Wilson and then later at MVP Studios with Freddie Perrin.
Open minded trumpeter talks about playing jazz with Ray Charles and the drum solos of Danny Richmond.
Musical healer of Haitian descent discusses her ancestral roots and bringing those messages to her music.
Continued discussion about working with Malcolm Cecil, Jim Keltner and the challenges facing young accompanists today.
Born in Cuba and immigrated to Miami when he was 11 years old. Became a first call drummer and producer for so many iconic labels like TK and Glades along with developing what we now know as the Miami Sound Machine.
Indelible English guitarist talks about his early exposure to great jazz luminaries through is father and his life in music collaborating with many icons.
Multi-dimensional healer talks about her road towards peace, individuality and persistence as a woman of color.
Iconic Detroit bassist talks about gigging with Earl Klugh growing up and the unpredictable genius of Stevie Wonder.
Iconic baritone saxophonist for the Count Basie Band talks about growing up and witnessing jazz legends like Lionel Hampton and Stan Kenton come through the deeply segregated state of South Carolina.
Indelible double bassist talks about holding it down with Billy Strings and the opportunities he's had to play with trap drummers.
Unheralded jazz drummer talks about the late great Ahmad Jamal and his drummer Vernel Fournier.
Drummer, singer and multi-dimensional artist talks about creating improvisational music in San Francisco in the early 1960's.
Prolific double bassist talks about the opportunities he had to grow into the musician he is today. Blackbyrds 50th anniversary tour....
Prolific bass player talks about his own unique path towards musical sustainability and relevancy.
Burning guitar player talks about his unique personal and musical relationships with both peers and elders.
Ubiquitous rhythm maker talks about all his musical influences and how he has integrated his style into all the bands he has played in, including Butcher Brown.
Prolific producer and musician talks about the finer points of leading in the studio and getting the best out of the musicians he works with.
Multi-dimensional artist talks about different ways he reaches the flow state in music.
Sublime multi-instrumentalist and band leader talks about staying open to spontaneous creation on the bandstand with a myriad of different cats.
German vibes and harp player talks about his upbringing in Hamburg and how his musical vocabulary grew after connecting with Brazilian musicians.
Monster drummer and producer talks about what he learned from his elders and how he has applied that towards creating communal spiritual music on the bandstand.
Rock guitarist from Long Island talks about becoming submerged in sonic grease at Berkeley High and The Longbranch.
Funky blues bassist talks about his early years with Jesse Winchester, the gravy years with The Amazing Rhythm Aces and the greasy years with Charles "Wig" Walker.
Decorated singer from a long lineage of musicians and songwriters talks about how she has found her own voice on the bandstand.
Keyboardist for The Amazing Rhythm Aces talks about how the significance of music has changed in our culture.
Bay Area bluegrass/folk musician talks about the evolution of the psychedelic music movement that spawned in San Francisco.
One of the finest woodwind repairmen in the world talks about his relationship with Stan Getz.
Going beyond with the Captain of rhythm and metaphysics. Breaking up time, form and fear instilled in our culture.
Superstar bassist and singer talks about working with Al Jarreau and other band leaders with versatile rhythm sections. RIP.
Transcendent horn man talks about getting put on the spot by his high school band teacher Sue Johnson and paying tribute to Albert Ayler in his various projects.
Documentary film maker, author and musical artist talks about tapping into her family lineage, specifically her grandfather, and applying that to her multi-faceted work as a content creator.
Profound multi-instrumentalist and band leader talks about the road he travels in music with an open heart, homage to brother Johnny and having fun.
Gifted and original producer/musician talks about making cosmic connections and translating that into both pop and experimental music.
Musical storyteller talks about living in the void, finding god and creating timeless music.
Profound guitarist and educator talks about developing bandstand prowess with his peers and elders and the evolution of his school, The Music Factory.
Singular and inventive guitarist talks about the brotherhood of musicians he has played with including Lenny White, Curtis Fuller, Bill Goodwin and Joe Henderson.
Incredible drummer on the scene over the last 50 years talks about working with Charles Lloyd, Gary Burton and younger jazzers.
Organist/pianist with the Amazing Rhythm Aces talks about touring with legendary blues musicians from Nashville and Memphis with Jeff "Stick" Davis.
Mind bending musician and composer talks about opening for Circles Around The Sun and his philosophy as it relates to time space and place on the bandstand.
Profound multi-instrumentalist and producer talks about his family's musical acumen and how that carried over in both content and success in the industry.
Seeking young musician talks about playing with and learning from Bruce Hornsby and developing his own ensemble in Nashville.
I am joined by drummer Pete Magadini who spent time in North India under the direction of Manaparush Misra learning the complexities of polyrhythms via the tabla. Pete came back and made some stunning albums in the mid-seventies with the likes of Don Menza and George Duke incorporating these simultaneous differentiated drumming patterns to great appeal. During the mid-seventies Pete also held down a local jazz gig in the Phoenix Metro Area (gone are the days!)
Pete continues to teach drumming in the Bay Area and plays locally 3 nights a week at Harris's Restaurant with the Susan Chen Trio. He is highly recognized in the music arena and now gets a chance to tell us his story this Saturday at 3pm only on the Jake Feinberg Show.
Dynamic multi-instrumentalist talks about the areas she needs to grow in as a musician in order to fulfill the cicle of artistic authenticity.
Deva Mahal is part of my generation. A generation that grew up better than their parents and had accessibility to see and hear and access more information then ever before.
In some respects if your an artist from our generation, because of this access, you tend to emulate and try and sound like this guy or that, sing like him or her, get a nose job and sing about the shallow hipsters who are now using hair on their body to fill in their patchy beards.
Deva, like myself, is trending towards the authentic individualism of pure music with her band Fredrick's Brown. When she gets up on stage, like her dad, she exudes the music from all her pours. She sings, plays percussion and tries to borrow from the soul/gospel acts that came before her while finding her own unique voice that creates identity.
Identity in the digital age with a inflexible music industry leaves only one thing left. The Soul.
The soul inside everyone who is seeking their true nature. Be it Jake Feinberg behind the mic or Deva Mahal performing in front of family, friends or 12,000 of her best friends. She exudes soul and is not so far in the forest. She can look at each individual tree and appreciate what came before her while challenging the conformist system that is the 21st Century.
She likes to hang and play music in New Zealand, the home of Alan Broadbent and Stephanie Brown her bandmate in Fredericks Brown. Nobody knows what the future holds Gary Bartz but the shadow of doubt that creeps into everyone's mind is crushed by that persons desire to transcend and forever create. Deva Mahal welcome to the JFS.
Legendary record store owner and radio DJ talks about being part of the rich Boston area music scene and cultivating his record shop in Cambridge, MA.
Children's author, illustrator and music fanatic talks about finding his purpose in life at a young age and interacting with jazz heavyweights like Elvin Jones, Yusef Lateef and McCoy Tyner when he worked at the San Francisco Jazz Festival.
Brilliant bandleader and composer talks about improvisation, working with Spike Lee and his upcoming show at the Tucson Jazz Festival.
Versatile musician and singer talks about connecting and working with Ry Cooder and Warren Zevon. City Music.....
Legendary band leader, songwriter and producer talks about working with Bob Dylan on Highway 61 and discovering and producing Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Multi-instrumentalist and singer talks about coming to New York (from Puerto Rico) and then Los Angeles culminating in his own albums as a leader and working with icons like Warren Zevon, David Lindley and Ry Cooder.
Double bassist talks about his exposure to both classical and jazz music growing up as well as his experience with Chico Hamiton.
Singer/songwriter from Northern Louisiana talks about making a cosmic connection with Fred Carter Jr. and living a musical life.
Singer and actress talks about coming from a long line of creatives, working the club scene in Japan in the early 1960's and working at the ETC club with Paul Humphrey.
Wide ranging conversation about tapping into the creative source in the studio, his experience with Phish 1.0 and his latest project House Band.
Versatile blues and soul guitarist talks about his magical connection with bassist Doug Rauch, going to Africa with the Voices of East Harlem and finding his own sound on the bandstand.
Heavyweight pianist and composer talks about being a conduit for the music from an early age and how he surrendered to his god, Jesus Christ, to become more selfless in all phases of his life.
Synthesizer wizard talks about the voice within him and the space between the music. A thorough breakdown of the didgeridoo explosion in Tucson, AZ in the late 1980's.
Timeless rhythm maker talks about how younger cats can absorb humbling experiences in the modern music world in order to grow as an artist.
Explosive saxophonist and producer talks about singing for his supper playing original blues music at one time on the lower west side of New York.
Profound drummer and human being talks about the impact that John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had on his musicality, spirit and faith.
Titanic saxophonist talks about striking the balance between masculine and feminine energy when playing music.
Progressive percussionist and band leader out of Chicago talks about his polyrhythmic approach to his iconic albums on RCA and Ovation from the 1950's and 60's.
Multi-instrumentalist and member of Little Feat talks about going to Birdland when he was ten years old and enhancing the sessions of Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb and Dennis Wilson with his unique guitar licks.
Bandleader and multi-instrumentalist talks about her deep family musical lineage and the way she finds peace and satisfaction playing music with cats she locks in with immediately. Another Midnight Ramble....
Original guitarist and bandleader talks about collaborating with his wife on the bandstand with cats like Steve Earle and Shooter Jennings.
Magical character and musicians talks about the current growth spurt he is experiencing and the journey he has taken trying advocate for himself and not cope with family trauma.
Wife and advocate for the late saxophonist Stan Getz talks about their time in Sweden interacting with all the masters of this music.
“Universal Truth
By Laurie Buckley
The beauty of “His Lordship” (Buckley) is that he started with Aesop’s fables because he loved the message of cause and effect, and what we learn from experience. He had a way of speaking where he didn’t put everybody down, but he would introduce them to the conversation, in a way where you would recognize their position or their non-positioning.
He found a way, using his amazing vocal talents, his consciousness, his verbiage, his language, to get to the issues of what’s really going on. Everything/Everyone that people want to blame is so common, it’s been done throughout history, when there’s chaos they (demagogues) blame the lower class and they blame the people they don’t understand. The people that follow these “leaders” have been mislead and misplaced in a way, that neither serves them or us.
His Lordship would focus on love and the power of humanity, and the beauty of working together, so he could pull their eyes away from something that was not true, and welcome them into a universal truth of awareness, kindness, compassion, the things that make change happen in a positive way. It’s what I call “universal mind,” he would feed that to you. I believe he had a way, and still does today, that words spoken in perfect order
can create a dynamic effect on people. The trouble today is we’re not hearing that message quite so clearly.
Lord Buckley could recognize the symptoms. He could take those symptoms and evolve them into a more positive area. That was his gift, that’s where he found his words. That’s where he found the courage to speak up for the underdog.
Blazing multi-faceted guitarist talks about his days at the Heliport in Sausalito, CA playing with all the cats.
Band leader and accompanist talks about integrating his music into the Mexico City weave and his new journey with The Black Crowes.
Iconic jazz drummer talks about the smooth ride he provided for Stanley Turrentine and Horace Silver among others.
Percussionist and groove maker talks about operating on a clear frequency when in rhythmic conversation on the bandstand.
Bass player and teacher talks about taking what he has learned from his elders, incorporating that into his own sound and passing it on to younger cats.
Profound feel player talks about his non-linear approach to the electric bass in all musical settings.
Transcendent saxophonist talks about learning the secret tribal culture of New Orleans from his father and being taken in and raised by his musical elders like Roy Haynes when he first moved to New York.
Decorated actor and photographer talks about finding his voice on stage and behind the camera. His indelible band shot from The Concert for Bangladesh is celebrating its 50th year and will hopefully find a loving home. All proceeds will benefit the Food Forward Food Bank of Los Angeles.
Prolific electric bass player talks about the way he teaches his students to read and find their own individual voice on the instrument.
Prolific double bassist talks about his experiences playing spiritual music with his elders and peers over the last 50 years.
Optometrist and musician talks about being an advocate for the musicians through Sweet Relief.
Prolific father/son duo play and talk about the effect music has on their lives and souls.
Journalist and radio host talks about his love of music and disseminating it to the masses.
A cat who was born and raised in Mississippi and wound up working his way up at Atlantic Records in the most fertile time of music in our country's history. Still chasing The 'Trane.
Melodic and adventurous drummer talks about learning to find his own sound in the woodshed and on the bandstand with Jacob Fred Jazz Odessey.
Author and Prankster talks about continuing the lineage of The Furthur Path with George Walker. Cowboy Neal at the wheel....
A couple of surrogate uncles play and talk music in The Powertalk 1210 AM Studios in Tucson, AZ.
Relentless drummer talks about becoming a businessman and integrating acoustic jazz and funk into a set.
Versatile multi-instrumentalist talks about coming up playing bluegrass in Los Angeles and eventually settling into a new regional hotbed of music in Austin with Michael Martin Murphey and Jerry Jeff Walker.
In dialogue with master keyboardist and band leader about playing harpsichord with The Yardbirds and finding out that cats on the south side of Chicago were line dancing to "Bumpin' on Sunset."
Multi-instrumentalist and bass player for Cold Blood, Holly Near, The Sons of Champlin and the Swingin' Deacons talks about his different musical existences.
Multi-instrumentalist and graphic artist talks about the many meaning of music and the correlation between spiritual living and soulful art.
Born: Panama Canal Zone 1956
Hometown: Sierra Vista, AZ
Occupation: Career Musician, Organ/keyboards, Entertainer, Composer, Recording Artist, Studio Engineer
Experience: 40 years Self Taught
Lamont Arthur has been playing, composing and teaching jazz in Tucson for the last three decades. Born in Panama, the son of an army soldier, Lamont found himself growing up at Ft. Huachuca in Southern Arizona. At the age of 12 he became aware of his passion for music. He learned to play the Glockenspiel from his 6th grade music teacher Mrs. Smith.
He turned his musical attention to the Hammond B-3 organ and played in mixed-ethnic rock and country groups at places like the Blue Room and Carr Canyon Corral in Sierra Vista. By the late seventies he had moved to Tucson and began playing with groups like Street Pajama, Rapid Transit, Bloolyte, Bondavi and legendary blues-man Sam Taylor to name just a few. He began playing gigs at many of the clubs in Tucson; the Pirates Den, Fun Factory, Bobby McGee's, The Doubletree, Nino's, Gentle Ben's and Merlin's. The scene was very open and loose at that time and his ability to play the Hammond B-3 allowed him to crossover as well and play blues, reggae, latin and gospel.
His love for jazz music prompted him to take the jazz improvisation class at Pima Community College under the tutelage of sax man Mike Kuhn and he was asked to assist him with some of the more novice musicians. This, was the turning point for what would become his passion to be a mentor and a better jazz musician. Not only as a keyboardist but as a jazz scat vocalist as well..
For a 7 year stint ('93-2000) he played in a keyboard/guitar duo with Phil Davis named L.A.P.D. at Sakura Japanese Restaurant. They reached a cult status with their penchant for playing standards and uptempo barn-burners then turning things right around to play cumbias or R&B dance tunes. Legions of Tucson-ans flocked to Sakura for their performances.
During his career Lamont has tried to give back to the community through his gift of music. He has performed for the Tucson Jazz Society, the Oro Valley Jazz Festival, the Jazz Guild of Tucson, and the Rising Star Baptist Church.. He has collaborated with Tucson Jazz fixtures such as pianist Dan "Sly" Slipetsky, trumpeter Tony Frank, trombonist Rob Boone, bassist Elliot "Kirk" Kuykendal and drummer Gil Rodriguez. He has also been involved in many recording endeavors and has a gospel/Christian CD of all original songs on itunes entitled: "It's Time For Knowing".
Over the last several years he has been mentoring a stable of young musicians. One is currently enrolled at the Arizona Jazz Academy. Often he will get a student who is classically trained and Lamont puts it on himself to get them to "get off the sheet" and use their hearts and ears to bring out the music that dwells within them. He has also mentored many musicians within the church. Having not been mentored himself as a young music- ian he feels that being a mentor is a great way to give the younger musicians a head start and leave a continuing musical legacy especially for the future "serious jazz musicians".
Lamont had to move back to Sierra Vista to be closer to his mother. He has been an unsung hero in the Tucson Jazz Community and the JJA for 2012 would be a fitting way to acknowledge his humble persona and love of music.
Beyond the Music;
Jake
Cosmic keyboardist and composer talk's about playing with his big band at The Five Spot in New York and being discovered by the late great Creed Taylor. Beyond CTI and the ozone!!
Gregarious guitar store owner talks about the many relationships he has cultivated over the years.
Elastic and versatile multi-instrumentalist talks about leaning into the dark and light of all music and how he was affected by spiritual drummers like Steve McCall and Michael Carvin.
My guest today survives in the world of music because of his open mindedness when it comes to musical settings.
In an early time he probably would have been picked up by one of the Titans and caravan around the world playing 3 sets a night at some club. His identity would be one known by the records he did as an accompanist and the photos. His identity would be his unique sound that would enable him to live comfortably in some urban Mecca taking in the foghorns of the bay or the Sun striking the mountain tops high above Morrison where some mushroom addled youth would be on the other side of Abbey Road.
But my guest is living during this age of empowerment. He is unable to peg or pigeon hole because he deftly moves across the musical spectrum which now consists of Aakash Mittal, Greg Harris' funky vibe quintet, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Duos and Trios within the milieu of constant pleasures and pains.
The great mandolin player David Grisman said, "if you want to have a band then you need to have a gig." In today's world a band is an expensive proposition so my guest consistently reintroduces himself to audiences at schools, universities and Sunday @ Vic's.
Owner of Norman's Rare Guitars talks about his relationship with Johnny and his role in putting the right axe in his hands.
Podcast dedicated to an unsung funk/jazz guitarist who came up in South Florida with Norm Harris.
Musician and owner of Norman's Rare Guitars talks about his life on the bandstand and the magical memories that continue today.
Brilliant keyboardist and arranger talk's about breaking into the New York City studio scene.
Brilliant pianist, composer and arranger talks about connecting with the Godfather of Soul James Brown and making his own iconic record on People.
Third stream pianist talks about taking music to a spiritual level within the group context.
Brilliant composer and pianist talks about his philosophy and point of view as it relates to the form of a song and the subsequent conversation amongst the band.
Decorated sound engineer and inventor for the Grateful Dead talks about his life as a working musician and then becoming a "translator" for a band known for the live performances.
Double bassist and teacher talks about learning under masters like Bob Cranshaw and transferring that wisdom into his own playing in all musical settings.
Melodic and inventive trumpeter talks about the different musical tributaries which led to a career as a sound seeker.
All-encompassing drummer talks about learning under masters Joe Morello and Mel Lewis and taking that wisdom and incorporating it into his own musical point of view.
Burning guitarist talks about being mentored by black blues players in Chicago and carrying that over to bands like Illinois Speed Press and Fabulous Rhinestones.
Humble multi-instrumentalist and band leader talks about growing up playing in his father's local group and fostering those subtle attitudes to impact his own work in Buffalo Killers, The Gabbard Brothers and The Black Keys.
Fluid drummer talks about being a Quiet Riot fanatic as a young boy in Columbia, playing with Dan Horne, and how he sings for his supper in Mexico City.
Keyboard savant talks about the ebbs and flows of his creative spirit and how that intertwined with his interpretation of A Rainbow In Curved Air.
Natural healer talks about finding inner peace within the construct embedded trauma and habitual stories, how she has found closure with these stories and taking a leap of faith with her Tendril Apothecary.
Interview with Dawg prior to his appearance at The Musical Instrument Museum In Phoenix, AZ 09/2018
Sublime bassist and album designer talks about finding his own individual voice through musical journeys with John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Funk/Rock bassist talks about feeling his way through musical settings early in his life and later with David Blue, Batdorf & Rodney and Bob Weir.
Mandolin player who enjoys a more angular approach to blue grass music while relying on the tenants of masters like John Hartford and Sam Bush to continue on her journey as a healer.
Singer/songwriter and new member of Grateful Shred talks about the most gratifying moments of road dogging and finding inspiration as he and his family leave Brooklyn at least for the moment.
Voracious journalist and author talks about the many lifetimes he has led in writing about Sly Stone, Crosby Stills & Nash and Hollywood High among others.
To lose yourself or see yourself from the outside looking in. Not worried about being micromanaged, playing free and escaping whatever's going on in your life.
How hard is that? It can be very unless you consistently surround yourself with people who never put themselves above the music. Learning to converse improvisationally and going off into space is not something every musician can contribute all the time. My guest is an example of a musician who does it most of the time. Ask Pharoah Sanders or the timeless Tisziji Munoz.
What my guest has in common with these masters is that he feels completely at peace when he's playing. He might be churning out patterns of hyperbolic rhythms but he is in his yogic state. Even with the physical movements of the arms and the legs and the feat he is sleeping. He is at peace.
Life is not always peaceful especially if your a professional artists. You have to know your instrument, hone your sound, be a leader and a teammate at the same time and find places to play that believe in the profession of music.
That it's not a pay to play game, that music is to be felt and is not for pacification, that you need to burn and go beyond the atmosphere because we will be leaving this planet for other worlds. The Harmony of The Underworld, being friends with the Devil and realizing the Devil is just alright with me. Playing music of the soul is not for the faint of heart and my guess is still working on his individual growth.
He is not content with being static. He knows if you don't swing the band and stay warm you might get frostbite in those cold Canadian Winters.
Franklyn Kiermyer welcome to the JFS....
Dynamic world percussionist and drummer talks about spontaneous creation of music and the next chapter of his musical life after sixteen years with Krishna Das.
Singer/songwriter from Eternity's Children and Starbuck talks about his career on the bandstand and in the studio writing and playing hit tunes.
A master is someone who teaches, a master is someone who sacrifices and loves themselves. To master is knowing how to access your native gifts.
As far as my guest is concerned that translates out to being one of the most in demand, highly respected, versatile bassists in the world.
He was raised by his musical elders like Richard Davis who had been a guest twice on this show. The Pisces swimming upstream downstream always adapting, always churning, overcoming.
Astrology aside my guest has played with The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin for the last 50 years. That was in between studying and watching Mingus dual with Dolphy in some mob run club. Lock the groove, play free, play a blues before the word funk even came into the lexicon.
He's played and recorded with King Curtis, Jim Pepper, Duane and Gregg Allman, Eddie Harris, Gil Scott Heron, The Voices of East Harlem and Shirley Scott.
A master gives back like Ali Akbar Kahn and Jerry Wexler and Dizzy Gillespie. Knowing their instrument, knowing their strengths like Chuck Rainey or Bernard Purdie or the late great Richard Tee.......my guest today is giving back on multiple levels including mixing live iconic music with youth baseball. Something only Jackie Robinson would have dreamed off....
Jerry Jemmott welcome to the JFS
Dynamic singer talks about making iconic albums and being on the doorstep of worldwide fame.
Inspiring musician and bandleader talks about his musical and artistic influences along with the legacy he would like to leave behind.
Decorated singer and band leader with The Gentry's and later The High Steppers talks about his magical musical existence which continues to this day.
Transcendent pianist talks about learning to channel the spirit in his playing and taking on the role of a bandleader here in the OP.
Versatile multi-instrumentalist talks about learning how to create deep rhythmic grooves with early bandstand opportunities in Burlington, VT and beyond.
Taiwanese drummer talks about her love of rhythm and groove and how that has translated into a music career in the United States.
Burning guitarist talks about learning to develop his own sound in a myriad of different bands.
Bass player emanating from La Canada High who finds his groove with cats exhibiting similar frequencies on and off the bandstand.
All's fair when the colors are green and grey. You're not judged but included, you're seen for what you bring to the weigh room with DD and JD and Maz Madorsky......
My guest today was a perennial weight room activist. But he was a leader way before then as the son of a kosher butcher who could afford to send his three suns to camp under a Rhinecliff Moon.
My guest was the eldest of the three brothers and the person who changed my outlook on Scatico for the last nine years of my career.
The more I think about it it was my emergence into Jake Feinberg that was occurring only to be cultivated by my guest.
He have me jobs within activities, he allowed me to get comfortable with my voice reenacting the Rocky soundtracks as Jack played the part of Carl Weathers.
His even keeled temperament lent itself to a rag tag but fiercely individualistic division. He found a way to put a roof over all of our heads and turn us into the 1c posse. Where Shaun Locke would come and blow bubbles in your face @ 3 in the morning.
We hoped he never would leave but our summer was his final summer. Leaving a group to carry the upper hill while he headed off to Cornell.
His brothers flourished in different ways then he but again we connect with the lineage of life and blood. We are all different yet the same. We are all free yet entrapped in the idea that camp made us who we are today
DP welcome to the JFS.....
Profound double bassist talks about creating art that is true to his soul and still being able to sing for his supper.
A rogue journalist and two master musicians in dialogue about raising consciousness through melodic invention.
Multi-reed instrumentalist talks about his musical roots that grew on the bandstand and the Detroit studio scene.
Pioneers of big band psychedelia talks about finding their niche in a new world of music.
George had a notable and stellar career playing the Saxophone, Flute and Clarinet. He was inducted into the Savannah Coastal Jazz Association Hall of Fame in September, 2005 . Born in Savannah, Georgia he is both a composer and an arranger as well as a performer.
George has performed with Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Ray Charles, Curtis Fuller, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Luckman Jazz Orchestra, Jimmy Smith, Bobby Caldwel, Jimmy Cleveland, Barbara Morrison, Billy Higgins, Eric Heed, Harold Land Jr., Phil Ranelin, Buddy Ranelin, Buddy Childers, LaMont Johnson, Henry Franklin, Louie Spears, Kevin O’Neal and More. George has also performed for various schools in the LA Unified School District leading, the George Harper Ensemble, and featuring Jazz styles from Dixie Land to Contemporary. The National GRAMMY Concert Series for Children featured “The George Harper Saxophone Quartet” at Elementary schools in the LA Unified School District. The program included music and composers of various musical styles from Classical to Jazz.
Female instrumentalist and singer talks about earning credibility on the bandstand with Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia and Mississippi John Hurt and fronting her own Snake Band with the late great Bob Jones.
Discussion with master musician around apprenticeship, breaking bad habits and developing your own sound.
Blazing and unique guitar player talks about getting baptized by C.L. Franklin, backing up Berry Gordy's artists before Motown, mentoring Jimi Hendrix and playing for three decades with Hank Ballard & The Midnighters.
Installation artist talks about how her creations reflect the traumas and triumphs of many humans, including herself.
Gospel singer who worked with Andrae Crouch and The Imperials talks about the undervalued nature of gospel music in our culture and the long musical road he has traveled. Soon Coming....
Self-taught musician talks about learning to feel rhythm and incorporate that into different musical contexts.
Burgeoning bass player with a strong sense of feel and danceable grooves. A discussion of human evolution through music in isolation and collaboration.
Genius double bassist and producer talks about creating parts for hit records first in Muscle Shoals and later in Nashville with David Briggs and Jerry Carrigan among others.
My guest today on the JFS was the equivalent of a five tool player in baseball; meaning that he can throw, hit, catch, run, and hit for power. In the case of Ramon Banda it is spelled out in rhythms and instruments. Tex/Mex Polka, Cha Cha Cha, Mambo, Swing, Bossa, Psychadelic Rock, Organ/grinder, blues and Free Jazz. In terms of instruments it’s the drum kit, timbales, fuzz electric guitar, and the bearded gourds. He has teamed up with his brother Tony to form one of the most formidable bands on the west coast. When he’s not gigging with the family he holds down the beat with "The Skipper" Henry Franklin who refers to Ramon as an animal. He recently came off a multi-city, multi-state tour with B-3 legend Joey Defrancesco.
Music is Life, Enjoy it.
JF
Bobby Cochran is one of the most technically gifted guitarists ever. Bobby also has the heart of a lion. He breaths life through a combination of spirituality, love and music. Put the chops with the soul and you have a legend. Bobby was kind enough to spend sometime with me late in the Nashville Night and allowed me to perseverate about the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnights and Dancing on the Tables.
Lets hope we hear from Alphonso, Billy and Bobby real soon.....its time for a reunion.
we'll see y'all later,
JF
Southern Arizona's Representative in the House talks about the crisis' affecting our country including immigration and cultural bias.
Brilliant pianist talks about becoming band leader and harnessing his own individual sound.
The life of a life musical performer playing Syncretic Music or Melodically improvising or playing your ass off its all music.
My guest today has continually put himself out there for the world to see either in metrics, instrumentation, cultural authenticity and peppering audiences with notes channeling his true nature with Dizzy Gillespie and Dee Dee Bridgewater.
And while being brought in and closed out of different scenes my guest strove for individual sound in both music and research.
He has written authoritative material on the impact and influence of Big Bands during their heyday continuing that tradition today here in Burlington working with a band part Dixie Swing Part Classical Part Blues.
He has written on the origins of Afro-Beat. The pulsating rhythms fused by James Brown and Fela Kuti and to a lesser extent Hugh Masekela and Roy Ayers. Tony Allen holding it down with Fela vamping with that Gallop.
I sit with my guest today in his office at The University of Vermont hoping that my guests realizes the bravery and individuality he has exhibited through the years. To speak your mind on the bandstand and in the classroom and all over the world is legacy. The divine is love and love is leadership, love and life.
Alex Stewart Welcome to the Jake Feinberg Show
Double bassist talks about his early career in Tucson, AZ and his enduring relationship with Linda Ronstadt.
My guests on Tuesday were Mary and Alam Khan, wife and son of the classical Indian musician Ali Akbar Khan. Ali Akbar Khan was the kind of leader our society so desperately needs today. He was a genius but entirely understated. He believed in equal opportunity and access to an affordable education. He understood why the arts were integral to the depth of a society as they are the pillars of our society. This is why people gravitated to this man. It is not mere coincidence that a great many bands from the Bay Area played benefit concerts to raise money for his music college. The work of Ali spans many decades and consist of compositions, writings, songs, pictures and other material that needs to be preserved and archived. As an aside I should also mention that his records have provided me great comfort during times of great pressure or imbalance in my life and have allowed my mind to open and be free of anxiety. Therefore this is part I of my homage to the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music in an effort to raise awareness and funds to uphold the sanctity of all his works.
The names Hawkins, Webster, Benny Carter, Fitzgerald, Peterson, Gillespie are ones that are associated with the deepest traditions in jazz. They played and continually evolved to stay current or ahead of the curve. They were the founding mothers and fathers of jazz and paved the way for future leaders in the improvisational music world. There legacy lives on in large part to their playing and the promotion that comes with that. If you don't have a forum or an advocate for your art what good is it really. For these legends they had the strongest advocate in Norman Granz. Granz was a tireless promoter, critic and transformational figure in jazz. He owned record labels, made sure that his concerts in the south were desegregated, stood up to racial prejudices at home and abroad, and in his own idiosyncratic way endeared himself to legions of jazz fans because he promoted the music and the people behind the music. Money was not supreme for Norman Granz- the music was. Today I was joined by Tad Hershorn an archivist at the institute of jazz studies at Rutgers University and author of the new book Norman Granz - The man who used Jazz For Justice
Folks welcome to the JFS. My guest today is a first rate drummer who has enhanced countless studio and live musical sessions.
He has gigged with jazz vocalists, played in both acoustic and electric settings and is not just a whiz on the kit but has a profound understanding of percussive instruments as well.
He came up during a time when idioms were present but it was in conjunction with an adherence to developing his own unique sound.
Individual sound interwoven within bossa rhythms or Afro Cuban rhythms or electronica or straight ahead bop and beyond.
Still swinging in the big apple Bruce Ditmas welcome to the JFS.
Multi-instrumentalist for Nashville West, The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers talks about his magical life in music.
Bass guru talks about finding his muse as a Dreams fanatic when he was gigging in Miami and subsequently making his way into the New York jingle scene and beyond.
Inspiring harpist and singer talks about finding her niche pursuing original bandstand creation.
Profound musical spirit and yogi talks about overcoming coronavirus and continuing to look inward for inspiration and guidance.
Unheralded musician and producer talks about transitions and points of departure in music.
Composer and pianist talks about developing his own shapes in musical form and the validation he received from Gunther Schuller and Oscar Peterson along the way.
Young sound seeker talks about cosmic experiences on the bandstand playing through time and space with comrades.
Mississippi guitarist and band leader talks about his infatuation with The Beatles and how that manifested in his own career early on touring with The Animals.
Double bassist talks about finding a way to have an impact in exploratory improvisational settings and crafting his own music.
Dynamic singer and dancer talks about overcoming adversity early in her life to ascend to a land of funk and love with "Bootsy."
Monster guitarist talks about how he plays with drummers like David Garibaldi and Bill Kreutzmann.
Singer songwriter talks about the up and down nature of her musical existence and how divine timing has given her faith in taking the insecure path.
Spiritual musician and Taoist talks about his path towards unfoldment on and off the bandstand.
Drummer and thinker talks about the life of a musician and how that plays within the group dynamic on and off the bandstand.
Regal bass player talks about the trials and inspiration of the various musical projects he is part of.
Intuitive drummer and singer talks about the formation of Pacific Range and his dedication to playing spiritual music as a life purpose.
Musical drummer and singer talks about how he learned to play with dynamics and the art of collective improvisation on the bandstand.
Folk singer talks about his early roots in Tucson and how he branched out into the Northeast coffee house circuit staying true to the words of Pete Seeger.
Gifted multi-instrumentalist and singer songwriter talks about how the Bahai faith helped lead him and Jim Seals into musical nirvana as The Champs, The Dawn Breakers and ultimately Seals & Crofts.
Fearless and prolific sousaphone and tuba player talks about finding his groove in different musical settings while pontificating about how much creative control he has in different projects.
Unquantiable drummer talks about swinging the Stan Kenton Band, steering the pulse of the music and how he likes his drum kit mic'd.
Emotive poet and songwriter talks about her upbringing and close affinity to her late father.
Soulful and profound bass player and thinker talks about working in free jazz settings with Sunny King and improv with Ken Kesey.
Dynamic big band and ensemble drummer talks about the nuances of becoming a consummate player within the group conversation.
Venerable drummer talks about incorporating electronic sounds into his drum parts on television shows and being able to play complex music by ear.
Intergalactic artist and creator talks about channeling her life force into her various crafts while still remaining vulnerable to collaboration and loving herself.
Iconic guitarist talks about playing in odd meters and his musical relationships with Warren Haynes and Phil Lesh.
Poet and statesman talks about how his incarceration as a young man was the biggest blessing that ever happened to him. An original Last Poet who continues on today with Gratitude and fountains of knowledge.
Intuitive bassist talks about his role in various musical landscapes and a look ahead for his current projects.
Cosmic medicine woman talks about reclaiming witch-hood which is the term for a female shaman.
Divine life coach and dancer talks about her creative outlets and how a necessary balance of these must occur to achieve stillness.
Divine yogic practitioner talks about her daily disciplines that lead towards alignment with spiritual attunement.
Inventive and burning guitarist talks about being on the bandstand at age 12 and eventually playing with masters like Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis.
Divine world musician and songwriter talks about her improvisational organic musical point of view and how that view widens when playing with the cats.
Prolific and fearless bass player talks about the highest forms of conversation on the bandstand and how to bring it about.
Divine healer talks about the essence of non-duality in a society that is constantly pitting us against each other and how to focus on the universal truth of love and human connection.
@kyraokeeffe | Linktree
Next level conversation about working with bands in the studio, accessing the primordial gut on the bandstand and living a life of continual learning.
Dynamic musician talks about the art of creating music for film and finding creative freedom in all his live musical endeavors.
Drummer talks about recent recording opportunities and how to align in mind, body and spirit on the bandstand.
Dynamic and explosive drummer talks about his dogged attempts to track down his heroes and play with them.
Iconic singer songwriter talks about growing up and gigging with Merl Saunders and later on his path towards relevancy in popular music.
Divine healer talks about her trail into tattoo's and body art along with her passion for encountering sentient beings in her vulnerable and authentic self.
Cosmic guitarist and healer talks about the nuances of creating spiritual music in all contexts.
Multi-dimensional musician and healer talks about the ebbs and flows of spiritual life in a generated world.
Profound musician and producer talks about cultivating the Athens music scene and spiraling out from there with Widespread Panic.
Psychedelic pioneer author and educator talks about the benefits of psylocibin and LSD in a human's ability to coexist with nature, family and grace. A testament to Perry Lane, Ken Kesey and Ram Dass.
Kindred spirit talks about finding a groove on and off the bandstand as his own person in voice and songwriting. Onward into the light....
Authentic creative musician talks about feeling his way through the Southern California music scene and his need to get stuff out of his system on the bandstand.
Divine intergalactic healer talks about finding her own connection to God consciousness through different forms of asana and bhakti yoga.
Pianist from Boston revisits the early New York folk/rock scene that was burgeoning in 1967. Learning how to improvise on standard tunes and playing with the cats.
In the hopes of building a temple for Baba in Nepal. Eternally Yours, JF
https://gofund.me/1ba8727d
Meteoric drummer talks about how his rich musical palette combined with life experiences shaped his career.
Music publisher and Sat Nam Rasayan practitioner talks about his psychedelicized and magical life while remaining innocent.
Electric music composer and innovator talks about creating spontaneously with environmental sounds and tape.
Pianist from Western, PA talks about getting lessons on the blues from his elders and how he tries to keep the lineage alive with his students at the University of Arizona.
Unheralded musician and band leader talks about playing the Fillmore District with King Pleasure and Merl Saunders.
Legendary jazz/funk guitarist talks about his upbringing in Omaha, NE and his legendary albums on the Black Jazz label.
Life coach and healer talks about the balance of the masculine and feminine in herself and the subtle ways in which she wants to grow her practice through mere presence, grace and authentic journey.
Preeminent Afro-Cuban bass player talks about cooking the groove with Mongo and Ray Mantilla.
Radio City Rockett talks about her own creative existence and that of her husband, the late great drummer Shelly Manne.
Natural born musician talks the Tulsa scene past and present as well as the subtle multi-dimensional aspects of spiritual communal music.
Dynamic and soulful drummer talks about his musical roots and the hard knocks that come from playing with masters.
Saxophonist and composter talks about the different tributaries of his musical existence.
Stride pianist and record producer talks about the early improvisational musical form cultivated by Art Tatum and Willie "The Lion" Smith as well as his experiences producing fusion records for RCA.
Singer songwriter talks about breaking loose from a conformist musical mindset and finding liberation.
Legendary painter and jazz connoisseur talks about hanging with William Steig and all his drummer sons.
Divine yogi and intuitive healer talks about her journey to connect with God-consciousness.
Fiery yoga teacher and healer talks about unshrouding dogma and hooping her way into the dance of light.
Divine conduit talks about accessing her true nature through ecstatic dance and how women are equipped to handle the birth/sacrifice of a new day for all of us.
Legendary pianist/drummer and composer talks about his influences in free form conversational timeless music.
Former president of the Portland Trail Blazers and CEO of G2 Strategic sports marketing and consulting business talks about writing his own story.
Iconic singer/songwriter talks about being a man of the people through his music and actions. A tip of the cap to Pete Seeger. Onward.
Singer songwriter from psychedelic/folk era talks about finding her own voice and cutting records on 20th Century.
“The Tragedy Of Shanti”
By Neil Seidel
"The core of "Shanti" was Ashish Kahn and Pranesh Kahn, Zakir Hussain, Steve Leach myself and Francisco Lupica and we recorded one album for Atlantic Records.
The picture on the back of the album is from Mickey Harts ranch. Shanti did a live radio broadcast with Jerry Garcia and The New Riders of the Purple Sage. Zakir and Mickey wound up doing many projects together after that. As a matter of fact, the recording studio where we cut "Shanti" was Pacific High Recorders in SF which was the signature sound of The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver and what is known as "The San Francisco Sound."
We had a vast market appeal unfortunately Atlantic Records didn't get behind the band and if a company doesn't really get behind any band you sort of die in the water.
We auditioned for George Harrison to get a contract on Apple Records. He (GH) was a big fan of Indian music because of his connections with Ravi Shankar. The irony of the whole thing was that Ravi Shankar, who was a mentor of George Harrison,' actually forbade George from signing us because he didn't want to mix pop music with Indian music. Of course he did that himself with many projects but he put the kibosh in our record.
During that time we were playing in San Francisco and we got a visitation at one of our concerts by John McLaughlin who came back stage and said he was crazy about what we did. That's where he met Zakir and that led to "Shakti." Except McLaughlin took it in another direction, more of a fusion of new age jazz and Indian music.
The great thing about Shanti and I think the tradegy of Shanti not being promoted was that we had an undefinable genre. Nobody quite knew where or who to put us with. We played "The Fillmore" with Humble Pie and Swamp Dogg. We played "The Ash Grove" with Commander Cody & HLPA, we played with John Handy and Ali Akbar Kahn @ The Palace of Fine Arts in SF and we played with "Little Feat " at "The Bowl" in Berkeley.
Drummer for Don Ellis and Frank Zappa talks about experiences that shaped his musical point of view.
Decorated rhythmist pays tribute to his mentor Chuck Brown who's spirit lives on. Happy Birthday.
Divine yogic healer talks about the death of her brother and how that catapulted her into an intergalactic realm that has allowed her to access her multi-dimensional self and inspire others.
Prolific and humble session guitarist talks about getting into the studio scene in LA and the subtle nuances to producing hit records.
Independent photo and print journalist talks about overcoming adversity in his life and finding his own voice as an authentic creative.
Calling all unsung heroes. That's right, you over there who can read music and write compositions with something to say.
Unsung heroes have been prevalent on the JFS, Guys who oozed the cosmic plasma of listening to each other. When everyone is listening then and only then can magic occur.
My guest today is a listener, singer, song writer and individualist. He could have chosen the route of Studio City, playing sessions, getting union scale and an identity.
He chose not to do this rather making a big imprint on the musical landscape during the days that mixed race bands had crossover appeal because they could play at some upholstered sewer in Cape Cod for a week two weeks- a month. His imprint is also attributable to the fact that people like Arif Mardin, Jerry Wexler, Norman Granz and Saul Zaentz were business men who understood the musicians craft. They saw the bigger picture, both sonically and sociologically. They wanted to make money but they understood the lineage that exists in music and when those links are missing.
You see when links are missing it begins to dilute our cultural heritage, music serves to pacify instead of elevate consciousness. When the individual supersedes the music then no one is listening and no magic can occur. Trust me, Mingus, Roach and Dizzy are convulsing in their graves.
My guest plays with his band in Marin County these days for fun. What a concept? How do you think real music is made?
Recently he has been writing some songs with former bandmate and collaborator Mike Finnegan who continues to use my guests tunes on his own albums.
Calling all unsung heroes Lane Tietgen welcome to the JFS
He Didn’t Have Control
by David Garland
When Bigfoot opened up for the Dead in 1968, it was bizarre. They were telling us, “When you walk down the staircase, don’t put your hand on the rail.” We liked LSD, but we figured it was best if we didn’t go out and play on that stuff. That was the big time for us. I had never met Bobby Weir until then.
Eventually I had an opportunity to get involved with Weir, who I just love. Being in that band was the most fun time of my life ever. Weir let us all profit-share.
Bobby Cochran was my friend. When Brent Mydland decided he didn’t want to play with the Midnites, I got the opportunity.
I showed up at rehearsal and they said, “OK, you’re in.” Eventually meeting Alphonso Johnson, Billy Cobham, and Kenny Gradney was amazing. They’re all great players.
I have really good musical instincts. What I lacked in technique I just shut my eyes and went for it. With Bobby I would jump into the jams without any preconceived idea of what I was going to do. He’d have fragments of tunes, and we’d put them together. That’s the beauty of jazz and that’s the way jazz should be played.
That band wasn’t like the Dead, because of all the strong personalities. Bobby Weir didn’t have control over that band.
My guest is an example of industrious musician. He grew up in Utah will music all around him. His father was a prolific multiple-instrumentalist who would not let his son play his trumpet because he thought his son would blow "bad-air" into the horn. Well what did my guest do? He created a makeshift trumpet that he used to serenade girls and it worked.
His first live musical exhibition was. In the traveling Jewkes family band playing in the mountain west in front of native americans and farmers.
At a certain point he believed that in order to grow musically he had to move to the bay area and stretch out. What followed and continues today is a musician who has broaden people's beliefs in spontaneity, orchestration, amalgamations and smelling the roses.
He has played with Jon Hendricks, Jerry Hahn, Ron Stallings, Michael Bloomfield, Ed Neumeister, Jack DeJohnette. He has been instrumental in creating jazz workshops and educating a younger cadre of musicians to swing.
So much to talk about with bay area saxophonist Noel Jewkes welcome to the JFS
Divine sound yogi and kirtan chanter talks about her path up the mountain of faith and pure Bakhti.
Peace building poet and healer talks about her own life experiences that led her to a purpose driven life.
Humble poet and writer talks about peace as a collective healing force in a savage world.
Drummer from Big Brother & The Holding Company talks about overcoming his insecurities on the bandstand.
Jazz Messenger and music stalwart talks about the nuances of creating spiritual music on the bandstand.
Singer/songwriter talks about her spiritual realizations in life and music. In memory of Larry Coryell whose spirit lives on in all forms.
Multi-dimensional drummer talks about keeping tempo and time in his life and on the bandstand.
Authentic creative talks about weaving a line between the soul and heart through her compositions and musical presence.
Divine intergalactic warrior goddess talks about her path towards radiance and yogic healing.
Piano rocker from Gainesville, FL talks the eternal dance and swing in all music's and how the Tao has kept him on the river towards true nature.
Powerful sitar player and guru talks about accessing higher forms of intelligence like cosmic consciousness and continually seeing life through the eyes of a child.
Divine and humble yogi talks about her own personal growth through grace, contemplation and keeping her heart open to receiving love.
Berkeley bassist talks about coping with the pandemic and how he creates lines that serve the song.
Timeless guide and protector talks about forgiveness being at the core of her healing journey.
Original singer/songwriter talks about his path on the forever journey of music and sound.
Wrapping up the calendar year with an ordained musician. Its not an easy life but worth it! Ride on in 2022.....
Sound yogi talks about how his parents made him the musician and spokesman he is today.
Brilliant pianist talks about his early days in New York playing with iconic figures of jazz and pop music.
Intergalactic healer talks about her philosophies related to the human psyche and its interactions with the material world.
Humble genius talks about playing on countless crossover hits and his philosophies about working, relationships and knowing the language.
Double bassist talks about learning the language of bebop and playing with giants like Albert King and Jackie & Roy.
Versatile and musical drummer talks about what allows him able to fit into different musical settings and offer his own voice to the music.
Iconic drummer talks about his life on the bandstand and in the studio with Judy Collins, James Brown, Peter Gabriel and Maggie Bell among others.
Versatile and grounded drummer talks about learning the language of melodic improvisation.
Berkeley School of Music, Concord, NH, Boston University, Canyon Lady, All Things Considered, Luis Gasca, Joe Henderson,
Chicago based music writer talks about the intermeshing of the jazz and blues scenes in the Windy City.
Liner note writer and author talks about keeping stories alive from the sessions he witnessed and critiqued.
Mexican American who grew up in the Mission District of SF and became a phenomenal middle eastern percussionist working with Harry Partch and Mickey Hart among others.
Gifted producer and singer talks about growing up in the 5th Ward in Houston, going to New York to work with Chuck Jackson and living a magical life.
Legendary singer/songwriter talks about how he developed his own individual voice and the Tao of Bluegrass.
Excellent guitarist and singer talks about his making his own music in the fertile Bay Area scene during the 1970's.
The Phantom Ship
by Peter Rowan
I started the psychedelic folk band Earth Opera with David Grisman. We did the band Muleskinner for Warner Brothers. Another band, Seatrain, recorded two albums for Capitol Records. That was all within five years of leaving Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys.
After Seatrain, I left to reconnect in the most personal way with my brothers Chris and Lorin. David Grisman had been producing them for Columbia Records. Jerry Garcia lived up the hill, and I would just wake up in the morning living this shiftless Hippie life. Not even put shoes on, just walk through the sand dunes. It was the end of the trail. There was a 7-Eleven, Ed’s Superette, a post office, and a kind of “live-and-let-live” attitude. We just gravitated there. Stinson Beach wasn’t con-sidered a spiritual capital. In fact, the myth of the time was that when the earthquake comes it’s going to break off at Stinson Beach and we were going out to sea.
You were away from all the traffic and all the busyness over the hill. You were in this utopia and close to the elements. You had the bird-fly zone: all kinds of migrating birds coming through there. The changes in the weather. That part of the coast didn’t have a fog bank; further up in Tomales Bay they have a fog bank. Stinson would have these incredible sparkling days.
I’d bring my guitar to David’s house and wake him up. We’d have a “little refreshment” to wake ourselves up and we’d pick. We’d already done Earth Opera, so we weren’t exploring new ground if we played any of that materiel. We were just picking bluegrass and coming back to those roots. One day he remarked, very shortly after getting together, “You know Garcia lives up the hill, and he likes to pick.” I replied, “Let’s go, man.” I had met Jerry on one of my previous West Coast trips. Super nice guy.
We went up to his house, and there was a sign over the entrance that said “Sans Souci,” which means “without a care.” We walked into his yard and there he was, “Spud Boy,” playing the five- string banjo. He came out of the house playing; it was a joyful get together. We rehearsed and played without doing a live gig for a couple of months. Then we had John Hartford play with us; Richard Greene played with us. We played some local places with those guys on fiddle. We did some gigs, just the four of us; John Kahn on bass.
Sam Cutler was living around that area, and the Grateful Dead hired him to do bookings. He said, “I got you some gigs, boys. You want to go on the road?” We were like, “Yea, OK, sounds good.” We were starting to make money playing bluegrass. That’s a novelty in itself. That was because of Jerry’s popularity. You talk about the aura of that time. It was one of weird magic. “Weird” meant good in those days. “Hey, far out!”
The Dead itself was enough to deal with in terms of touring and logistics. Then to have another band that was going to be just like that didn’t appeal to him. Jerry wanted it to be fun. He didn’t want it to become work.
Mountain Girl told me, even though she wasn’t with Jerry at that time, “It’s very important to Garcia to have this bluegrass band.” I didn’t realize how much it meant for Jerry. To have an outlet that he wasn’t responsible for that could provide him some happiness.
Ubiquitous singer/songwriter talks about his new album, how to disseminate to the masses and his upcoming 2022 tour with Son Little.
Explosive rock drummer from The Allman Brothers talks about playing psychedelic dungeons in Florida and his relationship with Duane Allman.
Singer/songwriter and producer talks about learning to fall apart on the bandstand and the production techniques that make him a sought after record maker.
Instrument maker talks about how he crafts the basses he makes and the musicians he makes them for.
Incredible jazz and studio pianist talks about playing in Harlem and all the iconic studios in an age of human generated music.
World musician from Turkey talks about the universal conversation of music and leading a spirit based life.
Original Merry Prankster talks about Perry Lane and painting the bus at Kesey's pad in La Honda.
indefatigable double bassist talks about what keeps him playing after nearly 60 years on the bandstand.
Dynamic singer and daughter of Buddy Rich talks about finding her groove on the bandstand.
Manager of Canned Heat sits down in the studio with The JFS on Powertalk 1210 AM in Tucson.
Head of the jazz music department at Stanford University talks about his program and his collaborations with Professor Stan Getz.
Member of the Even Dozen Jug Band, The Blues Project, Blood Sweat & Tears & American Flyer talks about how lucky he is to still play music for people.
Soaring sax man talks about getting comfortable on the bandstand and becoming a mainstay in the studios for decades.
A beautiful discussion about Mathematics and Love. Long live Sonship Woodrow Theus. Transcending Spirits......
The first true professional musician I ever met was Mitch Hampton. Some 15 years later I'm sure glad I did because his creativity and common affection for musical interpretation has helped propel me to where I am today.
In loving memory of Don Cornelius.
Freedom Riders, the classic Art Blakey album, honoring those who were brave enough to go into the deepest pockets of Racism and Bigotry in our country for a cause. The equal rights that each of of us has in this country.
In mother Africa this is not the case and in recent years progress has been made by artistic expressions from my guest who has sought to cleverly and nimbly traverse the ethnic musical fabric of his native land and the West. Cross collaborations
Rhythms of Resistance.....
They are fearful of the positive impact it could have on younger more open minded generations of South Africans.
We take freedom for granted in the states and often forget that true repression and savagery exists only in perceiving that you are less fortunate rather then seizing on these opportunities. Real Dharma, true nature comes from inside those who are unafraid to educate, advocate and communicate in live musicals settings where my guest has gained lots of experience finding his own voice and developing his own sound.
Not nativist but a combination of Zimbabwe and Great Britain, More Roll than Rock building on experiential learning and an understanding growing up of the fallibility of all human beings.
He's coming to perform here in Tucson on May 7th @ The Fox Theatre.
Johnny Clegg welcome to the JFS
Saxophonist from The Pyramids talks about playing spiritual music and developing new musical vocabulary on the bandstand.
John Santos is a great Latin percussionist. More importantly he is a leading advocate and spokesman for multi-ethnic music. A 5 time Grammy award winner John has boycotted the Grammy's and their sponsors this year because they have removed the categories for Latin Jazz, Traditional R&B, Contemporary Jazz, World Music, Native American, Cajun/Zydeco, Hawaiian, Contemporary Jazz, Instrumental Rock, Traditional Blues, Gospel, Mexican and other ethnic and instrumental categories:
Oh yea John decided to become a musician because of the scene in the bay area circa '73.
Una Mas,
JF
Cosmic drummer talks about letting go in the moment and connecting with his true nature on the bandstand.
Legendary vocalist talks about playing with George Duke at the Half Note in San Francisco and how the arts can bring people closer together.
RnB singer talks about coming up in the age of sweet soul music and getting signed to ABC Records.
Original Merry Prankster and painter of the Furthur Bus talks about an alternative path towards peace and existence.
Iconic roots singer talks about her upbringing with a father who was a Baptist preacher and a mother who was Cherokee Indian.
Great folk/rock bassist talks about finding his own voice on the instrument with brother Bernie and Tom Petty.
Vocalist and band leader talks about her willingness to make herself vulnerable on the bandstand in order to find her own voice.
Divine singer and bandleader talks about finding her own voice amidst a sea of other vocalists.
Brilliant session and live drummer talks about the nuances of science and spirit within the context of spiritual music.
Ira Gitler is one of those transcendental figures in the history of music. He grew up with Dizzy and Charlie Parker and was writing linear notes for Bob Weinstock's fledgling record label - Prestige Records. He also co-authored The Encyclopedia of Jazz with Leonard Feather. His devotion to the music and the soul's of the musicians always outweighed his own art and this selfless promotion of information ingratiated himself to the jazz community and has made him a massive contributor to a true American art form.
Authentic musician and songwriter talks about the challenges of breaking through in an age when artist development is non-existent.
World musician and yogic practitioner talks about finding her voice through sacred mantra and authentic expression on the bandstand or in theatre.
Guitarist from Dub Syndicate and Black Uhuru talks about finding the groove in reggae music.
Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Son of Skydive, Ralph Penland, Junior Cook, Kent Brinkley
The Jake Feinberg Show
Fender Rhodes, Jazz Samaritans, Slugs, The New School, Park Slope,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Late reed player talks about the venerable Berkeley jazz club which has since resurfaced in Baltimore.
A fascinating life story and one that could only be found in America. Hat's off to Jimmy Lyons, Lester Young and the Monterey Jazz Festival.
Ever heard of Jug? Gene Ammons along with Sonny Stitt? Maybe Willis Jackson or Red Holloway. These cats were mercenaries on the band stand counting off Cherokee at some ridiculous tempo that would separate the common artist from the professional.
Take a trip down to Jim and Andy's and you just might see my guest with Al McKibbon or Cal Tjader playing Afro Cuban melodies with Ray Barretto, or Stomping at the Savoy with mainstay Kenny Burrell.
Jazz is really black blues and for a long time a jazzers education was on the streets up the corner and round block from Chess Studios where cats like Ramsey Lewis and Ahmad Jamal paved the way for younger minority improvisers to develop an identity.
My guest is as accomplished a player as those listed above. He whistles while he works playing chromatic hypnotic chords to tunes like Afro Blue, mas Ritmo Caliente and Along Came Betty.
He came of age in the old school back in the game when albums were being written about the Tender Gender, melodic invention with no words just sounds- mainly acoustic with drummers like Joe Dukes, Idris Muhammad, Elvin Jones, Dick Birk, the aforementioned Tjader, Joe Morello and Art Blakey.
These cats were messengers of music with an understanding of their significance to pass the music along to those who were younger, educate them on the history the technique the looseness and unique sound that would ultimately pave the way for their own careers.
His collaborations are noteworthy because he got his shot with the masters. Rasa an Roland Kirk, another free king in Charles Mingus, Roy Haynes and Frank Foster.
God Bless The Child Richard Wyands welcome to the JFS
Brilliant banjo player talks about making it in the Southern California live music and studio scenes.
The guitar, the apparatus, the mode of communication chosen by my guests. One of them came from over seas after cutting his teeth, honing his chops and getting lit in the progressive music scene of England. The other growing up in suburban Long Island which at the time was veritable cow country compared to today's population explosion.
Both my guests came of age before interconnection, when individual sound was considered vogue and confidence in that individual sound was built through steady gigs in a band with Stephane Grapelli, or David Dawg Grisman playing riffs and chords integrated within the gypsy swing.
These gentleman on my program today played alongside their heroes like Barney Kessel and Bucky Pizzerelli
Keeping the roots music alive through acoustic vibrato in any and all musical settings carrying the torch for those since departed like Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery and Django Reinhardt.
Some audiences are more bluesy, some more classical, some are digital. My guests along with their counterparts Vinny Raniolo and Peppino D'Agostino will attempt to engage their audience because Along Came Betty with A Waltz For Debby.
But like most artists neither of these cats has had an easy journey. They have suffered from musical traumas, in one case nearly walking away from the instrument all together. It's inspirational that both my guests are headlining the Acoustic Super Group Great Guitars who open up at Yoshii's in Oakland tomorrow night!
Slide trumpeter talks about creating and innovating in the moment on the bandstand and the many elders he has learned from.
Avant-garde drummer talks about his involvement in the New York City art and music scene in the 1970's and 80's.
Brilliant jazz pianist talks about her musical and personal relationship with Stan Getz.
Incredible arranger and musician talks about creating parts on the fly as a part of Fantasy Records.
Engineer at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco talks about his prowess in the studio with Cal Tjader, Tom Fogerty and other seminal artists.
Legendary Broadway contractor and musician talks about Stan Getz and his own magical career.
As Branch Rickey said,"Luck Is The Residue of Design." If that's the case then this host walked ass backwards into Lucky Thompsonville exploring the players who created regional music in this country prior to full interconnection. Cosmic Cowboys who played with Hugh Masekela, Blue Mitchell, Dave Brubeck, Cleveland Eaton, Donald Duck Dunn, James Brown, Randy Weston, Allah Raka and Bill Monroe.
These cats were street scholars coming out of heterogeneous neighborhoods with Jewish families bordering on Italian Neighborhoods which bordered on the Black Neighborhoods where the messages of Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett OC Smith and Johnny Nash permeated elaborate high school bands, opportunities in burgeoning studio scenes, game shows, commercials, strip clubs, 2nd cities intermeshing live stand up by Alan Arkin, followed by improvisation from the ghost opera in a brave new world where I lead a life, you lead a life and constant creation is paramount to further evolution as a human being.
My guest figured this out early in his career deftly navigating relationships with Blue Eyed Soul Singers and Tripped out Drummers who swung the band to wash away the dust of everyday life.
That was the purpose of the live music event. When there was light, a middle class and cats who wanted to be links in the chain for younger generations of musicians who were looking to be the straw that stirred the drink - maybe it was a sissy drink concocted by the late great Herb Wong or a beer with two shots of Bourbon in it made famous by Butterfield and Bishop playing all night gigs on the South side of Chicago. Or even better late night care packages from Bob Krasnow and Tommy LiPuma who knew they were dealing with crazed hipsters like my guest who has continued to be resourceful- using what he has around him, not in excess but rather letting the music come through him. Like a wise man once told me "you don't chose music it chooses you."
Ben Sidran welcome back to the JFS
Warren Smith was born in 1934 and moved to New York In 1957. He along with Ken McIntyre opened the first black-ethos music school at SUNY Westbury. He became the first black to be part of an orchestra and was the drummer for the last seven years of the original New York run of West Side Story on Broadway. He was also part of Max Roach's percussion project MBOOM. Sessions, lofts and education followed. Another legend.
JF
Inspirational musician and song writer talks about his work in various outfits and expressing himself on the bandstand.
Angular vibraphonist talks about his musical point of view and his collaborations with Luciano Berio and Tim Buckley.
Iconic studio drummer talks about growing up in the musical bastion of Buffalo, NY and the many influences he used to create his own landmark grooves.
Gut bucket musician and advocate talks about raising frequencies in a live musical context.
Music critic and author talks about the class of Hollywood High in 1958 and his latest book on a magical period of artistic creation in Southern California.
Decorated pop singer talks about thriving in a record based music industry in the 1960's.
Venerable studio percussionist and trap drummer talks about the many roads his musical life has taken.
Musician and record producer talks about the Contemporary label and its lineage within his family.
Multi-dimensional artist talks about his musical upbringing under the Grateful Dead and his concept of rhythm.
Groove drummer from Malo talks about learning from teachers like George Marsh and applying those skills with Jorge Santana.
Bova Land
In Bova Land there are prisms of colors rays of Hammond organs with deep purple gel tabs going off a cliff in super funk rock jazz amalgamations.
He comes from Old Greenwich, CT where the echoes of Clifford Brown and Blue Mitchell resonated deep inside Bova Land.
Soon the man from Bova land went flying to an island of fusion mixing traditional classical instruments in a blues based setting with odd metered songs leaning on his B-3 while the drums of Bill Bacon swirl within the whispering pines of the Vermont hideaways and New England festival my guest has played in.
He is a Grammy award winning keyboardist, composer, arranger and record producer but for this host my guest came from off the grid because two sages of mine here in Tucson Abbott Taylor a proud sponsor of the JFS and Chuck Goldschmidt grew up in the afore mentioned Ole Greenwich.
My guest has reached several musical mountain tops, finding good work because of versatility in an industry that went from analog to digital, acoustic to electric, be-bop to hard bop to post bop to future shock with an ARP chroma burning layers of melodic goo deep inside the soul of my guest.
Jeff Bova, welcome to the JFS...
Mercurial bass player and producer talks about his musical affinity to folk and blues music.
Avant-garde jazz bassist talks about playing with his brother Michael and all the cats at Glide Memorial Church.
Intrepid author and music journalist riffs on the ability to write about a healing art form and its many histories.....
Powerful world drummer talks about the vibrational energies that can heal regular peeps.
Burning upright bassist talks about grooving within the energy of the ensemble. Highly recommended.
Bad jazz is when people are playing real hard and nobodies listening.
Lagos used to call it "Bar Mitzvah Jazz."
No matter what kind of music you play people kind of expect a show. There's so much offer on cable, concerts are huge and the magic of ensemble playing which is people who can play even if there just playing chords behind somebody else. Even when it's a singer it can be smokin" if its ensemble playing and people are listening to each other.
Don't get me wrong, we practiced for hours. It's not a question of practicing, what it is a question of is hearing the other person. Getting off on backing up, you don't have to take a solo to get off. It's not like watching a porn movie. Your part of it. If your playing rhythm guitar behind Sugarcane, your part of it.
Paul (Lagos) knew so much. He used to study Joseph Schillinger compositions. He and Cane used to play duets that would just fly off, you can hear that on the recordings but we did that all the time. Sometimes that's shit would last 15 minutes. We do the intro to the song, Don would sing a couple of versus, he'd take a solo, sing another verse. The bass player and I would stop and he and Paul would play for 15 minutes. When we came back in it was knowing when to come back in. This isn't to say that Victor and I were so brilliant we just came in at the right time. No one ever said, "I needed you cats to come in later or early because their was no later/earlier it was just so obvious from the ensemble playing that we were doing. We would bring it down to a certain level and come back in and that's called music."
Pianist educator and writer talks about his musical point of view and how it shapes him.
Gifted percussionist and trap drummer talks about his musical adventures in a life of rhythm.
Dynamic saxophonist talks about the lineage of his peoples music and how it has morphed and grown as an international language.
Gifted singer/songwriter talks about being able to find her groove in all musical settings. A beneficiary of a record based industry.
One of the things I have done over the last 4 years is connect the dots on different amalgamations of musicians and their actions within a period of time in music when you could find work as a session player, play gigs @ strip clubs and the multitude of venues in every urban center in this country.
These amalgamations were everywhere but the cities I have most heavily explored and where these amalgamations seemed to grow off and out of each other have been New York, Chicago, Nashville, Muscle Shoals San Francisco and Los Angeles.
My guest is a drummer from Southern California who's laid back style fit perfectly into the white boy blues that washed up In sun splashed LA. He could play folk, ballads with David Blue, bluegrass with Sneaky Pete, and blue eyed soul with Jackson Browne.
My guest has a great reputation which is why when Bob Weir came to LA to find a working rhythm section he found one with my guest and Rick Carlos and Brent Mydland on the heels of Silver and Batdorf and Rodney. This unit sparkled and was a great fit for Bobby as he tried to step out of the shadow of the Grateful Dead. Playing a bouncing Poison Ivy that my daughters listen to on the way to school.
My guest has seen the industry change. The near impossibility of keeping a unit together is almost unheard of unless you can sell out 30000 seat rock palaces. The values in music and performance reflect that of our society. One of imbalance. My guest still swings the band but provides marriage counseling to help offset this imbalance.
A&R man and tour manager for Just Sunshine talks about working with an unknown Billy Joel.
Florida born guitarist and band leader talks about his own inner time feel and how that shaped many of his records.
Decorated producer and sanctified musician talks about putting the people in place to create good radio friendly music.
The Business of Creativity
Studio musicians were always paid very well to create and make someone else look good. The only time we did receive something for ourselves was when we wrote something, which is the case for the music business, anyway. If you don’t write it, if you don’t produce it, you don’t get paid. If you just play the session, that’s a certain fee. I will say for me, I have been rewarded for most of my work because I was not only the musician but also the businessman, and I always made sure that I got paid. Whatever was due to me, I always made sure that I got it. If there was a royalty due to me, I got it. If there were points due me in any situation, I made sure I got them. There were only a couple of situations where someone beat me, and in order to beat me he had to bankrupt his company. More often than not I got paid.
This is a business. Creativity is creativity. But the business of creativity is the business of creativity. So, you have to always ensure that when you’re creating, you’re going to be rewarded for your creativity. I don’t want to give it away. You know, I never wanted to be one of those musicians who wanted to go down in history as a poor, broke, starving genius. I never wanted to look at it that way. I wanted to be paid for what I did. That’s just common business; it’s music, but it’s business. I always looked at it from the business perspective. I don’t think the industry did me an injustice. I don’t think I got ripped off. I made enough noise to make sure I got compensated.
The mystic inside the all seeing eye across the Atlantic to the burning shores of Venice Beach and The Drum Circles at Griffith Park
Where Papa Dee Allan was playing his conga Drumz and Jimmy Witherspoon was playing a police union benefit with my guest.
I've had a few harp players on the program. Matt Kelly played with John Lee Hooker, haven't gotten to Toots but today I talk to a mystic. A visionary of sorts musically speaking finding his own individual sound within the ranks of the West Coast Afro-Soul Contingent War.
The loosest funkiest group in LA staying with the groove even as Jerry Goldsmith was screaming
Just like Jan Hammer from praque and Larry Vucavich from Yugoslavia or Airto from Brazil my guest immigrated to this country from Denmark and he found his brotherhood.
Percussionist talks about healing through counterpoint rhythm and the necessity of spiritual communal music for universal peace.
Singer/songwriter talks about learning to find his own voice in a world full of folk singers.
Drummer from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band talks about finding the groove in an iconic folk/rock outfit and life before and after meditation.
Sublime musician and teacher of Transcendental Meditation talks about his journey to bliss on and off the bandstand.
Stalwart pitcher for the Dodgers and Pirates talks about the grit that it takes to make it in the major leagues.
Brilliant bi-racial pianist talks about the mentors she's had and how she has learned to find her voice in the hotbed of musical activity known as New York City.
Divine pianist and band leader talks about getting out of her own way to become a vessel for spontaneous creation on the bandstand.
Integral member of Bill Graham Presents talks about what he learned from the greatest impresario of our time.
Iconic drummer and musical elder talks about working with Wah Wah Watson and other iconic studio musicians.
Divine poet and social advocate talks about growing up during the cultural revolution, finding her individual voice through poetry and the willingness to travel the insecure path.
Unheralded guitarist and bassist talks about growing up under the tutelage of his father, playing the casino circuits and becoming connected to the extended GD family including Billy Kreutzmann and Dan Healy.
Show Tunes
by Steve Kimock
When I arrived in California, there were people around who made comparisons between my playing and Jerry’s playing. I just wasn’t that familiar with his playing. I was doing my best to sound somewhere in between Roy Buchanan and Steve Howe. I didn’t relate to “the Garcia thing” as an influence until much later, when I realized how much influence in certain areas we shared. That’s when I said, “I get it: that’s what you’re hearing.”
I had friends who were into the Grateful Dead back in the day, and they would tell me about it and I didn’t really care. I had no idea and was completely clueless. I came to the game late, which didn’t help.
For me all of that stuff falls under the category of small-group improvisation. I’m OK if I’m listening to Miles Davis or The Meters or The Grateful Dead: anybody who’s setting up and playing in real time, playing together as a unit. The musicians are going to be working off each other. If you’re working off the musicians and you’re playing for an audience and you’re working off the audience, that’s what’s setting the table for the energy that happens. Everything else is detail.
A lot of my favorite Garcia songwriting is very much Tin Pan Alley or Broadway show tunes. The introduction to “Mission in the Rain”: it doesn’t get much more Broadway than that. That’s a classic Broadway intro.
Unheralded musician talks about the long and winding road of his melodic existence, trusting in the pull of the universe and his relationships with equally cosmic cats on and off the bandstand.
Gifted drummer from Mexico talks about growing up on American music and becoming the drummer for the iconic blues rock contingent Canned Heat.
Stealth keyboardist and synth programmer talks about bringing his voice to Larry Graham, Herbie Hancock and Bill Kreutzmann.
Heavy bop and post bop trombonist talks about swinging the night away with That Jones, Mel Lewis and Herbie Hancock.
Stellar pianist and band leader talks about finding his own individual sound as a jazzer on the bandstand.
Iconic drummer from Three Dog Night talks about life in the fast lane playing the Canadian circuit with Tommy Chong.
Dynamic and versatile drummer talks about staying sharp during COVID, playing with Phil Lesh and the road ahead for authentic creatives.
Legendary bassist from The Monkeys and Canned Heat talks about getting an education on the bandstand and swinging his butt off.
Decorated engineer and musician talks about working with The Section and the Mizell Brothers.
Divine yogi and spiritual teacher talks about cultivating the roots of her connection to source.
Beyond genre musician and songwriter talks about this that and the other with cumulative results.
Drummer and educator talks about being raised by his elders on the bandstand and how those experiences have shaped his outlook on life.
Jake, you got me going into a deep recall. I first met Henry Franklin when he was with Willie Bobo and I was with Mongo Santamaria.
Art moves in a strange kind of way. We’re in another kind of reality today as far as the art is concerned. There’s something else that’s kind of in front of everything and is kind of futuristic - electronics, lasers and bright lights and all that kind of stuff. There’s art in there as well, but I’m not necessarily seeing the imagination and the creativity that was in the arts or that’s in the arts.
The music we’re speaking of I call “spontaneous improvisation.” The word “jazz” is associated with a time period, but it doesn’t necessarily speak to the mind set of the individuals, and the people, and the theme of what the music that is associated with jazz.
The music I am interested in is spontaneous improvisational music, with a theme. Free with order as opposed to just flying all over the place. One of the phenomenon's out there in this existence, in all of this chaos is that there absolutely appears to be some order. Since man has been asking (we’re still asking), we’re still trying to figure out, what is that? What is this order? “Alphie what is it all about?”
I think if the mind continues to embrace it, it (this music) will survive. The creativity is probably the essence and that will continue in spite of. It may get a smaller audience, but I don’t think that will have any impact on the creativity of it all because art kind of works in a strange kind of way
Inspired musician talks about spontaneous composition and learning in all musical settings and the subtle genius of Bill Keith.
Wishin and Hopin'
The sanctified churches in the south lent themselves to a Afro-Centric form of appreciation for their deity. The first modified drum kits were in the sanctified churches with sticks and tambourines and maybe even an electric guitar.
The gospel hymns were infectious and spoke of celebration, hope and spirit. The preachers were often pugnacious and speaking to a congregation that wanted the truth, not the warmed over Anglo/Protestant messages coming from the other side of town.
These preachers found places like Eufala, AL untenable and took their families to the Midwest where car companies and industry roared with commerce jobs and a hot bed of cross fertilized music.
My guest today is a superstar soul singer. She has been striving for elevated consciousness and individualism since she broke on the scene over five decades ago. Born the daughter of a preacher man my guest was immersed in Detroit's Metropolitan church and choir. She was also privy to the hottest nightclub scene in America where jazz was being played in Soul clubs and Blues was being played in the jazz clubs or on the streets.
There were no jazz schools and learning came in the form of the street, finding like minded singers and accompanists because it didn't matter what you wear just as long as you are there.
My guest had been the undisputed truth of Motown. Her southern guy bucket approach was heavier and funkier then many of her contemporaries. Her songs had hooks rarely scene for the time that allowed audiences of all colors to hip sway in the night on TV shows, dances and studio demos.
She became an instant sensation and the testament to her longevity is that her tunes are still recognizable today by a new generation of Americans. One that is less white, more multiethnic but maybe less sure of their roots.
My guests roots were with Della Reese who's name she incorporated into her trio known as "The Vandellas." She learned how to project on the bandstand and entertain as well as swing.
When Motown went west she stayed in Detroit and became a purveyor of social justice while continuing her performing career on RCA/Arista and Fantasy.
Nowhere to run, Martha Reeves welcome to the JFS.
"Saved My Life"
By Carmine Appice
"I played a few burlesque houses but our manager was connected to the Mafia. Those guys you see in the movie Goodfellas, we used to know Henry Hill. We used to know Paulie (The Don). They all used to go to my managers club.
In the movie the club that was burned down was my managers club, "The Action House." They burned it down to collect insurance and then rebuilt it. It just so happens my managers club had a fire there.
Music probably saved my life. A lot of my friends went on to join the Mafia and being in the gangs. As kids we belonged to a gang to be safe. For me I could have ended up like a bunch of my friends who wound up doing hard time (multiple life terms). A couple of other guys got killed. Music might have saved my life because I was headed in the wrong direction."
Aphrodisiacs
By Stanley Clarke
"When I got into Scientology I was very close to becoming a serious drug addict. I could always get a jump on things when things were going a little to the left. Since I was very young I was always someone who would pull the plug on something before it went over the line.
I was not at a good place. I was not feeling good physically and I was too young not to be feeling good physically. I recognized that so when I got into the rehab program my drug thing got handled and I never ever went back after that.
Than I started getting into Dianetics which is a different portion of Scientology. I had to get myself a little straight.
I grew up with a fairly normal life for a kid. I had issues with lots of things, music, rascism, poverty, family stuff. Normal stuff that a black kid or African American Kid would have if he's really going to inspect his life and how he's growing up.
I got into Scientology and that took care of everything for me. Lots of times a person may have a lot of problems but when you really look at them their specific and specific subjects and sometimes it's difficult to deal with specific subjects that bother you as specifics. Usually by the time it gets you it feels like you got a damn elephant on your shoulders. They all converge together and you have this big pile of mud in your universe. What is it? I feel so bad. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Am I playing good?
There was a time when I was really shy. It was something I wasn't really happy with because I had thoughts and feelings and I wanted those things to come out. I wanted people to understand what is in my head.
Through the work I did in Scientology I was able to talk to people about these other things. If your ability to communicate is down it's a little difficult. We as humans we don't really have the ESP thing down that strong yet.
There are much higher planes to reach that are outside the realm of physicality. Anything that's physical is physical, sex, drugs, eating a sandwich. There are other states of being that one can reach that have nothing to do with physical things and the physical universe.
I used to experience this with RTF. The first RTF with Chick, Myself, Flora, Airto, Joe Farrell. I had out of body experiences with that band. It was amazing.....
We started out with that first band, me and Chick. You couldn't get any more honest than that. No one cared about us really. We were trying and surviving. Trying to take our message to people.
We were playing music that was really heartfelt. Chick wrote some beautiful, beautiful stuff. We were all really compatible. When you play music like that with people that you really feel a connection. It's not only music, you could have been a conversation with four people that are really together and they leave space for the other guy. In normal conversation when your with people with a high amount of respect for each other. There's a high degree of acknowledgment of each other. When you play music like that it's the easiest way to leave the physical plane. If your fortunate enough to have a musical experience where everything is just going right. For some reason everybody's tracking and there's a degree of spirituality that's there that's connected with music that you can't get with anything. There's no drug, no amount of money, there's no sexual favor all the Aphrodisiacs on couldn't match that."
Entrepreneurial empath and yogic practitioner talks about her journey towards stillness and dialogue in a manic world.
Authentic musician who marinated in the Marin County music scene of the early 70's and how he continues to follow the muse today.
Intergalactic musician talks about finding her purpose in life as an innovator and healer.
Discussion revolving around songwriting, meeting Cass Elliott and the ebbs and flows on and off the bandstand.
Spiritual musician and dharmic practitioner talks about the cosmic relevance of our true nature.
Fiery singer and bandleader talks about his philosophies as it relates to putting together a band, raising consciousness and staying relevant.
Divine yogic practitioner talks about her evolutionary development in this life and how she has discovered her purpose in service to God.
Interstellar keyboardist and organ grinder talks about the limitless possibilities of doing things in your own way.
Ebullient trumpet and saxophonist talks about the different chapters of his musical life.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer talks about his earliest musical experiences and accepting god in order to save his life. Open Door Mission.....
Radiant healer steeped in wisdom and cosmic consciousness talks about her fortunes in life and how she considers everyone a teacher.
Venerable New Orleans drummer and chef talks about fitting into any musical setting and playing what the song requires.
Band leader and multi-instrumentalist talks about navigating the muse to create compositions that can be both highly arranged and open to improvisation without intention.
Composer and founder of The Tape Music Center in San Francisco talks about integrating tape music performance into the psychedelic milieu of the Bay Area.
Musician and rabble-rouser talks about stirring the pot on the bandstand and in the streets. Colt 40.
Authentic creative and upright bass player talks about the forever journey of music and the intertwining of spirit and purpose.
Decorated newspaper columnist and author talks about distilling the truth in the psychedelicized Bay Area milieu of music and culture.
Brilliant gulf coast drummer who wound up in Nashville talks about incorporating drums into country and folk rock settings.
String instruments of the old Appalachian hootenanny. The banjo, the fiddle, the mandolin an upright bass and the hammered dulcimer.
A stringed musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board.
The player uses mallet hammers to strike the strings on the dulcimer in combination with the zither or oud in the timeless countries of Iran and China.
My guest today has redefined the settings in which a hammered dulcimer can be played in. An old folkie from Western Maryland he is as versed in country bluegrass as he is with Celtic Tunes as he is with jazz.
He comes from a hill where there is common ground. A place around the mason Dixon line where Peter Rowan and David Dawg Grisman, Steven Stills and other revivalists go to spread the language of music. Playing in tongues, moving beyond the spoken language and forming a unit whose collective spiritual mantra is to support each other.
You gotta go fishing once and awhile and my guest does mentoring younger cats and being able to relate to the poverty, abuse and neglect that many performers carry. Especially those who have recently come back from serving our country. Coming back after two tours overseas and being deported.....not given real meaningful opportunities to combat PTSD.
My guest knows the poverty of Appalachia and the traumas of younger war veterans and gives back to his country by helping cross sections of our people get back on their feet and grow through the arts.
His 100lbs hammered dulcimer vibrates with an improvisational ring swinging from one octave to another just like ringing a bell with those mallets acting as the percussive driver of soul music.
My guest today is the founder of "Common Ground On The Hill," in Maryland which over the last twenty years has sought to bring together artists, writers, journalists, dancers and singers to perform and teach kids. He is a virtuoso of the hammered dulcimer performing at the Winter Olympics, Presidential ceremonies, The Tonight Show, Tennessee Fiddle Competitions and the coal camps near the Blue Ridge Mountains.
He is resident artist @ McDaniel College and knows that any movements around social change are spurred on by finding common ground through the arts and culture.
Walt Michaels welcome to the JFS
Saxophonist talks about his journey towards musical salvation with his peers and as a teacher.
Most people associate Jerry Garcia with the Grateful Dead. And rightfully so, they were the longest touring band in Modern American History. And because they have been dubbed a psychedelic rock band that's what many associate with Jerry's guitar style and sound.
However a closer look reveals that Jerry was a curious student who made periodic stops along the way to increase his playing vocabulary. Jam sessions @ the Matrix that Bluegrass with OAITW and TGAMB, Funky Blues with Merl and Legion of Mary, a return to his gospel and soul roots with his own band and a dip into fusion with Reconstruction. Today we will listen to some of Jerry's peers and musicians who collaborated with the Fat man outside of the Dead who all contributed to his style and sound.
At the core Jerry Garcia was a bluegrass picker. He was a legend of the California circuit back when Los Angeles was a hotbed of bluegrass activity in the mid sixties. It was an infatuation with the Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe and the Ash Grove Fiddler Scottie Stoneman that led to this new breed of players who burned. As the great violinist Richard Greene told me "we bowed at the feet of Monroe, he was our Jesus Christ." By March of '74 the Great American Music Band was gigging and having fun. Here is a clip of My interview with David Dawg Grisman about the first time he met Garcia. We'll pick it up with Sweet Georgia Brown....
Brilliant and ethereal pianist talks about her psychic and telepathic abilities on the bandstand.
Sometimes I feel like a Little Red Rooster, too lazy to crow for days. It takes a Cosmic Dweller to bounce you back to where you need to be. Thanks Amo. Jake out.
The truth reveals itself.....it's revealed in the body of work that you put out there to the masses.
For musicians Before interconnection this was done via vinyl records, regional radio and lots of late night jam sessions with musicians who thrived on individuality, unique sound and authentic presentation.
Their bodies weren't decorated with
Company logos nor was there much discussion of monies. If music is to be played then play it with unabashed power and glory with an emphasis on being yourself and knowing that the cream always rises to the top.
If your not a doer you judge and there's not much worse in this world then judgement being rendered by those who are not doers. Their vantage point is flawed from the beginning because they themselves are just insecure, afraid to put themselves out there and lead for the sake of swinging the band....their sitting on their balls critiquing those who chose to stand up and stir the drink of music and magic.
My guest today is a doer, always has been, collaborating with the likes of Llew Mathews, Bobby Christian, Phil Upchurch, Cleveland Eaton, George Marsh and Mel Graves.
He might be playing a ghost opera by day and then a big band gig at night. Blowing ideas in a sequence that borrows from Coleman and Bird and
Getz but has the inner light of a prophet guided by sight unseen or heard.
His career has encompassed the last 1/2 century with stints in the hottest beds of regional American Music. He has played in front of 5 people 500 people, 5000 people and now he gets to talk to Jake Feinberg. Welcome Rich Fudoli...
The foundations of a human being begin within their home.
The education, the adherence to a craft and not overcompensating with blind faith. My guest today had a bed rock in his home and it is because of his mother that he is where he is today.
Part of The JFS is to promote inclusivity as it relates to parents and their relationships with their kids.
I do this by talking to musicians like my guest who under the tutelage Erma gained an education thorough world experience, world sound and melodic invention.
My guest was enlightened to the creator and their impact on this earth by an apparatus. A horn that emits sequences of ideas and streams of knowledge that is at the core of true music.
The ability to heal and dance. To settle disputes through universal communication. To build a bridge to a new era after they themselves reached the bottom of the pit.
What started with his mom led to Raymond Pounds, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner who like Van Morrison and Bob Marley played music that transcended this orbit.
McCoy's band was tight knit- My guest, Joonie Booth and Alphonse Mouzon who he plays with today in Southern California with two other sages in spirit Theo Saunders and The Skipper Henry Franklin.
I witnessed my guest playing at the RG club in Venice and The Sea Bird Chicken and Waffles establishment in Long Beach.
I rocked back and forth to the undulating rhythms while my guest danced around the African JuJu with long improvisational riffs that make you think and think even more when you don't want to think.
He has bands on both coasts and seems to be rising on the burning shore before we all check out.
Quoting my guest, if you win one battle over yourself that's how you can experience growth.
Azar Lawerence welcome to the JFS
Wide Open, Cunga Battle, Jim Nash, Ndugu, Sonship Theus, Vibes, Flutes, Watts Riots, Burn Baby Burn, Regrets, Revelations, Validiction
Lee Charlton and Shelly Manne were friends and after I invented the water phone Lee called Shelly and told him to come up and take a look at this instrument because it might be something he could use on those soundtracks he was working on in Hollywood. He did come and bought several and that opened up the door to Hollywood, Emil Richards came up as well so that started my business right there. At one point Emil Richards said, "hey man come on down here and I'll hook you up with everybody. I made more money on that one trip to Los Angeles then the entire previous year painting and a little bit of sculpture I was selling. It changed my profession because I was no longer a painter I was an instrument builder.
That was an unusual tonal quality when you hook up water with an instrument that could be percussive. There's an awful lot of sympathy in those Rods and that bottom band carries a wide range of sounds. When you start bending tones by moving water around on the bottom it does modify the sound. It's not a conventional sounding instrument which is why Hollywood uses it in Zombie Movies and Sci Fi.
In really thankful that I invented an instrument that people like and I sell enough of them so I can keep on eating and buying gasoline for my car I appreciate that.
RIP Tom Dondelinger and Chuck Day.....Gravity Adjusters Expanding Minds.......
I have two children both of whom love music. Not because I play contemporary child's music but because of my love of all musics. In fact I have struggled to find any real substantive children's music until I strolled into Desert Industrials and came across Getting to Know Myself and Homemade Band two of the definitive children's albums made by my guest during the fertile landscape of the early 1970's.
This music swings and while not an all out funk fest these albums open kids minds to create their own homemade instruments. Be it string, paper towel dispensers, sticks its a homemade band.
Then I come to find out that my guest was the originator of combining music with movement for kids. It's the rhythm, the bouncy buoyant infectious energy that makes you want to dance.
It's nice to welcome Hap Palmer to the Jake Feinberg Show
Divine healer and meditation guide talks about her path towards metaphysical transformation and wholeness through yogic cultivation.
My Brain is on a Subway as I head into the vortex of living the live…..do you practice what you preach on stage? Do you remember the cats who accompanied you into battle when the album is credited, or because of insecurity do you take all the credit?
These are obviously things that each musician has to deal with in his or her own individual way. My guest today is someone who has gone up against it in his musical life. He played with the Temps and was fortunate enough to be around when the chitlin circuit was hoppin’ the floorboards were shakin and all the fingerpoppin daddies were having a ball.
Bud Light didn’t sponsor everything with a streamed lined approach that saps the individuality away with pole tested focus groups……to find you must seek, which is what my guest has been doing of late with the release of his latest CD Faces which is deadicated to the late Tom Donlinger who was one heck of a gravity adjuster along with Boz Scaggs, Steve Miller, Ben Sidran and all the other crazy cats.
My guests albums have become cult classics all over the world and his recent international fame as prompted him to put together his own YouTube Clip showing off his cosmic keys. Howard Wales, welcome back to the JFS…..
As previously stated on this program the San Francisco Bay Area sound was as distinctive as any regional sound in our countries history.
When you look back at the roots of this sound it's clear manifestation started with the Trips festivals that were spear headed by local pols, promoters and musicians. There was a fascination with fusing pure psychedelics with masses of humanity in dance halls saturated with wood brass and steel.
My guest today was the leader of the Loading Zone. One of these bay area incarnations whose sound crossed over several musical idioms.
My guest had jazz leanings but knew as a pianist that he needed to expand sound with the blues and rock drenched make-up of the region. He also wanted to grab some of the east bay grease that combined soul and funk/punk lyrics and rhythms.
This desire led to a serendipitous connection with Linda Tillery whose gut bucket style and swagger helped catapult the Band to commercial relevance.
The Loading Zone was one of the original test cases of the Bay Area Psychedelic Movement. They were often times on the same bills as many of the more recognizable acts such as Big Brother, Country Joe, GD, Sly and the Family Stone and the Airplane. They played winterland and the Fillmore West the Family Dogg and the Louisiana House.
After the original group disbanded my guest put the Zone back together with legendary drummer George marsh for a second album entitled one for all. This new amalgamation at times fronted two drummers and increased their polyrhythmic qualities all the while staying true to the regional appetite for improvisational jamming.
Fauerso so good... Paul Fauerso welcome to the JFS.....
People know of the Heath Brothers and the Montgomery Brothers but here is the first of another trio of musical blood brethren.
Canadian double bassist talks about cooking the groove with his brothers in the states and north of the border.
While Charlie often will deflect attention to his brothers this cat has kept music alive in Southern California as well. Little bit of late start but that's how they do things in LA.
*Please note the first 30 minutes of the program is an interview I did with another so cal studio warrior - Max Bennett.
Transitions are part of Life. You move in and out of collaborations with artists, lovers, and job opportunities. But the genesis of transition stems from the beginning. The fruitful years of hearing new sounds and adding your own accent. The roots of creativity, work ethic and brotherhood.
Part of the goal of the Jake Feinberg Show is to reconnect those who played together in the beginning with a shared conception and goal. The idea of being dedicated to their instruments and holding obligation to nothing else. But through transitions and opportunities these individuals have not connected on any level for sometime. Maybe a chance airport run in but with no real time to reacquaint.
A state of being @ the Same time. Roy Ayers and Carl Burnett....glad to be the bridge. JF
Sound pioneer and MIDI wizard talks about his musical relationships with Stevie Wonder and the Grateful Dead.
Blazing multi-reed instrumentalist talks about bringing a sense of fire and urgency to the bandstand.
Meditation guide and healer talks about the regenerative qualities of a mindfulness practice and how this has anchored her during difficult times.
More at;
jessvmeditation.com
Ray Mantilla was born in the South Bronx in 1934. He was going to the Palladium and catching Machito and Tito Puente blister the crowds with dizzying arrays of Salsa. Ray eventually got his chance at the Congo and was a vital part of the Herbie Mann quintet along with Chief Bey, Ray Barretto where they sought to annihilate drums on a nightly basis. Ray was lucky enough to be at the epicenter of the fusion of Latin rhythms and jazz in the late fifties and sixties. This urban strut played out with Joe Farrell, Art Blakey, Jeremy Steig and Max Roach.
The Nuyorican Conguero,
Mike Wolff joined Cal Tjader's band at 19 years old. His second gig was at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Dizzy, Clark Terry and Al McKibbon. He than joined Cannonball's band and was an integral part to the Fantasy/Milestone/Bezerkely scene of the 70s. Since moving to New York he played with Nancy Wilson and was the musical director for Arsenio Hall. He still plays gigs all over the world with Badal Roy and Mike Clark among others. You can catch him at the Knickerbocker on most weekends.
Keyboardist from The Blackbyrds talks about his journey towards musical and spiritual enlightenment.
Pioneers were prevalent in the 50s and 60s. Guys that built up their chops to be able to play at the spur of the moment in any setting with any players. This pioneer mentality was helped by venues, multiple venues in every major city so accessibility was not a problem. The pioneers of music were unafraid of pursuing odd rhythms and combining instruments that wouldn't necessarily be commonplace in a square setting. My guest was one such pioneer, with Charles Lloyd they became the first American Jazz outfit to perform in the Soviet Union, he was a favorite of Joe Henderson in a group that featured the likes of Woody Shaw, George Cables and Lenny White. He was also one of the founding members of the eclectic group the fourth way with Mike Nock, Michael White and legendary Bay Area drummer Eddie Marshall. He has been an educator at the Berkelee School of music and LIU and is a continual force in the field of music. Ron McClure it's a pleasure to welcome you to the Jake Feinberg Show.
Prolific rhythm maker and innovator talks about the cats who helped shape his musical point of view.
Folks-
Tony Saunders grew up playing bass under the tutelage of John Kahn and Jack Cassidy. The stories he tells about Garcia and Merl and the Jam sessions are keepers. The interview revolves around Merl and his contributions to the early Bay Area Music scene of the 60s and 70s. I was quite elevated throughout the interview.
Now I'm in.....
Hammond organ player talks about his intentions for getting into music and creating hits with Chaka Khan.
Session guitarist from Jamaica talks about making iconic records with Fully Fullwood and Carlton "Santa" Davis.
Once there was a band called the Blue Velvets. Saul Zantz didn't like the name and made them change it. They eventually settled on Creedence Clearwater and the Fantasy label hit gold. Ed Bogas was hired soon there after and became one of the lead producer and arrangers for all the jazz cats under contract. The funny thing was that he knew next to nothing about jazz. He attributes much of his success to Cal Tjader who had recently resigned with the label. Cal led him by the hand and eventually they sang lines back to each other. A true baptism by fire and some great stories.....
Last Bolero in Berkeley,
JF
Back when "The Skipper" Henry Franklin and I were mulling over pianists to play at The tribute concert to Gene Russell Henry said, "what about Bobby Pierce? I couldn't believe Bobby was living in LA and was still gigging. He was the first stop on our soon to be chronicled "Week in La La Land."
Bless you Bobby,
Blair Jackson was the editor of BAM magazine in the late seventies and wrote the definitive biography on Jerry Garcia.
To have him on my program puts me one step closer to the pre-coma years that I covet so much. Blair was a great sport putting up with my eccentric questions related to Garcia's physical appearance in '84, how to tell what year a particular Shakedown Street was played and how the band traveled from Burlington to Rochester.
Slight tape warble at the 8:00 min. mark!
Have at it!
JF
Bobby Cochran is one of the most technically gifted guitarists ever. Bobby also has the heart of a lion. He breaths life through a combination of spirituality, love and music. Put the chops with the soul and you have a legend. Bobby was kind enough to spend sometime with me late in the Nashville Night and allowed me to perseverate about the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnights and Dancing on the Tables.
Lets hope we hear from Alphonso, Billy and Bobby real soon.....its time for a reunion.
we'll see y'all later,
JF
Continued discussion with a decorated engineer about the golden era of modern American recorded music.
When stationed at Fort Huachuca Vince Lateano used to play at supper clubs in Tucson to keep his chops up.
After he got out of the army he wound up in the Bay Area (where else) and wound up gigging with Vince Guaraldi, Mark Murphy, Flip Nunez, George Muribus and the late great Cal Tjader. I was like a kid in a candy store on this one.....
Bassist for The Jazz Crusaders talks about that spiritual gulf coast sound and creating a groove.
"Close your Eyes and Open your Ears," says Don Menza. Don is a non-conformist - a man who was raised by Italian Farmers and grew up in the gutbucket of Buffalo, NY. (Upstate NY was a haven for jazz cats like Nistico and Noto)
He is interested in people who think for themselves. When a student asks "what books should I bring," he says "None!" He is tired of the assembly line manufacturing that has occurred in music schools/industry over the last 30 years.
He loves Sonny and Dizzy and Wade Leggy. All guys who had something to say and actually said it. As a wise philosopher once said; "you know, a lot of people have ideas although most never follow through." Don Menza will follow through for eternity.
A highlight occurs at the outset of Part II. At the time we were breaking in a new board op and he was still learning the transitions. When he fails to bring up Don's sound at the beginning the host has a slight meltdown.
Dig,
Mike Longo sat at a restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl with his father and Cannonball Adderley in the early 1950s. At this point Cannon had been playing in Mike's father's band in what was the first de-segregated band in Ft. Lauderdale. At one point a member of the staff approached them and said; "you all can eat here but the negro has to eat in the kitchen." Mike's dad stood up and said, "if he has to eat in the kitchen than we're going with him."
The Stars Fell on Alabama that night as well.
*I had the privilege of meeting Mike in person and did an interview with him at his upper west side apartment. The next day en route to the east village the recorder I was using fell out of my pocket. Talk with the Spirits.
Enjoy and Share
Seeker of authentic music and culture talks about finding her people and fronting George Is Lord.
Conversation with an amazing musician and drummer spanning rhythm, reverence for the music and the space/time continuum.
I sit here today again in the studios of PowerTalk 1210 totally humbled and awed. Awed by my adherence to the musician and those who produce it and cultivate the music.
Much of the focus of my show I now realize is on the ability to have people in a room all at the Same time making music. Seems simple but in these times it's not.
Those who know how to mic a set of Michael Shrieve or Billy Kreutzman drums being able to remember his name because it's on the inside gatefold along with about a dozen other heady individualists hell bent on creating music.
This music comes out if their instruments but it's that sound of the record that provides space and time displacement. The Erie Jews harp trying to get traction in the rain.
That's where my guests launching point was and he has continued into the digital age with timeless artists like David Crosby and New Riders of a different age. Larry Graham coming in right on time in the Valley of The Moon.
My guest deftly made his way in and around the weeds with Brewer and Shipley. Carving paths of Kama Sutra while Bill Vitt and John Kahn laid down rhythm tracks or building a custom designed studio in Bob Weir's Mill Valley.
My guest is not awed by the digital age. In fact he's thrived in it because of the relationships he built when music came out of communities.
Deeds not words, Stephen Barncard welcome to the JFS..
Dynamic leader and guitarist talks about taking the seeking path in music and surrendering to the muse.
Legendary organist talks about playing with Ike Cole and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. A long and storied career that continues today.....
Soul centered yogic practitioner talks about the qualities of leading an authentic monastic existence.
I normally do long poetry monologues leading up to introducing my guest. Today is really about explaining how my guest helped me in my journey.
He is a teacher of pure heart, how to handle your emotional balance in a wave of psycho-spiritual narratives that are not always verbalized but pondered in isolation in a man made chateau with his lovely partner just 1/2 a block down the red rock road of Diamond Mountain.
When I met my guest I met him at the rabbit ranch. A bonfire of the vanities communal house that connected me with Neil Diamente. My guest was happy and challenging himself teaching and finding his yogic state in that hut next to his hut that would cook on a hot August day. I was on my journey, letting all the side paneling fall off and be truer to myself.
I've interviewed over 400 artists on The Jake Feinberg Show. My guest was the first interview I did before he left for retreat and over that time I found my point of view and my voice gutting it out with these mentors who opened their hearts to me to tell the truth or the closest thing to it. Over the 3+ years my guest was in retreat this host ascended to his full capacities by finding my true nature.
As I meandered through the different tributaries I often thought of my guest. Dwelling somewhere in a mountain of Diamonds where eagles fill the sky which turns crimson at a certain time every day while my guest found ways of being resourceful living as he describes it an "incredibly sane existence."
Now as he settles back in to Disney Land without keys to the exit he has been working at a manic pace and trying to be patient in a sea of humanity.
Vibraphonist and percussionist talks about finding his way into the studios and playing with Buddy Rich.
Part of the legendary Kesey tribe talks about his relationship with Neal Cassady and going Furthur.
One of the Young Rascals and proponent of Transcendental Meditation talks about the magic ride of his musical life.
Singer/songwriter talks about her influences and ultimately finding her own voice on the bandstand.
Decorated violinist talks about playing free jazz to nobody in the clubs of France and being discovered by John Lewis who hipped Frank Zappa to him.
Legendary NOLA drummer talks about the finer points of creating soundscapes on the drums.
Singer songwriter from the folk era talks about his early days on the circuit and collaborating with Ken Kesey.
Divine healer and yogic practitioner talks about overcoming adversity and finding her individual voice.
Prolific drummer and historian talks about the growth in musical vocabulary over the years as well as dispelling age old canards.....
Incredible singer talks about working with the Fairfax Street Choir and Jerry Garcia Band.
Burning authentic road dog musician talks about finding ways of staying inspired musically and spiritually.
Original member of the band CARP with Gary Busey talks about their journey to Los Angeles and the cumulative results of music.
Multi-dimensional artist and cabinet maker talks about his path towards grace and eternal spirit.
Pianist and bandleader talks about the ebbs and flows of the last 18 months, playing live and channeling the muse.
No Mind No Spirit - Tisziji Munoz on the love continuum and going beyond thought on the bandstand.
Explosive and highly inventive guitarist talks about his philosophies as they relate to playing improvisational music and what he learned from gigging with cats like Alan Dawson and Miles Davis
Angular and funky keyboardist talks about all the ways he makes music in the modern era before during and after Covid.
Spiritual jazz master talks about accessing his multi-dimensional self on the bandstand and learning under cats like Lonnie Smith and Jack McDuff.
Exceptional live and studio drummer talks about the paths he has taken in his musical journey.
In my continual pursuit of primary source archival interviews relating to our personal heritage I present the Gary Bartz Interview.
Its time to be quiet and listen.
Double bassist talks about learning the ropes on the bandstand with the likes of Freddie Hubbard.
Plant based and earth focused leader talks about what it will take to shift universal consciousness to save the planet and the people who dwell here.
Decorated percussionist and educator talks about the language of the drum and his own path towards accessing his multi-dimensional self through rhythm.
Singer/songwriter talks about her relentless pursuit towards individuality and authenticity on the bandstand and how she continues to stay inspired through her relationship with the divine.
Charismatic and versatile pianist/band leader talks about the existential magic that exits in the live musical setting and finding ways of staying inspired during Covid.
Brilliant songwriter and session cat talks about his musical lives and the love he has for his wife Karen.
Profound musician and philosopher talks about humanity's current state of perfection and how to incorporate music into that milieu to create a vibrational renaissance.
Stealth session guitarist and producer talks about modern day Immediate Family and the different roles he has played within that.
Gifted guitarist and band leader talks about his early beginnings in Portland, OR, moving to New York and ultimately joining Dan Hicks.
Blazing rock guitarist talks about his early roots in the Motor City and eventually playing with David Margen and Bill Kreutzmann.
Boogaloo guitarist talks about the bevy of projects and bands that he is a part of in the Pacific Northwest.
Versatile and unique guitarist talks about how he developed his own sound and how modern day musicians can adapt to the current imbalance of technology and culture.
Fiery and explosive trance guitarist talks about creating tension in the music and operating on a spiritual plane at all costs.
Ebullient artist and cabinet maker talks about finding his spiritual path and purpose in this life.
Bay Area drummer talks about learning under the tutelage of Jerry Granelli and the forever journey that is music.
Musician and healer talks about getting comfortable being herself on the bandstand and moving away from the secure path of modeling.
Iconic studio drummer talks about laying down the funkiest grooves for Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson among others.
Dynamic sound seeking drummer talks about carving a path towards salvation in a 21st century musical paradigm.
Twin brother fusion duo talk about their improvisational influences and how they blend all music into their live performances.
Singer songwriter talks about letting the body dance and being herself on the bandstand.
Member of the Ace of Cups talks about her formative years of creation and developing an individual sound.
Divine musician and actress talks about the life of a performer and how she uses alternative means (micro dosing) to access a more peaceful world.
Filmmaker and music enthusiast talks about growing up in a more innocent psychedelicized America.
Multi-faceted musician and composer talks about being ensconced in bebop, folk and world music.
Fearless musician and motorcycle enthusiast talks about overcoming adversity to find peace her multi-dimensional existence.
Iconic classical and jazz bassist talks about creating a legacy through individual sound.
Shamanic Healer and Yogic Practitioner Live From Her Home In Laurel Canyon, CA from March 2018
Member of The National Reserve talks about his road towards musical authenticity and independence.
Funk and Jazz based guitarist talks about his humble upbringings in Chicago and how he has carved a path towards musical authenticity.
Cosmic singer/songwriter talks about the life of a creative musician and the path towards peace and enlightenment.
Songwriter and singer talks about the spiritual inclinations of her songs and their messages.
Versatile drummer from a strong musical lineage talks about meeting and playing with his heroes.
Lead singer from Cold Blood and a Bay Area soul stalwart talks about finding her voice on the bandstand.
Paul's Mall, The Jazz Workship, WBCN, Skullers, Miles Davis, Live @ Storyville, Beantown
Decorated double bass player talks about the aesthetics of the music he loves and plays with a perspective that spans the last 70 years.
"The Chop," 5 people 3 teeth, Turn of the Century, Education, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Loggins and Messina
Multifaceted fiddle player talks about bringing the instrument into electrified rock settings.
Divine goddess of music talks about finding her own voice and owning her truth through her songs and performance.
Transcendent singer songwriter talks about getting our of her own way on the bandstand to become a conduit for spiritual music.
Legendary songwriter and session keyboardist talks about his upbringing and gateway into the iconic studio scenes in Muscle Shoals and Los Angeles.
Iconic blues guitarist talks about throwing himself into authentic music at an impressionable age and coming out on the other side with his own voice and point of view.
Versatile guitarist and bandleader talks about what he learned in the academy and how he found his individual voice on the bandstand.
Bassist and brother of Bernie Leadon talks about growing up playing psychedelic dungeons with Tom Petty and later on in Silver with Brent Mydland.
Career bandmate and session man talks about his musical life and compensating for what he doesn't have.
Throwback banjo cat talks about being a street scholar of music and playing on Broadway.
Cosmic musician and human talks about Osmunda Nights and the Earthstar Creation Center.
Multi-dimensional guitarist and composer talks about finding the spirit in the music and letting the body dance naturally.
Singer songwriter talks about the constant ebb and flow of creative impatience and learning to balance parenthood with a desire to inspire on the bandstand.
Unheralded multi-instrumentalist talks about the different tributaries of his musical existence.
Indelible singer/songwriter talks about his motivations for getting into music and finding his individual voice amongst the folk/rock collective.
The First Bouzouki
I was a fan of classical Indian music from my dad’s record collection. He had Yehudi Menuhin records. He bought Ravi Shankar’s first album on World Pacific, Ragas & Talas. My dad was very hip about all kinds of stuff. He would listen to stuff that was really pretty serious. He was a corporation lawyer for 20th Century Fox. He played piano and loved different kinds of music from all over the world.
The first bouzouki playing I ever heard was a soundtrack to some film. He loved the film because of the traditional Greek music, Rembetika. I had never heard anything like that. I asked him, “What is that instrument?” He said, “It’s kind of like a mandolin with a long neck.” There was a picture of it, and I noted, “Oh, one of those.”
The wheels started turning, and there were some great players in those days, too. Because of that, I went into playing different kinds of folk music. Playing bluegrass, I had been listening to Earl Scruggs and Don Reno. I had also been listening to Sabicas, the Flamenco guitarist.
A Beat to Everything
by George Walker
I’ve been doing Neal Cassady reading performances this year [2017], and the reason I’m able to do that is I know the rhythm. Neal listened to jazz from the time he was a teenager, so he had those rhythms in his head. His speech had those rhythms. He’d be talking and there’d be this syncopation, there’d be a beat to everything he was saying. He wouldn’t just be talking, talking, talking. It would be this and then this, and you’d get this sense of a rhythmic flow. He’d be moving to it, too. It was kinetic, and he was driving a car, and it was all rhythmic. There was a jazz beat behind all this stuff, because that was in his head.
The reason I’m able to do this now is because I know those rhythms. I listened to that music. And listening to Neal and being around him so much, I could see that rhythm in what he was doing: that’s what made it effective.
Legendary drummer pontificating on all things music from his home in Los Angeles from 2012
Cosmic angel talks about her families roots in Spain and Mexico, her love of music and rhythm and the telepathic relationship she has with her sister.
Iconic bop and post-bop drummer talks about playing with Cannonball Adderley and adjusting to the zeitgeist with Oscar Peterson. A rhythm hero......
Sonic expander at Earthstar Creation Center talks about the cosmic journey in the musical milky way.
Multi-dimensional drummer talks about John Penny and the conception of the band Solstice.
Legendary trombone player talks about playing with Frank Zappa, Les Elgart, Gil Evans and Levon Helm.
From The Saturday Night Live Band to Levon Helm to Fania Recordings to The Blues Brother this 'bone player has done it all. Great to hang with him in Tucson, AZ
Stalwart bop and funk drummer talks about his pursuit of individual sound on the bandstand.
Master rhythmist talks about applying his craft and feeling to all different musical settings.
Humble and introspective drummer talks about the role his faith has played in musical performance both live and in the studio.
Divine Russian pianist talks about developing a name for herself in the American music world.
Stunning pianist and composer talks about the influence her father had on her and how she has blazed her own trail on the bandstand.
Present in Me
On Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson, I had an advantage. It was the guy with the trumpet pointing at people. His aura was that strong that you knew when to play and when not to play. What was special about Miles was that I could add that aura to my musical palette. Take direction from him in body language, so to speak. Contribute where I felt it was necessary.
We would only play what we thought was necessary to give the music life. It wasn’t about how many notes we played, or how advanced we were on our instruments, individually. It was about the real picture that was put forward and how that personality would be instilled in the minds that would listen.
When you left the studio and the record came out, people would know all the lines exactly. I knew the guys on the sessions from reputation, but I had never played with any of them. I found the first thing I needed to do was “not” play. Show restraint. Not because I couldn’t, but because I wanted to understand the direction in which the music was going.
Miles was a very special person. I say “was”— is, because he’s still very present in me and I believe in many of my con-temporaries.
Multi-faceted bassist and photographer talks about the different tributaries of his life.
Olympian drummer talks about his musical dreams that became realities through perseverance and heart.
Free jazz drummer and creator talks about intermixing lights and sound before anyone else.....
Old school musician talks about the studio scene for string players and how music was made in real time.
Fiery harmonica player from WAR talks about coming to the United States to make a home in music.
Hall of Fame record engineer, producer and conductor talks about playing live in the studios of Detroit.
Versatile sound expander talks about elevating consciousness and accessing one's multi-dimensional nature(s) on the bandstand.
Versatile horn player talks about burning the blues and circular breathing back in Harlem.
Hammond B-3 organist talks about life on the bandstand and stretching out with luminaries and peers alike.
Like an Oreo Cookie
By Michael Shrieve
Gene Ammons did an album called Brother Jug! and on it there was a tune called “Jungle Strut,” with Bernard Purdie playing on it. I was being influenced by David Garibaldi, who studied with Purdie. I thought “Jungle Strut” would be good for the Santana band, so we recorded that song and put it out. The record was very successful.
Gene was playing The Both/And club in San Francisco. I went to see him and I tried to go back stage and tell him that I was the one that brought the song to the band. He wouldn’t even let me in the dressing room. It was old-school prejudice. I was thinking, “Wow, man, aside from me being just an out-and-out fan of your music and your sound, I made you a lot of money. You’re not going to let me in the room ’cause I’m white?”
I was hanging out with Ike Turner in Accra, Ghana doing a film called Soul to Soul. I was hanging around with Ike and we went to Wilson Pickett’s room, and Pickett wouldn’t let me in.
I know this is old-school stuff and I understand it, but it’s painful that they have to feel that way. Even then it was old-school, because people were opening up to all kinds of music at that time, and I think it’s that way now.
On the flight back from Africa, I sat in between Mavis Staples and Roberta Flack listening to my tape of female vocalists that I just adored. They were both on there, so we had long discussions about female singers.
Later on when they made a DVD of Soul to Soul, there were “extras,” in which Mavis even said, “Yep, there we were, Roberta and me, with Mike Shrieve sitting right in between us like an Oreo cookie, talking about female singers.”
I grew up in the suburbs (Redwood City), but a lot of the musicians I played with were African American. I was the only white kid in a club in East Palo Alto in the house band, so it wasn’t like I was unfamiliar with African Americans. It was that I was beyond that thinking, and most African Americans were, too. Yet I realized Ammons and Pickett were holding a resentment that they had every right to hold.
Try to Be Magical
by Mason Williams
The two people I met in my life who I thought were great men were Pete Seeger and Ken Kesey. Not only were they clever and could write great songs and great books, they were able to embrace all of humanity—warts and all, I guess you might say.
All kinds of people would come by Ken’s place and visit and talk, and they were welcome. Pete Seeger was always trying to improve the welfare of the common man. He had a broad love of humanity.
One thing I learned from my friend Kesey: he used to say, “Almost everybody can be clever, but what you really want to do is be magical.” He was part of my Of Time and Rivers Flowing. He told me, “I like your river show, because not only is it very entertaining musically, it’s about history and conservation of natural waterways. Those three elements make it magical.”
I had a place up in Oak Ridge, and Ken lived in Pleasant Hill. I knew about him from his books, which I had read. I found out where he lived, and one day I stopped by just to introduce myself. We sat outside, and he had a parrot who was chewing wood off the side of his house. We had a couple of swigs of whiskey. I told him, “In the River Show that I am doing, since I play guitar and it’s mic’d, I’m stuck behind the microphone. What I need is somebody who could be more like an actor, someone who could be on stage and move around and have some motion. Also I need comedy bits that I could engineer for him to do.”
Ken was my man. He said he wanted to be an actor more than a writer. He used to act on paper. Ken had a big room upstairs in his house. Zane and Sunshine told me you could hear him talking to himself. In actuality he was being these characters he was writing about. He was thinking about what they might say to each other, moving around up there and acting out what wound up being on paper.
I would write ideas for Ken the same way I wrote for The Smothers Brothers. “Here’s a structure; beginning, middle, and end. You can improvise in the middle of it, any way you want to.”
I wrote one piece, Shall We Gather at the River. There was a section of hymns. I said, “Ken, I want you to be the preacher and I’m going to call you Ken ‘For God’s Sake’ Kesey.” He used my lines as a structure, but then had some great lines of his own that he added, just as The Smothers Brothers did.
Legendary funk brother and guitar pioneer talks about working at Golden World and Motown in Detroit.
An integral part of The Youngbloods, Banana takes us inside the minds eye of a creative musician.
Impacted the World
by Chez Rey Sewell
The Pranksters were instrumental in changing the landscape from black-and-white to color in 1964 on their first journey out. It made people wake up and pay attention: “Wait a minute, there’s a lot more going on here to life.” On the heels of that, there were people like The Warlocks, who I saw in 1965 at The Cinnamon Tree teen club in San Carlos. They were, in a lot of ways, right in step with that whole movement that The Pranksters had pushed out there: this free-thinking kind of energy and this change up from what had to be to what can be? It just exploded into the possibilities, and they were endless and remain endless.
The Warlocks went from the button-down look of American Bandstand’s bands to the free-flowing “Hair starts growing, so why am I cutting it, for you or for me?”
All these statements are what The Pranksters had let out of the bag. They allowed people to start questioning things. What is really for me in this life, and what is really just for you in order to accept me? That became a pretty big door that opened up. God willing, it will remain open. These are times in history that need to be cherished and studied.
When the Grateful Dead were The Warlocks, they were tight in a different sense. They were really fun. It was already an experience, because the look was different, and we were different at the same time. We were already enjoying the spoils of the new generation. It was a harmonious evolution that took place. They evolved with their capability; and as the experience evolved, they evolved within it and so did the audience. Everybody grew together: it wasn’t that they took off and left everyone else behind. That’s why it got so big. It was a movement in the same vein as The Prankster movement. It was a movement in the country that impacted the world.
Drummer from Red Bone talks about his jazz influences growing up and how he incorporated those rhythms into Native American music.
Cosmic musician talks about the magic doors that open and close as you traverse the bandstand.
*with Billy Kreutzmann on drums
**John Kahn was delayed due to fog on the drive up from San Francisco so Dave Torbert played bass in the first set.
Incredible session guitarist talks about his musical relationships with Bob Dylan, Lowell George and Jimmy Webb.
Incredible country blues bassist talks about playing music with Taj Mahal and Delbert McClinton.
Legendary New Orleans bassist joins me at B.B. Kings to talk about his musical life in the Big Easy and beyond....
Legendary pianist and songwriter talks about his baptism by fire on the bandstand with Elvin Jones back in Detroit.
In advance of The Weedcon Cup I sat down and sampled various strains with one of the judges - actress and casting director - along with her musically inclined husband.
Legendary New Orleans band playing a concert at Snug Harbor from 2018 Astral Project Tony Dagradi - Saxaphones James Singleton - Bass Johnny Vidacovich - Drums Steve Masakowski - Guitar
Legendary bass player being interviewed at The Rialto Theater in Tucson, AZ January 2017
Legendary guitarist with his organ trio at The Musical Instrument Museum In Phoenix, AZ
Jerry Cortez-lead guitar, vocals
Alex Ligterwood-guitar, vocals
Brent Mydland -keyboards, vocals
David Margen-bass
Bill Kreutzmann-drums
05/28/82
Moscone Center - San Francisco, CA
Set 1:
Alabama Getaway
Greatest Story Ever Told
Althea
Little Red Rooster
Tennessee Jed
Truckin'
Drums
Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad
Not Fade Away
Set 2:
Walkin' Blues
A Mind To Give Up Livin'
Turn On Your Love Light
Encore:
Johnny B. Goode
Spiritual gypsy musician talks about her intentions for doing music and art and her need to bring people together through the commonality of authentic love.
Spiritual drummer talks about his inner time feel and how to incorporate that into all different musical settings.
Phil Ranelin grew up in Indianapolis and developed a deep musical friendship with Freddie Hubbard. After a brief stint in New York he moved to Detroit and began playing with Sam Sanders, Marcus Belgrave among others. In 1973 he and Wendell Harrison created "The Tribe Label" which was one of several independent jazz labels along with Strata East and Black Jazz. He cut two albums on this label all the while continuing his mission of raising black consciousness and education. In 1976 he received the key to the city with Donald Byrd.
Phil is a great spirit and a beautiful person. He continues to raise awareness most recently heading up the "Eric Dolphy Roots Project" in Panama. Perseverance baby......
Singer/songwriter talks about being raised in a musical family and how she found her individual voice on the bandstand with her sister Liz.
Divine musician and model talks about her programs to give young women of color a chance at finding their purpose in life.
DAN HEALY - GUITAR, VOCALS
RICHARD TREECE - GUITAR, VOCALS
JOHN CIPOLLINA - GUITARS
LARRY KLEIN - BASS
BILL KREUTZMANN - DRUMS
Afternoon concert for attendees of Billy Cobham's Art Of The Rhythm Section retreat from July 2018
Burning through the ozone with Freddie, Billy Childs (p), Larry Klein (b), Carl Burnett (d), Hadley Caliman (tenor sax)
Abstract blues guitar pioneer talks about the forever journey of music and its intersection with life.
Except They’re Real Life
by Lori M. Walton
I love Ken Babbs; he’s the cutest. The Pranksters are a big reason why the scene happened at all. They are such over-the-top, unique, and totally cool humans that it’s as if they are amazing made-up characters from a book. We are so lucky that they are actual people we can hang with, learn from, and be healed.
I was talking to Mountain Girl, and she said about the 60s, “Back then we were big on reading.” You can tell. They’re all so smart and knowledgeable and incredibly open-minded.
They’re larger-than-life people, but so grounded and really kind. When you go to shows and people put stickers on you that say, “Are you kind?” All the Pranksters, to this day, all walk the walk. To them kindness is what’s most important.
Soul philanthropist talks about the kinds of causes and people she advocates for.
Incredible guitarist and songwriter talks about his cosmic musical life from its origins in Little Rock, AR to Oklahoma City to LA.
Heroic musician and spiritualist talks about riding the crest of a musical wave and recognizing the talent of other young cats.
Slashing musician and band leader of Howlin' Rain talks about the art of timing, luck and talent as a creative artist.
Blazing guitarist talks about working in Shelly Manne's group and being an in demand studio shark.
Poet and musician talks about his creative point of view and his relationship with Tim Buckley.
Decorated singer talks about developing her own voice and her late half brother Paul Jackson.
Digging it Right with You
By Bob Dorough
When I went to North Texas, I ran across a very good little jazz band, and I was dumbfounded because they were much more advanced than I was. They had an excellent clarinetist, a trombonist, and bass, drums, piano. They were more like Jack Teagarden’s group than anything else. They knocked me out, of course, and every time they played I would dig them and try to pick up some ideas and tricks. That was the beginning of my jazz life.
Teagarden was a great singer and a wonderful trombonist. I never heard him in person, but I heard these guys and it knocked me out. I liked that jazz combo. Teagarden did some duets with Louis Armstrong. He was a down-home singer.
I discovered Thelonious Monk at North Texas. All the other students thought he was weird, but of course he was right. All along he was the right composer. He had off-the-wall melodies and what would look like a primitive kind of piano playing. It was so skilled, you didn’t realize it until you listened carefully. At first, it was just a completely different style of playing the piano and writing the tunes. They made a superficial judgement that he was weird and laughed at me having ordered his records through Downbeat ads.
I learned a lot about show business from Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole: they were really my big heroes. I learned that you needed to make contact with the audience: sing a song in such a way that they’re completely wrapped up in it and hear every word. They let you do it your way and they’re digging it right with you. To get the audience is a special knack that Louis had.
Drummer from Loggins & Messina talks about learning to accept his individual sound and not compare himself with others.
Founding member of Buffalo Springfield and then Poco talks about what he learned from his mentors on the bandstand and in the studio.
Dynamic Texas drummer talks about the early days of the LA studio pop/rock scene and his lifelong brother Bobby Ramirez.
Gigs Don’t Start Early
by Jimmy Jacobs
Jerry didn’t want another guitar player in his band. He already had that with The Dead. He thought he would try the “two-keyboard thing.” I think he loved the idea that Melvin Seals was from the church, so it could get a little gospely with organ.
We showed up at Club Front, and John Kahn had lead sheets that he passed out to everyone. We ran through this song and that song. After a couple of hours, Jerry said, “Can everybody be here tomorrow at 4 pm?” I realized I passed the audition. I don’t know if he and John had already decided on what they were doing. I said, “Yea, I’ll come back,” because I had fun.
Jerry liked to play the song, play the melody, then we’d “go for it.” I wasn’t really a Deadhead and didn’t know much about their organization. But eventually they said, “We’re going to start playing some gigs around.”
The first gig was Keystone Berkeley in January 1981, and they just told me which night. I went over there and showed up at 9:00 or 9:30. Nobody was there. Steve Parish wasn’t there. I went up to the club and I said, “I’m supposed to play with Garcia tonight.” The guy at the front was like, “Yea, right.” I paid to get in, and the rest of the guys showed up about an hour and a half later. Once they told Parish, he gave the front man a really hard time. I learned my lesson. Garcia’s gigs don’t start early. Rock Scully was the road manager, but if you ask me it was Parish who kept it all together.
Stone jazzer and iconic studio musician talks about overcoming adversity early in his life that helped shape who he became as a person and player.
Funky Hammond B-3 player talks about the opportunities to carve out an identity in a record based industry.
“Congratulations, You’ve Practiced A Lot”
By Cris Jacobs
I took a few lessons when I first started out, with some guys who spun me up and sent me on my way. After that I did lots of shedding in the bedroom and lots of listening. I’ve never been one to shun away from the theory, and the language and learning, but I was never a music school guy.
From the beginning I was drawn to the improvisational aspect of music. I knew that I was going to need to learn - and you can read all the books in the world and gain as much knowledge about things as you want - but nobody wants to listen to somebody whose just regurgitating other peoples information, without lending something positive to the conversation.
‘Congratulations, you’ve practiced a lot.’
That doesn’t do it for me, you need to take it a step beyond. I’ve always kept that in mind and wanted to use technique as a means to an end, rather than the end itself. I came to that realization early on, luckily.
Not going to music school as well, and coming at it from the songwriter side of things, I never saw myself being the most dazzling guitar player on the planet, or really wanting to be that. I just wanted to be able to be good enough to have my own voice. Then developing that voice is the journey, and the chops and technique are the maintenance of that journey.
Drummer and leader talks about overcoming adversity in his life to become a stronger person and player.
Legendary bassist and human being talks about all the different paths of his muscial life.
Original member of Country Joe & The Fish talks about life on the bandstand when music dictated our culture.
Dynamic Bay Area soul singer talks about coming up at a time of regional musical growth in Oakland and beyond.
Freddie Hubbard - tpt; Bill Watrous - tbn; Hubert Laws - fl; Sonny Rollins - ts; Rahsaan Roland Kirk -ts, manzello; McCoy Tyner - pno; Chick Corea - keybds; George Benson - gtr; Stanley Clarke - bs; Lenny White - dr; Airto -perc, Weather Report
Drummer for Peter Tosh and Bob Marley talks about his responsibilities as a time keeper.
Guitarist, bandleader and music aficionado talks about the different tributaries of his musical journey.
Bandleader talks about the ebbs and flows of life during Covid and his musical philosophies as it relates to making his latest record.
Blazing guitarist in the Sons of Champlin talks about his peers like John Cipollina and Jerry Miller.
Preserving and promoting the iconic music festival 50 years later with two drummers who performed there. Live from The Brava Theater in San Francisco from July 2019
Drums interlude from a live Grateful Dead performance at the Rockpalast in Germany.
3/28/81
Part of Us
by Ray Neapolitan
In the music community I was involved in, there was no discrimination, there were no barriers. I don’t remember playing an event or with a band where there were a lot of social comments.
We looked up to the black musicians; they were always a part of us. Especially growing up in Chicago—those guys were my idols. We never held fear or prejudice in our neighborhoods, or our families or our schools. Obviously there was a lot going on, but not in my Italian/Black/Jewish neigh-borhood. They were just part of us.
For a small period of time, Bill Goodwin and I worked with The Treniers, a totally black Chitlin’ Circuit band. They were twin brothers: Cliff and Claude. It had that Louis Prima kind of vibe.
We traveled a lot with one of the family members named Milt through the South. We’d stay in people’s homes. In 1958 there were separate bathrooms. Bill and I did have to go into certain places to get sandwiches for everybody.
When we played in front of an all-black audience, they accepted Bill and me. Sometimes Danny Long was with us, so it would be a white trio behind this black band. We never felt any discrimination. It was wonderful.
How Can You Turn Us Down?
by Bob Barsotti
In 1985 we went to Ventura County Fairgrounds with The Dead. There were a lot of people outside the show that didn’t have tickets, and that caused a bunch of problems. A bunch of condo owners had people sneaking naked into their swimming pools. They wanted to stop it and there was a general consensus in town that there were too many drugs and they should ban the concerts there.
The Ventura Fairgrounds bowed to the public pressure and they banned the Grateful Dead. They didn’t even tell us; they just announced it and then called me. So there had been a public statement that the GD had been banned, which was not good for business.
We decided we had to fight this. We went down to the next board meeting in Ventura and we put out the word to the Deadheads, “Come to this meeting.” We packed the place with people that were positive. We got the Chamber of Commerce to give us a big thumbs up, because all the businesses were making a lot of money from all the people coming in from out of town.
We went to the Board and said, “You have some disgruntled neighbors. Some Heads left some garbage at their pool and broke a chaise longue. Well, I paid them for the chaise longue and I told them we’ll have a security crew and a cleanup crew over there the next time we come in. The issues that created their problem have been dealt with, and look at all the rest of this community who are in support of us. How can you turn us down?”
They said, “OK, we rescind our ban, and you’re welcome to come back.” That was done because we had the power of the Grateful Dead and one of the hugest audiences in the world on our side.
But we knew our time was really done in Ventura. The problems were going to keep occurring because we had outgrown the place, but we didn’t want to have this stain on our reputation. Once we got the approval to come back, we made them announce that we had the approval, so the world would know the ban was no longer in effect. We waited about a month and then told them, “We feel we’ve outgrown your facility, and to be responsible entertainers we’re going to go to a place that can handle a larger crowd.” That’s when we split and moved over to Irvine Meadows.
Prolific double bassist talks about his career from the clubs of Chicago to the studios of Los Angeles.
Blazing electric guitarist talks about working in the studios in Chicago with The Soulful Strings.
Prolific Chicago studio drummer talks about his affiliations with Dick Schory and Ovation Records.
Incredible funk and rhythm guitarist talks about playing with luminaries like John Scofield.
Blazing guitarist talks about the challenges and benefits of being a leader on the bandstand.
Gifted singer songwriter talks about following the muse and creating songs that speak to a higher purpose and power.
Prolific session guitarist and live player talks about his late father Allyn and the pioneer that he was in the world of music.
Charismatic and talented bandleader talks about the state of her music and musicality in a psychedelicized universe.
Divine Yogic Goddess talks about her daily practice and trying to inspire others through her devotion.
Documentary film maker and producer and curator talks about the making of the Bob Weir doc Long Strange Trip.
Capricorn studio musician/producer talks about working with the late great Johnny Sandlin.
Graceful and burning multi-reed player talks about playing this art form known as "jazz."
Brilliant pianist talks about working with his brothers and sisters at a very different time in our musical landscape.
Street performer and folk/rock musician talks about her pathway towards individualism and singularity as a musician.
Movie producer talks about crafting documentaries around iconic 60's era bands like The Doors and the Grateful Dead.
Life coach discusses the supernatural forces of the universe happening all around her when she is open and vulnerable.
Burning guitarist from famed Batdorf and Rodney talks about growing up around the icons of jazz like his father Red.
Exceptional time keeper and feel drummer talks about being raised by Art Blakey and the jazz community that existed in this country at one time.
Burning pedal steel guitarist talks about fitting into all different kinds of musical settings.
Master horn man and spiritual conduit on the bandstand talks about his singular journey as his own Neville Brother.
Known as the "Nigerian Nightmare" Christian Okoye talks of his accomplishments on and off the field.
Blazing guitarist talks about cut sessions at the Carousel Ballroom with Terry Haggerty and Peter Green.
Amazing trombone and tubist talks about his days working with Howard Johnson and the band Gravity and Blood Sweat & Tears.
Indispensable big band and studio drummer talks about playing with Nelson Riddle and the Butts Band.
World Percussionist and rhythmic healer talks about finding oneness in all of life through mantras, meditation and music.
Music writer and purveyor of the arts talks about finding his voice as an objective journalist and reporter.
Psychedelic Storm Chasers
by Steve Brown
The scene was a very psychedelic scene. A psychedelic scene has to deal with not just the adventure but that when you walked in you didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t know if you were ever going to come down, you didn’t know if you were going to get busted, you didn’t know if you were going to die (’cause that did happen on tour). At the same time, for those of us who made it through the door, it changed our lives forever.
The Grateful Dead were never about “just the music.” The Grateful Dead were always about collective consciousness. Ken Kesey and Wavy Gravy are also about collective consciousness. It means that “we are us.” Back in the day, if you were to go to a Dead show, the show started when you hit the parking lot. There were the drum circles, the disco bus, the vendors. We were psychedelic storm chasers that, both internally and externally, had a self-sufficient community that went from place to place. Music was not only a soundtrack. The Grateful Dead at their peak were able to channel the energy from the crowd, absorb it, and give it back. That didn’t necessarily translate into music all the time. Sometimes that translated into weird space sounds. Sometimes that translated into a dark jam, but they were able to relate with what was going on in the scene and then reflect it and translate it back to us. At the same time that we were absorbing that energy, we were dancing; we were reflecting and sending that energy back to them. It was one big group mind. That was the magic of The Grateful Dead. Even though Jerry’s health started to suffer from the overall scene, that collective community—that’s really what it was all about.
I was very fortunate that I got to tour with The Grateful Dead for almost a decade. That somehow landed me here in the Northwest. We were completely surrounded by freaks from all generations. I live near Eugene, Oregon, a town where nobody really ever grows up. The Hippies are still the Hippies, the Punks are still the Punks, the New Agers are still the New Agers.
Drive-in Movie
by Katherine Wilson
Ken Kesey was a 3-D artist. He was somebody who wanted to create worlds. He didn’t want to just write the book: he saw who was acting in it, the locations. He was a filmmaker.
That incredible grant that he got to go to Stanford, then he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He went to Hollywood for a year to write screenplays, then he got this grant and wrote that novel. The film of it wound up winning more Academy Awards than any film in history except one, 47 years ago.
Kesey was so cinematic. He was a great cinematic writer. We were always making films. He was part of Gus Van Sant making a film. He was everywhere films were being made
Ken met with Michael Douglas during the making of Cuckoo’s Nest. Michael idolized Kesey. Michael was living on a compound in Santa Barbara. He wanted Ken to be part of the production.
Animal House was set in 1962. The screenplay was so bad that I didn’t want to work on it. At first it was going to be set in November 1963, the day before John F. Kennedy got shot. If you look at Animal House, there’s a float with Jackie Kennedy on it wearing her pink hat and a giant sculpture of Kennedy’s face. All the universities turned it down, and that was probably why they changed it to 1962, before the world changed in 1963. The Kingsmen’s hit version of “Louie Louie” came out that year.
Animal House was supposed to be a drive-in movie; it had a drive-in movie budget. The University of Oregon said yes to it. I’m in film and people would ask me, “Why do you think The University of Oregon would say ‘yes’?” I answered, “Because it’s the home of the Merry Pranksters.” A lot of the Pranksters were celebrated Oregon alumni: Mike Hagen, Jackie Springer, and George Walker.
What blew the producers away was that all of these “Kesey Filmmakers” had skills they needed for the film. They hired all of us. Hagen had run off to LA.
We were working on Animal House, and the whole community showed up. All these people helped make the movie look like a million bucks. Universal said, “Hey, we’ve got to put more money into it, but before we do, you’re going to need to have a star.” The directors and the producers said to themselves, “Hey, well let’s see. We’re on a one-million-dollar budget right now. We’ll have like two million if we can get a star. Who do we know that’s a star?”
John Belushi goes, “Well, all these filmmakers around here are referring to Ken Kesey and he’d be a great professor, right? He actually was one once.” John Landis and Belushi drove out to Ken’s house and within 15 minutes Kesey had made up his mind. He was not interested; he was not an actor. Then Belushi mimicked Del Close, this guy who taught him improv in Chicago. Kesey fell on the floor laughing, because it was so spot on.
Guitarist and owner of The Write-Off Room talks about the cultivation of the live music experience on the bandstand and as a impresario.
Master pianist and songwriter talks about playing with his elders and leaning to develop his own sound.
Guitarist and singer from Midnight North talks about learning from his father and carving his own path towards individual freedom on the bandstand.
Multi-instrumentalist and bandleader talks about playing with titans of music and how he tries to implore that universal knowledge on younger cats.
Divine mother and entrepreneur talks about the home birthing process and the discrimination that still lies at the surface in western society
Divine lawyer and altruistic leader talks about her philosophies as it relates to following the muse and leading with her heart.
Legendary session bass player talks about playing with Jesse Ed Davis and the late great Don Heffington.
Legendary session guitarist talks about his work with Marvin Gaye and Cannonball Adderley.
Continuation of a discussion about leadership, love, overcoming adversity and the lineage of all music.
Electric musician talks about his love of all music's and his ability to fit into any musical setting.
Legendary funk bassist and producer talks about how the music business has changed since he was thriving with Freddy Stewart.
Producer and session cat talks about the current state of live music in Australia and pre-production magic with Seals & Crofts.
Gifted singer songwriter talks about working as a staff writer at Sigma Sound and the elemental components of healing music.
Blazing inventive guitarist from The Meters talks about the ebbs and flows of his musical career.
Prolific bassist talks about continuing to grow as a musician and find her individual voice.
Road Manager for Stax' west coast operation talks about working with Pops Staples and Isaac Hayes.
Jerry had recognized Brent on a JGB tour with Bob Weir Band. He and Bobby both felt that Brent could be a good fit for the band. After this jam the rest is history. Easy To Love You.
4/16/79 San Rafael, CA
Drums 4:32
Jam 4:14
Passenger 7:01
Jam 10:39
Scarlet 7:36
Fire 13:06
Jam 10:48
Jam 16:48
Jack Straw
Guitarist and band leader talks about the winding road to become a viable name in jazz and find his own individual sound.
Decorated drummer talks about his life on the bandstand and being resourceful in the age of Covid.
Guitarist and singer from The Mother Hips and Green Leaf Rustlers talks about surviving and thriving as a creative touring musician.
Founder of Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR) talks about his involvement in music and the musicians.
Completely individual drummer talks about his musical point of view and how he is the drum.
Decorated singer and keyboardist talks about the societal ills that continue to hamper our country and the world because of inequality.
Electrifying soul groove guitarist talks about the different bands he leads and how to give back to the music community at large.
Decorated guitarist and bandleader talks about getting comfortable finding his own individual sound and what he learned from the masters like Dizzy and Henry Threadgill.
Divine healer and life coach talks about her island upbringing and how she learned to love herself.
Singer songwriter and producer talks about clearing his head and approaching any musical situation with vulnerability.
Sonically expanding pianist and keyboardist talks about his journey to trust in the moment when making love on the bandstand.
Leader of the Mother Hips talks about his musical point of view and bandstand experiences.
Burning fiddler talks about finding ways of incorporating an acoustic instrument into all musical settings.
Groove and funk drummer from Bogalusa, LA talks about getting his start in music and playing with Weather Report.
Brilliant studio and live player talks about being raised by his musical brothers on the west coast which helped him find his niche as a first call guitarist on the east coast.
Iconic bassist talks his father dealing with the Klan growing up in Texas and then moving the family out to a more tolerant, inclusive Southern, Ca. The rest is history.....
Jazz/funk drummer from San Jose talks about playing on the bandstand with John Lee Hooker, Mel Brown and Tower of Power.
Band leader and activist talks about keeping the lineage of the Mardi Gras Indians intact down in the Bayou.
Decorated saxophonist and band leader talks about being raised by his musical forefathers like Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and Pete LaRoca.
Divine spirit talks about the offerings she makes to the world through her understanding of love and true nature.
Blues based singer songwriter talks about the tightrope required to live a musical life.
Versatile and inventive trombonist talks about working on the bandstand and in the academy.
Blazing guitarist talks about being raised by his musical fathers like Paul Butterfield and Gene Dinwiddie
Tenacious and vibrant yogic healer talks about her journey towards enlightenment and salvation in a dogmatic world. Go your own way.....
Savant pianist from Australia talks about his journey to the United States and being embraced by black musicians.
Gifted bop and spiritual pianist talks about her career alongside her husband Elmo Hope.
Dynamic videographer and team member of Circles Around The Sun comes at it from her point of view.
Gifted studio and live guitarist talks about the collaborations and connections he's made in music.
Actress and intergalactic being talks about finding her own voice on the stage and her healing journey to India.
Divine celestial goddess talks about channeling her true nature to become a vessel for information and enlightenment.
Legendary bassist from Omaha, NE talks about playing with Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles.
Finding the Feel
I love what Ringo said when drum machines were invented: “I’m the drum machine!” Keltner and I have talked about Ringo. He gets criticized because of his technique, but it’s the feel. For drummers the space between one beat and the next is the whole deal. If you push it, you’re playing military marching band stuff. If you wait till the last second to play the next beat, you’re playing the blues.
That’s a huge thing to us. When The Doors started, we jammed on the blues. But when we got into our originals, Ray and I were finding the feel. Jim’s words gave it to me. It was appropriate for those songs. Thank God we felt the thing the same.
South African jazz trumpeter talks about coming to the United States and acclimating to the New York music scene. A frank discussion about the deep seeded racism that confounds the world. RIP.
Jazz/funk drummer talks about his musical collaborations and publications about drumming technique.
Sublime trumpeter and band leader talks about the experiences that shaped his musical point of view.
Poster artist and co-founder of Deadbase (Song Lists for the Grateful Dead) talks about his own artistic development and how the culture of San Francisco impacted the music and society at large.
Singer songwriter and co-leader of Mapache talks about his gratitude to the music and the community that has rallied together during the pandemic.
Great producer and musician talks about the early days of the Los Angeles studio and music scene.....
Legendary session bassist talks about staying in the groove in the studio and on the bandstand.
Titanic bassist and band leader talks about the road ahead for CATS following the loss of Neal Casal.
Multi-instrumentalist talks about finding his own percussive voice and road-dogging it with bands like Billy Goat and Nolatet.
Funk/Jazz guitarist talks about surviving and thriving as a musician in the 21st Century.
Texas, Hampton Hawes, Steve Gadd, Gary Katz, Donald Fagan, Everett Barksdale, Bernard Purdie, Spider Webb, David Clayton Thomas, Practice, Practice, Practice, Tuba, Drugs, Slop Jar, Paul Humphrey
The Jake Feinberg Show
In the weeks leading up to our conversation at AZPM Chuck and I did nearly three hours of woodshedding regarding life as a musician. So much great insight about longevity, practice, resiliency, paralysis, hard times, perseverance and native spirit. Love Always, JF
Legendary singer and band leader talks about growing up around the beats and jazzers like Stan Getz.
Profound radio host and ethnomusicologist talks about Black Wall Street and the music of Tulsa.
Multi-dimensional guitarist talks about surviving as a musician during the pandemic, his musical roots and possibilities for the road ahead.
Iconic double bass player talks about his humble upbringing and his deep jazz roots. (RIP)
Legendary singer and part of the trifecta known as The Rowan Brothers talks about navigating a sustainable life in music.
Brilliant vocalist talks about how the significance of music has changed in our culture and why she continues to strive for individual sound.
Gifted rock and pop drummer talks about working with iconic musical figures and giving them what they want.
Dynamic saxophonist and band leader talks about his rich beginnings in the fertile bastion of Oakland, CA
Dedicated percussionist and sound healer talks about her musical experiments and need for sonic expansion....
Incomparable drummer talks about the pandemic blues and different states of consciousness on the bandstand.
House drummer for Late Night Conan O'Brian talks about his deep musical roots and how he joined the E-Street Band.
Cosmic drummer talks about his personal and professional relationships with Elvin Jones, Rick Danko and Paul McCartney.
Iconic drummer talks about seeking out the authentic artists and making love on the bandstand.
Legendary Canadian string bassist talks about learning to find his own sound on the bandstand.
Throw back drummer talks about his soul jazz influences and his collaborations with Steven Van Zandt's Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
Part of the legendary soul outfit known as The Chambers Brothers, Lester talks being raised by dharma bums playing congas on the beach and the ills of money and family.
Humble and devout musician talks about experiences that shaped his musical and spiritual philosophies.
Multi-faceted singer songwriter and record producer talks about being saturated in mediocrity and keeping his artistic integrity a cut above both on the bandstand and in the studio.
Cosmic singer/songwriter talks about walking away from a life of conformity and group think and accessing her multi-dimensional self through the delicate balance of art and entertainment.
Versatile and unique keyboardist talks about making a career on the bandstand as a creative musician.
My guest today is an Afro-American musical wizard. He developed his chops on the bandstand growing up at the tale end of swing and developing his own style within the bebop language.
My guest understands the African roots of his music and merged this with the blues of Chicago which were coming up the Mississippi Delta.
He found the groove in bars and nightclubs, ballrooms and burlesque houses. Could have been the London House or the Regal Theatre swinging his band and merging two different tunes by raising the hand and showing one finger or two.
My guest has an entrepreneurial spirit. He never plays the same song once, preferring the improvisational melodies that make real jazz what it is. He has done this before during and after the record industry helped create an identity for cats like Dizzy Gillespie, Ramsey Lewis, Randy Weston, Horace Silver and Milt Jackson.
He's toured the world playing late into the evening at "Oil Can Harry's." A club in Vancouver with the venerable Calvin Keys and fellow steel city bassist John Heard. He's cut albums and soundtracks on Argo and Chess, Catalyst and 20th Century.
Today we live in the 21st century where labels have stratified music. This has led to a rigid radio structure and a shrinking record business. Throw in the fact that six night a week gigs are non existent and the music community faces a supply and demand crisis.
How do you create your own individual sound in academia? How do you get more secure on the bandstand without the consistent live engagements? How can you develop an identity in a business that values twitter followers and looks as opposed to burning music you can feel in your gut.
Looking for answers with a legend, Ahmad Jamal welcome to the JFS.
Guitarist and producer talks about his life in music and forging a path towards individuality.
Cosmic musical enforcer talks about creating art within the construct of a band and experiences that shaped his point of view.
Chicago drummer talks about the musical and personal experiences that made him who he is today.
Iconic Scaticonian talks about his life at camp and overcoming adversity in his personal life.
Brilliant pianist and composter talks about his musical upbringing and education on the bandstand.
Blues and gospel guitarist talks about the Open Door Mission in Oklahoma City, OK and bringing light and music to people through music.
Cosmic Vedic Dweller talks about the common era of offense taken by people and how to study yourself to change your habitual nature.
Gifted and versatile drummer talks about his musical collaborations with Phil Lesh, Bruce Hornsby and John Fogerty.
My guest today is traversing the United States in a bus with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. That's New Orleans but so is the salty blues and the Afro jazz that Ellis Marsalis and Harold Batiste have been playing for decades.
My guest came of age when labels began to define music. Race records>R&B but when Elvis started singing that music it became rock. My guest had to learn how to advocate in a metropolitan center, a gumbo of odd Meters and Native Americans playing funky beats, pulsating rhythms that echo with the sounds of Congo Square.
Sea-Side Records became the operation headquarters as my guest reaped the treasure brought in by younger bands playing his tunes. I think of Lowell George and Little Feat, Levon Helm and The Band and old Medicine Show buddy Mac Rebenack playing at The Blue Cat where the strippers would dance to Duke Ellington tunes.....@/)
His understanding of the industry allowed him to expand his musical repertoire and become a leader of Love Life and Faith. Those are two of the L's of the Jake Feinberg Show.
Albums on Reprise spoke of the Strut, hand to mouth relationships that some of us know. to sweet Louisiana soul from the bogs and swamps and fried alligator gumbo stew of The Big Easy with the Meters as his rhythm section playing a center of the universe boogie with danceable Southern Night after Night after Night.....
He has witnessed the music industry shrink into a small business, he's seen the infiltration of click tracks and the elimination of bleed through radio channels, shrinking live music venues and a new generation of musicians raised on electronic beats to pacify rather than inspire. Messages that denigrate as opposed to uplift. From the Sanctified Churches to the Mega Church.....it all rolls into one.
I'll Take A Melody Allan Toussaint welcome to the JFS
Houston is the city where the shuffle beat came from. When you play the shuffle with a back beat or a double back beat, that’s what I grew up playing.
Houston also created a great tenor-sax sound. We came out of marching bands and we had to learn how to project our sound. We’re not talking sound, we’re talking projection, which is a difference. In Texas everybody had a strong sound, so they could play slower notes. Horn players today don’t work with those long tones. If you don’t have long tones, then you have to play a lot of notes. That’s why The Crusaders had that open sound. They were spreading sound over the rhythm.
What I loved about growing up in Texas in the late 1940s and early 50s was the love. There was so much love, so there was so much music. I would lie in my yard at night and stare up at the big sky. I would dream about what was around the world and I would tell my parents, “One day I’m going to go around the world.”
My uncle was Don Robey, who managed Jesse Belvin and Bobby “Blue” Bland. He had Sam Cooke when he was singing gospel with Lou Rawls and Isaac Hayes singing background. My father was the studio drummer.
When I heard Bobby’s “In the Ghetto,” that to me was bebop. It was the sound of his voice and how his voice would ride the rhythm like a wind blowing across the Texas plain.
Music is understanding the space of the beats, letting it breathe. Bird didn’t let the music breathe, so if I’d listened to him, I would have killed myself, because I couldn’t take a breath. It was moving too fast and it didn’t touch me, because it didn’t have earth connected to it.
I hadn’t seen New York then and I didn’t realize that New York was cement and steel and little vegetation, so there was no oxygen. You had to move fast or you’d suffocate.
Singer/songwriter from Mapache talks about his ability to keep balance of mind, body and spirit during the pandemic.
Gifted saxophonist talks about his musical collaborations with Michael Shrieve and Miles Davis.
Dynamic Chicago drummer talks about learning to develop grooves and rhythm patterns that he learned from his heroes and make them his own.
Founding member of The Lost Poets talks about the other half of American history, the power of the drum and spoken word.
Blazing tenor saxophonist talks about connecting and playing with Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie and how the application of music education has changed since he was coming up.
Brilliant singer songwriter talks about his career and the ups and downs of the music business.
Brilliant pedal steel player and founding member of Poco talks about his journeys in a musical life.
Cosmic bassist talks about the mystical qualities of music and how she has integrated her yogic practices into different modalities.
Brilliant musician, composer and arranger talks about finding his original sound on the bandstand.
Prolific younger drummer talks about his approach to rhythm and driving a band by keeping time and dancing on the kit.
An in-depth discussion about the organization Psychedelic Sangha and the unique vibe needed to inspire cats to drop into a sacred space. Sounds From Bardo.....
Iconic singer/songwriter talks about the jazz aesthetics in his own music and staying inspired to create during Covid.
Cosmic guitarist and song writer talks about life as a musician and following the muse.
Dynamic New Orleans drummer talks about finding his own sound and playing through time on the bandstand.
Cosmic guitarist and band leader talks about the beginnings of the San Francisco scene.
Divine singer/songwriter talks about her musical upbringing and being on the bandstand with Jerry Garcia
Funky guitarist/bassist and owner of Fat Jimmy Amplifiers talks about his life in the musical world.
Legendary electric bass player talks about learning from his mentors like Bobby Durham and Charles Mingus.
Trumpeter talks about his musical relationships with Billy Harper, John Kahn and Mike Bloomfield
Polyrhythmic jazz drummer talks about the influence of Mahapurush Misra and playing the Half Note in San Francisco with Al Jarreau and George Duke.
New Orleans guitarist talks about learning to find his own sound and how his father taught him to be a force on the bandstand.
Unheralded and versatile drummer talks about learning his craft and applying that on the bandstand.
Percussionist and deep listener talks about her path towards peace through rhythm and environmental sound.
Sonic wizard, musician and engineer talks about his improbable journey with the Grateful Dead and beyond.
Elegant and divine singer songwriter talks about staying humble and crafting authentic music and song that is aligned with her spirit and multi-dimensional self.
*Photo by Benjamin Kim
Dynamic young reiki healer and empath talks about breaking away from the confines of societies rules in college and how that has put her on a path towards her purpose in this life.
Bop trombonist talks about his early days in Chicago playing with Sun Ra all the way through MWANDISHI and beyond.....
Bay Area soul singer talks about her collaborations with Larry Bradford and her tenure with the Jerry Garcia Band
Multi-dimensional pianist talks about playing with Shaman musicians and the current state of live playing in America. The Sword of Discernment now more than ever.....
Multi-dimensional transpersonal psychotherapist talks about her evolution in this lifetime.
Conversation revolving around The Church of God, Altadena and authenticity in recorded music.
Entertainment lawyer and advocate talks about her love of music, the musicians and the need for a sustainable touring circuit.
Melodic and explosive session guitarist talks about riding the musical rollercoaster of life.
Master studio and live multi-instrumentalist talks about doing something no one else did! (RIP)
Musical healer talks about her roots in the motherland and how she has brought that lineage into the universal language of music.
Legendary guitarist talks about his musical and personal relationship with Gregg Allman
Cosmic guitarist talks about growing up overseas and coming of age as a blues player in the vibrant blues bastion of San Francisco.
Divine psychic hermit talks about innervisions and the spirit voices that come through her radiance.
Blazing session guitarist talks about finding his own sound in the studio and on the bandstand.
Divine yogic priestess talks about the balance between the divine feminine and divine masculine within each of us.
Divine shaman and healer talks about overcoming adversity in her early years and how that drive and strength has helped her harness her true nature as a yogic teacher.
Musical and artistic curator talks about forming relationships and putting on independently run concerts with a collective of like minded patron saints. Folk Yourself.....
*photo by Neal Casal
Famed Canadian drummer talks about the mountain of musical history he has been a part of.
Avant garde folk/psych singer/songwriter talks about what drives him to be a creative musician.
Divine priestess talks about her initiation to source, her yogic lineage and the appropriate roles of the divine masculine and feminine in union.
Individualism is key in all art. To be individualistic you must borrow from others which means you have to get inside their world and become more secure because of the insecurity. You are humbled not by the money or name recognition but because of the genuine article. The good Reverand Gary Davis who sits somewhere high stop the Fur Peace Rance drinkin whiskey smoking a cigar and mentoring my guest.
About how to handle yourself in live settings even if your playing in a bar... in front of five people with a combined total of 3 teeth. How to carry yourself, to be yourself and forever create.
Expanding sound has always been on of my guests priorities. He uses a finger pick technique that creates a Rosen scented Oz of skin to string. The direct physical contact without any accoutrements. These acoustic performances blend folk with blues and the remnants of legal LSD which was the Crown of Creation in the Bay Area. My guest was a member of Jefferson Airplane which was a band that mushroomed out of the melting pot movements of the late sixties. They amplified sound out of speakers at the old Fillmore all While being immersed with peers who also had large sonic palettes like Santana, Garcia, and Papa John Creach. My guest learned to sing his mind verse after verse after verse and then extrapolate off of that with Jack Casady and one Hot Tuna seared medium rare with a side power trio that has the proficiency but also the love needed to make authentic music.
Recently my guest found his groove @ Levon Helm's recording studio and performance venue where he recorded his CD River of Time as the weeping willows cast their shadows on the banks green edge.
Hot Tuna and Leon Russell will be @ the Rialto theatre Jan 24th here in Tucson. Jorma Kaukonen welcome to the JFS
Divine healer talks about her own upbringing in nature and being humbled by the cruelties of the outside world and how she has learned to cultivate her own spirit and life force to inspire her clients and herself.
Legendary engineer and producer talks about his love of music and getting the right sound for each session.
Yogic practitioner talks about coming to peace with her sisters tragic death by communicating with her through dreams and spirit messaging. Healing mantras provided by divine conduit in a dystopic time for humanity.
Dynamic drummer talks about cultivating his sound as a creative on the kit while still holding it down with Vince Guaraldi, Mike Nock and his brother in The Loading Zone. A testament to the human spirit.
Gifted double bassist talks about learning under the masters growing up in Berkeley and how he has learned to find his own sound and time feel in an age of musical homogenization.
The rhythm that fits, the driving pulsating force that lent itself to hip hugging bootie shaking boogie music. 10 minutes in a Cold Sweat just give some bread and I'll be straight.
My guest is a rhythm king. Being able to swing the band and play the blues and funk and jazz. Choppy rhythms that he taught himself growing up in Chattanooga. He took in the sounds of industrial America. The steam engines of the little engine that could, chugging along with no formal training. Just a feel and a willingness to go there will JB. Elevating his tunes to popular tunes throughout the world.
His beats have been sampled relentlessly by my generation in a very different musical environment. I am more inspired by my guest longevity, still doing it after 50 years, his leadership of knowing when things were a good fit and when things had gotten stale. His love of all peoples because after all we are one race, the human race and the language of the drums is never to be discounted when trying to reach a spiritual apex. His love also permutes to the legions of younger trap drummers he has mentored taught and influenced.
Clyde Stubblefield welcome to the JFS
Prodigious pianist and composer talks about finding his own original sound and bringing it to the bandstand in a myriad of settings.
Conguero talks about what makes a good leader and how he gives back to our society to enhance our culture.
Ubiquitous guitarist talks about learning to play across the entire musical spectrum with Oregon, John Abercrombie and his own collectives.
Iconic singer songwriter talks about his early folk days in Los Angeles that ultimately culminated in Country Joe & The Fish, a solo career and another chapter as a defense attorney.
Plant based healer and artist talks about her journey this past year in Guatemala, Peru and Estonia and how what we believe will manifest not just in our mind but body and spirit as well.
Devoted polyrhythmic healer talks about healing herself and others through ragas and beyond.
Divine coach and intergalactic being talks about the balance of the divine masculine and feminine within her and the rolls that each has in intimacy with an authentic partner.
Vital singer songwriter talks about her upcoming release, the confinements of an artist in the age of COVID while seeing brightness on the horizon.
Legendary multi-instrumentalist talks about his life as a musician and Merry Prankster.
Filmmaker and editor talks about staying inspired during COVID and finding true love for the first time.
Singer/songwriter talks about his latest artistic creations and the need for patience to see them come to fruition in divine radiance.
Embodied healer talks about overcoming trauma in her early life, healing herself, learning to forgive and falling into a space of gratitude, purpose and divine radiance.
Divine priestess talks about her life in stages: First with Rock Skully and The Grateful Dead and then finding her purpose as a healer with her own lineage.
Versatile and humble pianist/composer talks about his approach to music and the long road towards finding his purpose as a creative.
Iconic trumpeter talks about his generation of musicians who have continued to adhere to the traditions of America's only true art form all the while expanding the language as well.
Original Prankster still operating at a high frequency in artistic creation and wisdom.
Blue eyed soul singer and guitarist talks about learning to cultivate her true nature on the bandstand.
Gifted and individual drummer talks about his mentors like Roy Brooks and the continual healing capacity of jazz rhythms.
Scatico stalwart talks about camp and how his life has moved beyond the green and white.
Brilliant sarod player talks about his late father (Ali Akbar Khan) and his own musical excursions including playing with Charles Lloyd and Shanti.
Upper echelon guitarist talks about being influenced by all the greats and how he eventually found his own voice.
Elegant healer talks about developing her karma and charisma from the Vedic perspective. No fixed zodiac....
English bandleader and guitarist talks about his musical upbringing and coming to the states to play with the Cats!
Composer and pianist talks about a musicians mind in the age of COVID. Looking forward to the release of Sandbar....
Silverton singer talks about her latest musical creation and the evolution of her soul in the music.
It’s the End of My Trip by Dr. Larry Brilliant Sometime in the mid-90s we were on this land in Mendocino County. Wavy, Wavy’s wife Jah, my wife Girija, and I have a piece of land in Mendocino County, where Wavy has this remarkable Camp Winnarainbow. We were having a concert; it may have been called The Kate Wolf Concert at the time. There were about 5,000 people attending a Los Lobos concert on this land. At one point Wavy was on stage, and he had his microphone and a megaphone. While he was introducing them, he looked off in the distance at Route 101. You could see from the stage, coming down the road, coming towards the concert grounds, was a bus. As it got closer, you could see this was a psychedelic-painted bus. As it got closer and closer, I saw it said FURTHUR II. The crowd split in order to allow this bus to drive in, approaching the stage. The music stopped, Wavy was on stage, with his microphone, and as the bus got closer and closer Wavy was saying to the group, “I think it’s Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters.” The bus stopped like a Vulcan Starship looking at The Starship Enterprise decloaking. They’d all got their phasers on “stun.” Kesey made his way to the top of the bus and opened the hatch. He’d got a microphone and a megaphone himself. He yelled out, “Wavy, how are you?” Wavy says, “Welcome, Ken, nice to see you. You’re interrupting our concert.” Kesey responds: “I brought FURTHUR here and The Merry Pranksters, but I also have a great guest here. Wavy, don’t you agree we have failed to honor the elders of this movement we’re part of as much as we should?” Wavy and Kesey are having this conversation; 5,000 people were listening from the stage and the top of the bus. Kesey continued, “Well, I brought an elder with me that I think that we should honor. His name is Timothy Leary.” Making his way up the steps at the top of the bus from the inside was Timothy Leary in a sorcerer’s outfit and his little wizard pointy scepter. He was very thin and obviously dying of liver cancer. He struggled and got to the top of the bus, raised his wizard’s wand, and went around in a circle blessing all 5,000 people. Then he looked to Wavy and said, “Wavy, I’m dying; it’s the end of my trip. It’s been a wonderful trip. I’m not afraid of dying.” Kesey took the microphone and said, “Wavy, I think we need to honor Tim Leary now. What I have in mind is canonizing Tim Leary. Wavy, do you agree that Tim Leary should be canonized?” Wavy replied, “Yes, of course, but how will you canonize Tim Leary?” Kesey said, “I’m glad you asked.” We started to hear this sound of a motor grinding and something being elevated onto the top of the bus. After a lot of grinding, suddenly you saw he’d got this real cannon on top of the bus. Kesey announced, “I brought my own cannon to canonize Tim Leary.” Everyone was getting a little nervous. It was a crowded area and it was a big cannon. Kesey struck a match, the kind you would see in a comic book. He put it on the end of the cannon and there was a “boom,” but not a great blast. From the cannon came confetti and stars that showered down on everybody at the concert. Kesey said, “I hereby canonize Tim Leary.” The crowd went wild and Wavy went wild. That was the Theatre of Ken Kesey.
Inspirational pianist and composer talks about his concepts of free music and improvisation with Ken Kesey
Theatrical Merry Prankster talks about his collaborations with Ken and Chuck Kesey. Ode to Skypilot and Walker. Furthur...
“When I moved to New York I lived on the lower east side. I started finding people who were like me. We were all living on brown rice and vegetables because that’s all anyone could afford. They were unknown musicians who wanted to start a career. There were a lot of avant garde jam sessions where there was not a normal tune being played, it was all free, and they would last all night.
In the “Free Spirits” we were just jammin’ we wanted to really stretch outs, play in a very raw and primitive direction. You didn’t want to fix your stuff, leave it the way it is. We were trying to realize our true selves through music. Some of the people who didn’t care for that kind of experimentation mockingly called it “doing your own thing.” There was a little polarization even back then. It was what we wanted to do, we came from it that way.
A lot of people were taking LSD and playing. Looking back on it, one acid trip would have been enough. It opened doors to perceiving music from that standpoint, all the other acid trips are just a waste of time. As far as I'm concerned I think it's a very dangerous drug.
I did what I did and I'm glad it's over. A lot of my experiences were positive but it's still a drug, it's still artificial. It's not really real.
I had a loft in NYC. If people could walk up four flights of stairs we would jam. At that time I don't even remember talking to anyone about money for the first ten or fifteen years of my career.
That's right around the time Charlie Mariano was moving from New York to Cologne Germany. Chico had just moved to NYC from LA so there was a lot of transition going on. Chico needed a guitar player and I happened to be right there.
The first gig I ever did with Chico it was two guitars, me and Gabor Szabo. Gabor was my mentor in that context.”
Professional drummer talks about his evolution in recognizing intention without expectation in music and in life.
Divine conduit talks about the revival that set her on a course towards her true nature as a leader, advocate and objective voice for those looking to transcend the thinking mind and access the spirit mind.
Blazing electric bassist talks about pushing the envelope on the bandstand and her longing to merge the spiritual with the technical to create new musical vocabulary.
Soul singer and band leader talks about her upbringing in the sanctified church and her ability to be "seen" as an authentic artist while aligning with her true nature
Profound thinker and healer talks about her own path towards healing and growth and how she helps her students/clients develop their own yogic voice.
Dynamic duo of Sam Blasucci & Clay Finch talk about being true to themselves and channeling original music from the heart.
Fiery and ubiquitous musician talks about using her violin and voice in union to access her multi-dimensional self.
Original singer and songwriter talks about her wide range of musical apptiude and experience with Jerry Garcia to McFadden & Whitehead.
Fearless guitar pioneer talks about experiential learning through bandstand experience and accessing world music at its source.
Inventive and spiritual pianist talks about surrendering to his true nature and accessing his multi-dimensional self through kundalini yoga
Fearless soul hunter talks about creating her own yogic sanctuary and finding her voice in an organic and graceful fashion.
Divine healer talks about her cross-cultural upbringing, recognizing and breaking away from an unhealthy marriage, and creating a client base through authentic spirit based healing.
Fiery practitioner and Earth based angel talks about experiencing and impacting her life in a proactive and non-judgmental fashion.
Director and producer of Humanity Stoked talks about overcoming fear and relinquishing "the treadmill of life" for a higher calling and sense of purpose to philanthropize.
Cosmic keyboard wizard and programmer talks about the unquantifiable nature of spiritual music and how it has healed him time and again.
Spiritual singer and angel talks about cleansing her soul of past lives and connecting with source to access her multi-dimensional self.
Retired teacher and music advocate talks about his online concert series with creatives to support the Neal Casal Music Foundation.
Divine singer and healer talks about her love of songwriting and how music has guided her through the ebbs and flows of life. *photo by Tina Boyadjieva
Original member of the Mime Troupe and Country Joe & The Fish talks about a life of music and resistance to the status quo.
Metaphysical light being talks about balancing mind, body and spirit in alignment with source.
Iconic bass player talks about getting picked up at Mt. Tam High School to go on tour with Stoneground. Legendary musician from a legendary family.....
Prolific guitarist talks about surviving and singing for his supper as a musician in the 21st century.
Teacher of Tibetan Buddhism and folk guitar legend talks about merging the spirituality of music and source.
Philadelphia born drummer talks about breaking up time and form with the masters of music.
Multi-dimensional guitarist, singer and bandleader talks about finding his own sound, letting the body dance and surviving as a creative in a conformist music business paradigm.
Transcendent musician and healer talks about coming to peace with mistakes and how he learned to access his true nature by finding and being himself.
Talking drum master talks about being raised in Africa, the language of the drum and coming to the States to meet Babatunde Olatunji.
Multi-instrumentalist and band leader talks about making a living playing spiritual music.
Cosmic healer discusses the multi-dimensional psyco-spiritual yoga that she has cultivated in all phases of her life. You must know what you don't know and be in awe of that.
For unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. The work of my guests days measures more then the planting and growing.
She is an embodiment of intention with no expectations. This may or may not be the case on the basketball court but my guest is lucid and articulate about the heaviest subjects and can set you awash in a sea of righteous chi with her name formed with fruit on the mandala.
My guest is the light of the world when you choose to walk through the door. Habitual nature holds people back, can they correct those addictions and disciplines or will they come back in another life with the same Achilles heel.
My guest has had strangers coming up to her since she was a young girl. Seeking wisdom or some answer to a vexing question that had escaped a complete stranger for eternity. My guests super powers are priceless, you cannot quantify her work. She gives so much of it away and shares information passed through her from the heavens so that the lineage of her healing practices will live on with future hopes.
She holds out the vine of truth to Harijans like me, and provides space for them to grow and blesses them with multi-sensory awareness, non judgement, and a rhapsodic like cadence in her voice that can put a spell on you.
There were many avenues my guest could have taken, she chose the spirit path and with attainment grace and daily work she can levitate people just the way all the masters of music did.
My guest has a calling and so do I and that is why I treasure our bond of love, faith and devotion.
YDS welcome
Somatic healer talks about breaking away from repression and bondage and owning her own life as a teacher, mother and conduit to the divine.
Divine healer and teacher talks about how she found her voice and sacred path as an angel in body.
Iconic bass player talks about his influences in the states and playing with Peter Tosh.
Ethnic percussionist talks about aligning mind, body and spirit through communal healing music.
Filthy blues guitarist and singer talks about learning to be himself on the bandstand and the correlation of urgency and spirituality in a band and team sports.
Iconic Gen X Scaticonian talks about his career and life and how camp prepared him for the world at large.
Prolific drummer and producer talks about singing for his supper as a creative in the Big Apple.
Ubiquitous singer/songwriter talks about getting out of her own way and allowing the music to come through her from the heavens.
Versatile and thoughtful musician talks about singing for his supper in the city of angels.
Humble and highly conscious keyboardist and composer talks about making a life of music in the the 21st century.....
Modern day expander of musical vocabulary talks about how music is a portal to peace and clear thinking.
Legendary crossover guitarist talks about developing his own sound and serving the song during session work.
Master guitarist and part of the original studio Wrecking Crew talks about his singular life in music.
Cosmic New Hampshire Cowboy talks about his musical faith through the prism of artist, human and father.
Singer/songwriter talks about feeding her soul through music and her need to create on and off the bandstand.
A continual discussion of trust in oneself, how to use and not abuse power and creating a container of love with permission to feel pleasure.
As America chooses its next president in the midst of a historic pandemic, Whose Vote Counts, a new documentary from FRONTLINE, Columbia Journalism School, Columbia Journalism Investigations and USA TODAY NETWORK reporters, looks at whose vote counts — and whose might not. Tune in or stream on PBS this Tuesday, 10/20.
I have know Ben Vereen for close to 50 years now and this was by far the VERY BEST interview I have ever heard him respond to … You truely brought the most important part of his soul front & center – Thanks for posting this to his FB site.
Barbara Moore
A frank look at the current psychological state of the JFS conducted by a decorated clinical therapist and healer.
Cosmic rhythm guitarist for the Grateful Dead talks about leadership, love, life and the lineage of all music.
Decorated legal scholar and personal injury attorney talks about democracy and the tenuous nature of our judicial branch of government.
Versatile and elastic drummer talks about his life in music and the upcoming Hudson Valley Virtual Vote Concert coming up this Saturday.
Energetic light healer talks about accepting challenges and growing constitutionally. A continued discussion, using the spirit mind, to thrive in the moment.
Freddie Roulette Really enjoyed your interview..Thank you Jake, it took his mind off his problems for awhile..
Tony Silva
Titanic drummer talks about what he took away from the academy and how he has applied that to numerous bandstand settings.
Blazing and unique guitar player riffs on his relationships with John Abercrombie and his peers including the late Neal Casal.
It’s Never Stopped by Brian Jackson? In Rising Sun, Maryland, off I-95 South, that’s where the grand wizard and all his brethren would gather. After they’d had a couple of cases of beer, they’d come around Lincoln University, driving around in their cars, hootin’ and hollerin’, shooting at the dormitories. I’m sure people talked about doing things about it. I’m sure all the young black men at Lincoln University didn’t sit idly by and let that happen, I guarantee that. When Lincoln became coed, there was a new sense of urgency, because now there were young women. You can imagine the trauma of having the Klan shooting up their dorms. Amazingly, nobody ever got hurt. We decided we were going to set up a little cadre to go looking for these guys who might return to our campus. We didn’t see any, and that was a good thing, ’cause that would have been ugly. From what I can tell, it never happened again. We made it clear that we weren’t going to tolerate it. I think that often those guys are the most cowardly people. It’s always that mob mentality. I’ve never seen a one-on-one situation. Try hanging me by yourself and see what happens. Come at me with no weapon, just your bare hands, and see if you can get me up on a tree. It’s always got to be thirty or forty of them, armed, dragging somebody out of their house. It’s still going on today. It’s never stopped.
Pianist and composer talks about his collaborative relationship with spirit brother Gil Scott-Heron.
Divine yogic healer talks her leap of faith from the thinking world into the spirit world.
Evolutionary warrior talks about her path towards enlightenment, grace and serenity. The forever journey of accepting love and creating a container for others to flow in their true nature.
Composer and drummer talks about his musical life and relationship with Johnny Vidacovich.
Boogaloo Lou talks about playing the blues in the ghetto and being a mentor to younger jazz cats.
Gifted singer/songwriter and leader of GospelbeacH talks about the sub-pop nature of his music and the musicians he collaborates with. Sparks Fly!
The time keeper of eternity. Ballads, Blues, Dixieland and The Kansas City Shuffle.
There's more to it than that obviously but my guests roots are deep in the blues. He developed his chops in after hours clubs in St. Louis and later on in LA.
He became one of the most sot after drummers for Soul and the newly invented word in the American Lexicon. Funk, my guest along with Harvey Mason, Mike Clark, David Garibaldi and a handful of other cats created that word funk because they blended jazz beats with soul and blues. My guest did this with Dennis Coffey, Dyke & The Blazers, The Watts 103rd street rhythm band and countless other artists.
He has been an accompanist his whole life. Backing up stars who get all the recognition but wouldn't have the hits without my guest.
James Gadson welcome to the JFS.....
Vince Delgado's story is amazing, here's a Mexican American kid who grew up in The Mission District of San Francisco who learned Japanese Koto music, Arabic music, Indian music, he was a jazz drummer. He had a zoot suit. Ray Spiegal
Legendary conguero talks about growing up in the Mission District of SF and joining the Carlos Santana Blues Band.
How was music taught to my guest. He studied music as Prestigious institutions but the music was in the streets and on the bandstand. New a Rules were being created by my guests heroes who were stretching the sonic boundaries playing African Juju Music with acoustic instruments. Playing thesaurus' of scales and free form with a little Kama Sutra mixed in. Melodic improvisation must be swung by the drum in 4 in 7 in 9, 11. Keeping time in polyrhythmic progressions of idas spilling out of my guest on his Starship with a big Buddha at the helm.
Norman Connors welcome to the JFS
My guest today hails from a bastion of regional arts and entertainment. Berkeley California grew out of the Kerouac and Ginsberg beats whose howling gave way to a mindset of creativity by embracing all cultures to form one race, the human race.
My guest developed his chops as a Bass player through playing on the bandstand with Salsa De Berkeley and other gigs at Andre's or Jimbo's Bop city or The Record Plant with Mingo Lewis. Mixing a slapping bass style with Latin impulses funk rock. Locking the groove with Carlos Santana when time stood still as my guest traveled the world during the age of guitar hero. He listens, he collaborates he continues to be fed by the music.
In the early 1980s my guest merged with Grateful Dead drummer Billy Kreutzmann to form one of the most stealth Berkeley bands that eventually turned into "Go Ahead" with Brent Mydland and Alex Ligertwood partying and playing Sweaty bars and clubs. He continues to play music in his band today or head up to his cabin in the hills to clear his head.
David Margen welcome to the JFS
Master composer and musician talks about the backward and misinformed nature of our (US) society. How the first step towards reconciliation is the way in which history, of this country, is taught in schools. People of color were not the one's who started this problem (sub-human treatment) and can't fix the problem. The hole is deep and "everything is under control" as the Proud Boys mobilize to promote white supremacy but real long term educational reform is needed to educate all people about the history of all Americans. A lot of brainwashing has already been done so the chores ahead are challenging but its about being on the just and equal side of history. Sobering but recommended listening......
Just this past week a buddy of mine gave me a snare drum and a tambourine. I get to go home and play that drum to music good or bad. For a few seconds or maybe a minute I begin to dance, eyes closed in my head knowing that if I start to think about Hangups that it's rhythm interrupted. Still I hold on to that previous time and get a taste of how special being a master professional drummer truly is.
My guest today was born in Kalamazoo Michigan where my parents met while in school in the late sixties. He became plugged into transcendent music immediately connecting with the guru Sri Chimnoy and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. He played in an Orchestra where dynamics were an essential component to the raging apocalyptic forces ricocheting all around. To stay focused on the dance with Will Lee and Whitney Houston. It seldom turns out the way it does in the song.
My guest has tremendous technique but needed to seek peace in his mind to feel the music. He didn't pay to play or learn music in academia. He burns till this day making seminal soundtracks for movies and cultivating one of the headiest music operations in the world, Tarpan Studios.
But he has also played music at a time when music itself has undergone a transformation from the human to an over reliance on the digital. He has played music when bands could stay together and hone their spiritual sound to the branding of one individual. From one or two week engagements to a night here a night there, a night everywhere. As in life, things are constantly changing. Hopefully the heart stays true. Narda Michael Walden welcome to the JFS...
Wollamaloo and tigger to. To the days of swagger and shipwrecks and sound expansion. Stretching peoples minds instead of shrinking them.
My guest was at the forefront of Australian Kool swing be it with a piano, tennis balls, mallets or a 7 inch reel box. Joining forces with cats like George Shearing and Miles Davis to reintroduce the world to peace after World War II. And that music swung just like it swung for my guest in the Australian Jazz Quintet with Jim Gannon who was a venerable bass player with Stan Kenton.
Or it might have been with the Gravity Adjusters like Lee Charlton and Tom Dondlinger fitting in, hopping melodies in low notes, coming over the crest of a wave touching the Pacific connecting Australia with The Bay.
Could have been Ron Dewer or mouth organ madness with Les Thompson, playing outside or in the pocket. A career that has spanned the last 50 years Bryce Rhode welcome to the JFS.
During the military dictatorship that engulfed Brazil in the 60s my guest today left the beautiful city of Rio to immigrate to the United States.
He grew up with the rhythms that have come to be known as "Bossa Nova" and that craze crept into our national consciousness and the record industry at roughly the same time he came to the US.
He was an autodidact and from an early age his ears were never locked. He wanted to learn how to play every key in every scale. Scoresheet, notepads, melodies and harmonies dancing around in his head as the Coo Coo Birds tried to talk with him through the whirlwind of assimilating.
It didn't take long what with the likes of Luis Bonfa, Frank Sinatra and Creed Taylor there. They recognized his writing, arranging and playing genius. Stretching sound sonically playing asymmetric music with tube drives.
Bug squishing keyboards and Organ that carved out a niche market for him during the last years of free form radio.
His legacy is on full display today as he continues performing with his own groups and collaborating on projects with younger cats as he provides a bridge to future children and their hopes of understanding of how to fuse traditional world rhythms inside Americas only true art form known as Jazz.
Eumir Deodato welcome to the JFS
So many amazing interviews – thank you so much. I think the two Keltner interviews are among my favorites. Lots of appreciation from me here in London for what you are doing.
John Kieffer
My guests are sound creators of the highest order. They both have been extrapolating off the grid for the last 50 years. One got noticed and appreciated by John Hammond which sparked a career on Columbia. The other was playing with JJ Johnson & an unknown Barbara Streisand @ Champagne Urbana.
Both of my guests came to San Francisco in the middle part of the 1960s. They were established jazz musicians who could play funk or pop or blues or free music for a living. They were mentors for a whole crop of young pianists and percussionists who wanted to play outside the box.
They played quite a bit together in a trio setting with the late great Mel Graves or in larger units with the venerable Ratzo Harris playing Syzygy @ The venerable Arch Studios.
Like a scarf in the wind their music dances, at times frenetically like a manic patient seeking cognitive therapy my guests go deep inside the cranial membrane to extract new ideas and sequence them in free form music that is comprised of multiple keyboards, tom toms, synths, high hats, Cungas and grand stein ways. The music they play represents an amalgamation of their experiences traveling through Moab Utah or the City Winery or the spiritual holy lands of Australia.
In this hosts mind my guests continue to collaborate because of love. One love that they feel in a sweaty pool of inspiration on those Sunday afternoons when they get to improvise for several hours and leave exhausted yet cleansed from their other worlds of academia and private practice.
Still Riding The Moment Dr. Denny Zeitlin and George Marsh welcome to the JFS
Ubiquitous drummer talks about developing feel on the bandstand in a variety of different musical settings.
My guest today is a woman of the church. A congregation that was not afraid to own the blues which is where that music hails from.
Gospel Music when intermeshed with blues creates soul and today we present a serenade to a soul sister who is deeply connected to the spiritual oasis of playing with Jerry Garcia.
She came aboard in 1983 during a transitional time for both the band and Jerry. Relentless touring in the Spring, Summer and Fall which didn't include the keystone Gigs in Berkeley or Palo Alto or a quick jump to the Pacific NW in January.
Sure Jerry loved to play but he was also feeding an addiction that my guest never subscribed to.
But unlike in today's era of rigid uniform group think. My guest played in a band until the Midnight Moonlight not because she looked like everybody else, not because it was the biggest money making endeavor but because it had soul and it felt good. The Way you do the things you do, you got a smile so bright that I saw it even though I never saw the JGB play a single note.
The music holds up as well if not better today than it did back than. It's rich and full throated like my guest who according to David Kemper never sang out of key.
The problem is the greed that has been left in Jerry's wake. A greed so pervasive that it is unbecoming to anyone who ever collaborated with Jerry because the whole mind set is antithetical to what he stood for.
My guest is one of those cats down under the stars who gives it her all on the bandstand. She knows the struggles her people face. The unfair disadvantaged playing field that is being played out in North Philly and Baltimore and any old dilapidated city near you. She knows she can't change the world, just her world by taking a Melody from a simple C to G.
Feeling Brand New About It Jackie La Branch welcome to the JFS
The unincorporated land of Louisiana. Where the native Americans of of all descents were Unencumbered by cultural biases and norms. These were small communes of different peoples who were bombastic and playing regional
Music of the swamps.
My guest plays Cajun Fiddle in myriads of settings and his musicianship and entertaining capacities are in the same class as Professor Longhair and Bill Monroe, Dolly Parton and John Lee Hooker.
He grooves and growls playing live aid benefits for the farmers who toiled that unincorporated land where my guest dwelled with Louisiana Woman and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash.
My guest came of age when the music industry was regionally based with different sounds that emanated from the swamps and the bogs and the mountains and the parks and the urban squaller.
However you square it, my guest has all these elements in his music which is why it is such a treat to have him with us live....Doug Kershaw welcome to the JFS...
Doing it to death, the relentless pouring of sweat and grit to hold it down and be an accompanist for the greatest self-expressionist of our time.
My guest kept the beat and played the rhythms that helped James Brown reach international stardom. He would play the same groove for 15 minutes while Jimmy Brown carried on and drove those rhythms Stone Soul Lyrics captured from all the urban venues that existed at one time in this country.
My guest still is secure enough to play out and pass the peas or dish on The Revolution of the Mind. He made love music with Fred Thomas, Fred Wesley, double drums with Clyde Stubblefield who along with my guest is the most sampled drummer in modern electronic beats.
It's not music because there's no real people playing the music. A real person like my guest would have to keep the beat while James would riff for 18 minutes asking The aforementioned Wesley to take a jazz solo in the same vein as JJ Johnson.
My guest feels the groove. He along with Bernard Purdie, Idris Muhammad and and Zigaboo Modeliste helped fuse Gulf Coast Blues with Jazz and Gospel bringing in Funk. The kind of funk that Lyn Collins or Bobby Byrd felt.
It continues today with a beat as strong as ever playing in different amalgamations of The JBs and locally @ The Red Bar in Mobile Alabama.
John Jab'o Starks welcome to the JFS
Still very active, still very strong. Leading the way without being the leader. Years of giving back making wine and playing their butts off. It started sometime ago when My two guests found their way to Sacramento at a time when the city was buzzing with night Life @ Dave's Soul Kitchen where my guests learned how to play funky soul grooves and against the time.
They played off each other taking the late show and than the late late show while parishioners were heading off to church my guests were going home to grab some shut eye before waking up and swinging all over again.
One of my guests played for Don Costa and with Edyie Gorme the other with Bobby Hutcherson Herbie Hancock and Vince Guaraldi. Both held it down with Jerry Garcia.
And unlike other musicians who may have had a great run for 3 or 5 or 10 years both my guests today still have the chops to play in all different musical settings with all different musicians.
Mike Clark and Bill Vitt welcome to the JFS
The Doctor is in this week checking up on patients who have been sonically altered. His synthesizers became beams of light, always light bouncing of the Electronic Music in the late 60s.
My guest is a heavyweight musician. He had gotten to leave this planet with Charles Eariand and burn hot melodic chordal mosaics of sound in a "Sextant" with Herbie Hancock or Love Love with Julian Priester or playing free music with Woody Shaw and Michael Howell.
He came from The Bay. The San Francisco Bay Area with Different Fur that paved the way for classic soundtracks like "Apocalypse Now" and journeys to enlightenment and realization with Eddie Henderson. That fantastic journey from death to life as my guest outs an electronic score together for The Tibetan Book of The Dead.
He has presence in his music, a mood as paranoid as Nam or galactic, tense neurotic blending with Woody Shaw and Michael Howell getting it together with the San Francisco Express.
It Was Always About by John Scher When I started working with the Grateful Dead in the mid-70s, there was no traditional manager. Once things clicked between me and the band as a promoter, they came to this realization that they just didn’t want to deal with the outside world. They didn’t want to deal with the outside business world, for sure. They left a lot of it to me. I was never their manager, but I was sort of their representative. I made some of their record deals and I booked their tours. In 1974 they made The Grateful Dead Movie—still to this day one of the greatest rock-and-roll movies ever. They took off a year, and Jerry and Bobby did do some touring on their own. I got very involved with Jerry and the film and their agent: a guy named Richard Loren. Jerry brought me in for the distribution and marketing of the film. After that came out, and they had taken a year off, they were ready to go back to work, but they really didn’t know where and how they could play to control what was going on. They realized how hugely popular they were, and when they were playing a single night at a 3,000- or 4,000-seat theater, the demand was overwhelming. There was always tension with the local police, there was always tension with the local communities, because there were so many kids outside of the venues. This was the time when I got involved in a fully fledged way. I talked to them and they said, “We’d like you to come out and have a meeting with us.” At this point they were not working. We went to Bob’s house, which was the ultimate bachelor pad. I remember sitting on the floor for hours trying to figure out what to do. The last tour they had done had been with The Wall of Sound, which simply didn’t work. We talked about getting back on the road without things being too chaotic. I just went to venues and booked multiple days in the same theaters they loved playing in. Instead of playing one night, we’d play two nights or three nights. This sounds like an awfully simple solution, but at the time people weren’t doing it. It met the demand at the time, but the band kept getting more and more and more popular. After that, they moved into arenas at a time when there were a lot of new arenas being built that accommodated music concerts better than the older ones did. Meadowlands Arena was built, with acoustic paneling on every inch of the interior, because they knew there would be a lot of concerts. The old Boston Garden or Madison Square Garden: there had never been a concert at MSG until they moved to their current location. When people would go and play some of these older venues, they sounded terrible. The Dead’s sound guys were always absolutely tops. The Grateful Dead were always innovative, and it was always about the fans. With Bob Weir it got real close to personal management. The only way you can have a healthy relationship when you’re in a management position is to be able to speak the truth. The truth sometimes works out to be this homogenous group-decision. But at other times, telling the truth, musicians don’t want to hear about it, and your relationship falls apart.
Every once in awhile the universe provides us with a glimpse of the all seeing eye. One that is not myopic but sees the possibilities in how machines work, how instruments play, how people think and how to articulate this in various languages.
Jerry Garcia left us 20 years ago and similar to when he had both feet on the ground his persona, point of view intelligence and art are as precinct today as they were when he was alive.
Jerry sought an uncluttered life, one where he could explore with unbridled freedom be it going on a cross country pilgrimage to see Bill Monroe and eventually forming Old and In The Way with David Grisman Peter Rowan Vassar Clements and John Kahn.
He felt free to explore blues scales and jazz scales with his buddy Merl Saunders which fed into a deep well of exploration in LOM or Reconstruction with Ron Stallings and Gaylord Birch.
Ultimately Jerry Garcia' hyper intensive need to play, his inventive guitar lines that fused his blue grass leanings with blues based Rock coalesced into psychedelic rock and a band beyond description known as the Grateful Dead.
All the living members of The GD have gone on to have prolific solo careers but none of them could have sustained that band for 40 years.
Jerry Garcia was the only person that could do this. He was carefree and serious at the same time. He was diplomatic in almost all situations. Treating the blue collar cats the way he would anybody else because Jerry came from the working class. He respected people and nature, he had so much to express that when the Dead came off a 3 week run of grueling shows he was back out on the road with his own band playing originals and covers that reflected his love of rhythm and blues and soul.
In the late 1970s Jerry met my guest in Chicago. They had a completely cosmic relationship and she inspired him to draw and paint. She was part of a traveling community that got to see the band when they were still playing 500 seat theaters like the Uptown in Chicago, or The Agora Ballroom in Cleveland and college gyms like The University of Vermont and Frost Amphitheater in Palo Alto.
They fell in love and remained very close during a transitional period within both of his bands. Jerry needed the shelter of someone's arms and my guest was a resilient source of love for Jerry during some of his more internal contemplative years.
When his lifestyle caught up Jerry found himself taking a long nap in a hospital bed. He woke up 3 weeks later and that bond that existed between my guest and Jerry swelled into a union of marriage.
Seeing opportunities not losing them, letting go of the burdens of trying to please everybody and recognizing his incredible stardom without judging it or trying to live up to it. Seizing on new life.....
Fly through the night.....Manasha Garcia welcome to the JFS...
Many of us have gifts and if we begin to access our true nature those gifts become accentuated.
How did you do that? Did it matter? does it now? If you don't put yourself out there then those gifts can not be acted on and your true nature will remain unrefined.
My guest has been putting himself out there his whole life. Northern Exposure in swampy jersey Bars or the Bitter End with Terry Silverlight or at Berklee School of Music.
He's stayed in a few splendid hotels in his day shredding on his axe as he kissed away the electric and brought in the acoustic guitar to play flamenco and jazz and blues and a Friday night in San Francisco that remains a standard bearer in interweaving guitars sharing learning and loving.
He understood early on in his career about the spiritual qualities of music playing with Lenny White and Stanley Clarke. Leaving his physical body and operating on a frequency equivalent to the zone. It feels so good that you don't want to leave it.
He's got his hang ups and his problems but gets on the road to play and get stuff out if his system the way any Romantic Warrior or Elegant Gypsy might do. He has learned to trust himself and actualized his true nature by putting himself out there....
Al Dimeola welcome to the JFS
Divine yogic healer talks about overcoming adversity in her life and how that has made her stronger constitutionally and a more effective teacher and mother.
Epic session musician and live performer talks about his musical life and philosophies.
Humanitarian, yogic practitioner and multi-instrumentalist talks about healing himself and others during this turbulent times.
My guest today is an icon of show business entertainment.
He has no qualms with this considering the hard scrabble life that he ascended from. He came out of the functional dysfunction of Hell's Kitchen where you needed to be a street scholar- learning what to do and what not to do. He grew up with street gangs that were much more ruthless than West Side Story would depict along with the Puerto Rican rhythms that his mother brought state side. The ability to swing, the Cha Cha Cha, when music was danse music. Not electronic beats that have been forced into the ears of younger generations.
Eventually his family moved to New Jersey which is the size of Israel. A Mecca of individual artistic expression sandwiched in between the Big Apple and Sigma Sound in Philadelphia.
My guest was content to walk away from the stage. He was already a known musical entity when he decided to be a producer which he did in 1969 until Candida came a calling and a resurgence ensued.
He found his groove as a master live performer intoxicating the audiences with stage presence, individual sound, eccentric leadership qualities and the smokey soul sound of Stax/Motown that made The Dawn of a New Day.
He knows fame and fortune and he knows the hardships that come with it. The relationships that come and go, trying to find equilibrium after coming off the road and readjusting to domestic life, continually reinventing yourself to stay relevant, building a legacy outside of being one of the slickest entertainers the world has ever known.
As he looks at The Ozarks and the sun begins to set he recognizes the bravery of our veterans. Often underserved and never calling fanfare to themselves my guest has put it upon himself to raise the profiles of military men and woman and their families.
They don't decide why we should go to war even if there is no reason. They are thrust into foreign territories and come back maimed and psychologically fractured. With love from my guest and collaborations with other free thinking artists he has forged a path to relevancy in the digital age. Still knocking Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavites welcome to the JFS
My guest today is a torch bearer of melodic improvisation.
A master of melodies, chromatic modal patterns of improvisation that open space for drummers like Eddie Marshall and Joe Chambers who say "Hello to the Wind."
My guest came of age under the iron man sweetheart Eric Dolphy when he went by the more formal Robert. But his endearing nature, positive path of constant creation created love amongst his bandmates so soon he was known as Bobby.
His impact on the east coast jazz scene was heavy. He showed up and Rudy Van Gelders studio with Bob Cranshaw and Al Harewood playing solos on Grant Green records that my generation perseveration over.
The crisp Angular feeling of the music from hard bop to post bop with a mix of avant garde more rhythm based solos. More rooted in the blues.
The music was evolving organically and my guest was a Sage and spirit to many young jazz fanatics like Jack Fulks and session drummer Jim Keltner who would sit in the front row of some swampy bar to watch my guest and Charles Lloyd give literal interpretations of themselves with a little Milt Jackson and Jimmy Lunceford mixed in.
My show is about lineage. Tracing the roots of music on this continent to its origins. The birthplace of modern jazz is The Americas and it spread out to the west coast to clubs like The Keystone Korner where my other guest found a home for himself nestled in between a police station and the Inflated Tear of "Change" sung so poignantly by Eugene McDaniels in the opening clip.
My guests humbleness and groundedness is what makes him a transcendent figure much like my other guest who played keyboards for awhile and than became an impresario running the most elastic, flexible, swinging jazz club in the Bay Area. It was the greatest because he diversified the music, it felt like a home with the cornbread and the continual appearances from my guest and Harold Land, Sonship Woody Theus Woody Shaw and thousands of other Eulipian characters.
Both my guests have a deep affection for one another and it runs decades deep as they have taken the roller coaster of life which they are still on. Keeping the world safe for bebop, re-bop and all other contiguous orbital love Bobby Hutcherson and Todd Barkan, welcome to the JFS.
"Carlos (Santana) and I were meant to be together because we have the same sort of searching mentality. Always searching for the right note, right tone and he is a master of melody. He's like an encyclopedia of melodies and still Carlos' musical roots are deep, it's a deep well that he draws on because he listens to so much music from around the world. He's like a sponge so he's got a real sense of melody. That melody combined with his intensity. I loved playing music behind it, being the drummer behind it.
The reason I look the way I do when I play is not because of the drums it's because of the melody. I get to be on this river behind it keeping the rhythm. I love melodies so Carlos always brought that and we always shared an intensity in our listening habits. We we're all over the place and he and I found in each other someone they could share that intensity and that hunger and that thirst for what was going on and what was coming out when Miles was doing "Bitches Brew," we were all over it. Everything that was happening at that time, we loved and we soaked up. We also turned each other on to other kinds of things. We were big fans of the work Sergio Mendes was doing back than. All kinds of gems of albums.
We would take little bits of of those things and we would put them in our live show as a transitional piece. As this or that and it made for a very colorful tapestry and a weave of a live set musically.
He still moves me when he plays. I love that he loves and is so committed to the music. He brought that to me and it was really kind of a recognition. Like a soul recognition....."
To be an impresario takes guts. You are a fan sometimes rapid fan and need to find a way to turn a profit. In today's touring circuit it's Tom Waits warmed over covered in corporate sponsors in a sea of digital music that has been forces into peoples ears do the last two decades.
My guest today was a chance taker before full interconnection. He came up when college universities had resources to fund the arts and the brainchild of the touring circuit began.
My guest is a passionate music lover. He leans Rock and rolls with reggae and Soul to sooth the inner angst of relationships young and old. Springsteen, Mussina, Zappa, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson John McLaughlin, Kenny Gradney.
Some were Jersey natives and others were barnstorming the country when hotbeds of regional radio and regional music created an elasticity within people ears. Broader palates in Lawerenceville, and Kean College and Caldwell College.
My guest saw opportunity and inner faith and wisdom and a young age and invested in the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. A smut house by day in the buccholic city the same as the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, and The Stanley Theatre and the old Uptown Theatre in Chicago.
These vaudeville houses had a warm cozy feel where mushroom addled audiences listened to my guest introduce Jorma Kaukonen, little feat, hot tuna, the burrito brothers Vassar Clements, Billy Cobham and Steve Miller.
In the early eighties my guest became the go to impresario and the newly Christened Brendan Byrne Arena where huge bombs from Phil Lesh tested the structural integrity of a building that had great acoustics prior and after MIDI- Technology.
One of another kind John Scher welcome to the JFS
I have reached out to musicians from a different era on this radio escapade. Cats that could be my dad or uncle. Not that I didn't have a great Dad and Uncle but in many ways tapping into these brothers and sisters has been self sustaining finding those in their glory years. Still productive, still active still, feeling alive.
As with the musicians I am carving a similar path up that deli trail to Camp Scatico talking in the ears of my elders because let's face it, they've put in more time on planet earth than me or my generation.
The stories they continue to share illuminate a place that emphasized getting into an activity. Getting into it....that means going there. As a counselor at Scatico that meant making a perfunctory game of blind newcum and creating mass hysteria to the point where every camper has forgotten time and place as they dwell in a space that is timeless.
My guest today again fills the criteria of an inter generational camp leader in the 70s and 80s. A Time of unbridled freedom for cats at Scatico. He has always been a thinker and a lover and leader which is really the litmus test. He found his sea legs at Camp
Being able to think about who you are being able to love your bunkmates even if they weren't the best athletes or the coolest cats. Leading with a wholistic approach that he learned from his counselors in both their energy and enthusiasm that they brought no matter what kind of hard days night it might have been.
He was a mentor for many of my counselors who thrived in a less litigious, less image obsessed less interconnected society. My guest would often consult with the campers about the meaning of life.
He maintains an east west spiritual center taking yogic retreats in Vermont to help wash away the dust of everyday life.
Billy Goldner welcome to the JFS
I have reached out to musicians from a different era on this radio escapade. Cats that could be my dad or uncle. Not that I didn't have a great Dad and Uncle but in many ways tapping into these brothers and sisters has been self sustaining finding those in their glory years. Still productive, still active still, feeling alive.
As with the musicians I am carving a similar path up that deli trail to Camp Scatico talking in the ears of my elders because let's face it, they've put in more time on planet earth than me or my generation.
The stories they continue to share illuminate a place that emphasized getting into an activity. Getting into it....that means going there. As a counselor at Scatico that meant making a perfunctory game of blind newcum and creating mass hysteria to the point where every camper has forgotten time and place as they dwell in a space that is timeless.
My guest today again fills the criteria of an inter generational camp leader in the 70s and 80s. A Time of unbridled freedom for cats at Scatico. He has always been a thinker and a lover and leader which is really the litmus test. He found his sea legs at Camp
Being able to think about who you are being able to love your bunkmates even if they weren't the best athletes or the coolest cats. Leading with a wholistic approach that he learned from his counselors in both their energy and enthusiasm that they brought no matter what kind of hard days night it might have been.
He was a mentor for many of my counselors who thrived in a less litigious, less image obsessed less interconnected society. My guest would often consult with the campers about the meaning of life.
He maintains an east west spiritual center taking yogic retreats in Vermont to help wash away the dust of everyday life.
Billy Goldner welcome to the JFS
The culture of jazz is clearly built around the music but the culture only exists because of enlightened cats who were reared in the presence of greatness. Artistic greatness and in a humanitarian sense as well.
My guest is one of the cats I speak off. He took advantage of his early childhood connections and used his native gifts to help explain transcendent music.
Music that was played By Bird and Wade Legge John Coltrane and my guests babysitter Papa Jo Jones.
It's was an accessible community of artistic purists like Jaki Byard who could play a tune in all twelve keys and make his students do that on the piano until they fell apart.
My guest has been a bridge to a new age. Conveying messages as a radio host and coming of age during the advent of free form radio, individual sound seekers and being surrounded by the original masters like Dizzy and Louie and The Duke.
There's two types of music - good and bad and my guest has pontificated and promoted jazz. But what does that term really mean? Has a slang term become so intellectualized that it no longer swings?
My guest has channelled that swing feel throughout his career as an impresario. Could have been the Basie band with John Heard or watching the real time fusing of Afro Bop with Machito and Latin music with Tito. The music survives today in part because of contributions of my guest who plays Charlie Parker records every morning on Columbia's WKCR @ Columbia University.
Phil Schaap welcome to the JFS
Dig the bass. The east bay grease that was hopin' in and out of Vietnamese Restaurants in Oakland as my guest plays a reality fender. Locking the groove like Bob Cranshaw, helping swing the band with David Garibaldi whose big band background helped drive the Tower of Power.
Of coarse it's deeper than that. It always is and my guest is too modest to call attention to himself. If anything he encourages cats to play their own bass lines rather than coming his. Be yourself and don't change horses in midstream because you got cats like Kuptka blowing over the top of low end bass grooves by my guest whose worked was frequented quite often by radio host Voco or on the vaunted San Francisco label.
When I started listening to music closely around the turn of the century the first melodic groove music that attracted me was the band TOP. They symbolized music that came out of the community and was supported by the community.
As companies discovered how to monetize music they sucked the soul right out of it. My guest still tours with the great tower but in two weeks they might play 14 different venues. Those are the transient times we live in.
Rocco Prestia welcome to the JFS
Last time I spoke with my guest he hipped me to Herbie Nicholas, Village Music and the album Bass Ball which I still haven't found.
Since that time I Have been Woodshedding in many different regions of the country. Talking to Charlie Daniels about his bluegrass upbringings in Appalachia, or maybe Bill Keith who is a master of the banjo. It Could have been talking with Peter Rowan before a concert I promoted for him in Sahuarita where he talked about why the outlaws migrated from Texas to Stinson Beach.
Dawg Music is dawg grass, dawg jazz, fluid improvisational melodic invention it's not a bastion of hard bop like Horace Silver or Art Blakey but it has the swing element thanks to the drumming of George Marsh at City Winery not the Jabberwocky, where Richard Greene almost dislodged Herb Pedersons eye ball with an up bow.
My guest has forged relationships with so many artists from so many spectrums that there is no label to define his music. Acousticity is a big part of it, the plucking of the strings playing a Milt Jackson tune or Klezmer music with Hal Blaine at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
That lifestyle catches up with some, the road can eat you up so you have to constantly retool, reinvent and look towards the light.
He's a grandfather now with incentive to teach his grand kids about good rhythm, good syncopation and letting the music breath.
When he was winning the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention in 1964 the original masters of bluegrass were still thriving Father Bill, Vassar, Chubby, Lamar, Tex. The same way it was in jazz with Dizzy and Duke, Trane and Miles, the same in soul with Ray Charles and Sam Cooke.
Those cats have long since left the bandstand and the baton has been handed off to people like my guest. He knows he is a link in the chain for future generations of musicians and music enthusiasts. He thumbed his nose at the record business and has made a living playing music that is true to him with the trusty Bob Schumaker at the helm @ 1750 Arch Records.
Back at it again David Grisman welcome to the JFS
My guest today is the drummer for one of the most recognized psychedelic rock bands in our countries history. The band was already intact when a young woman named Janice Joplin came aboard from Texas with an unpretentious style in the same mold as Ron McKernan, Jorma Kaukonen and David Bromberg.
Her style was unique and she gravitated to the Bay Area where the folk rock scene was burgeoning with open minded musicians who were drinking bathtubs full of LSD. The whole vibe was less uptight than the New York Folk scene that reeked of uniformity and hierarchy starting with Van Ronk, Von Schmidt and a certain way to play the music.
My guest came from the east coast and was already expressing himself through painting. He was steeped in spiritual Native American drumming that focused on rhythm patterns of transcendence as the peyote soaked their veins while Jim Pepper played Whitchy-Tai-Toe.
My guest was also a first rate jazz drummer idolizing the work of Larry Bunker, Hal Blaine, Emil Richards and Milt Holland. He brought these chops into the Holding Company who's instrumental sound became a progressive mix of folk, psych, Rock and soul.
His painting remained as he used his brushes the way Elvin Jones or Philly Joe might use them. Swing the band like David Garibaldi or Greg Errico, Billy Kreutzmann, Michael Shrieve, Lenny White, George Marsh, Mike Clark, Jerry Granelli and Gaylord Birch.
Just another whistle stop Dave Getz welcome to the JFS
Gifted musician and producer talks about his debut solo EP and the necessary adaptability of musicians in the age of COVID.
San Francisco, back again my friend to the days of wine and roses -Cal Tjader, Bayete, Armando Peraza, Eddie Marshall Ron Stallings, and the rest of the Mill Valley Gang which included David "What are their names" Crosby.
San Francisco was a beautiful artistic enclave before anybody knew it was great. It was an incubator of Latin Funk mixed with Psychedelic Rock and 1st generation blues players like a John Lee Hooker. Marin City was filled with the sounds of Wes Montgomery and Bola Sete.
My guest hails from The Bay and is a blur of movement and magic. Lightning fast when he is in that trance. The one he found himself in again and again in his garage Woodshedding for hours. Being ready for the live moment in front of audiences at Andres or The Poppycock or Woodstock. Relentless pursuit for those who chant with Carmelo Garcia and Victor Pantoja and Hadley Caliman.
My guest was the drummer for Carlos Santana during the most explosive growth of electronic music in our countries history. Sound expansion, playing seemingly simple patterns in complex polyrhythmic grooves exploring the thesaurus of scales the way Coltrane used to duke it out with Elvin Jones. Except it was my guest along with Doug Rauch and Michael Carabello with Tom Costner laying on the B-3.
He has played on the world stage with the heaviest cats like Neil Schon, Sammy Hagar and Steve Winwood challenging gravity with flurries of patterns while still holding it down. He is the same master drumming discussion as Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham, Billy Kreutzmann, Lenny White Greg Errico and Gaylord Birch.
When music came out of the community and was supported by the community.
Now that community looks somewhat different as we have fully become automatic men in the age of digitization. On this journey I have used technology to find my heroes in music. Once accessed these cats provide lessons in leadership, love, life and lineage. My guest does it by helping people dance, maybe even the teacher in the classroom because you want to enjoy the musical ride. Looking to set the rhythm straight in 2015 Michael Shrieve welcome to the JFS.
As I continue to wade deeper into how real music is made I have stumbled across cats who were masters of all trades and helped the music grow both sonically and substantively. By this I mean they had the chops to play across the entire musical spectrum, they had gods gifts of love to feel the music. To swing from Rock to Bach to Soul. My guest is one of the cats with huge chops and great feel. Except my guest today is different in that his trades expand far beyond the keyboards. He is one of the most prolific arrangers of strings, of horns of voices. He was one of the early pioneers of The Arp Synthesizer and played those emblematic funky fender Rhodes on so many iconic albums. Coming from the Midwest my guest came to Southern California after crusading on Campus for Christ and became the go to studio keyboardist for any artist no matter how accomplished. Katy Lied, I was half way crucified, on the other side with The Four Tops or knowing a Woman's Work is never done with Edie Sands. He helped create We Are The World with compadre Quincy Jones when this host was just 7 years old. His melodic groove was so conducive to music it stretched from Christian Rock to Boz Scaggs to Loggins and Mussina or driving It was during this time as an in demand studio musician that he joined the stealth Christian label Myrrh and made several albums that features a stormy mix of ballads and blues with David Kemper galloping in on a White Horse. These albums had a rhythm heritage of Ed Greene and Wilton Felder so the grooves were pulsating with funk and soul holding it down while the messages of a inclusivity was being promoted. My guest was busy making music history and trying to balance the gross excesses of human desire. Desires that our creator could never give us. That's not life. Life is taking your gifts and cultivating them and ultimately actualizing them which is what this host is doing right now. Michael Omartian welcome to the JFS
The just way It Had to Be....isn't that the old saying when you look back and ahead in the moment. It's teddy Edwards blowing some West Coast Southern California Hard Bop with the melodic percussive vibes of Milt Jackson playing bags groove keeping time with Ray Brown and the late great Dick Berk.
My guest today is from the island of Jamaica where jazz had come to the forefront because of contributions of Dizzy Gillespie, Bennie Golson, Big Black Clu J and The Blues Blasters Aubry Adams and my guest.
He loved it all pushing the limits and expansion. Playing tunes in all the keys until you fell apart and knew what you needed to work on.
It could have been Supper Clubs in Upstate New York with Eugene Wright locking Bags Groove or eventually becoming a leader of his own playing natural born grooves of Kingston where the ghosts of Marcus Garvey still look over all of us in the hopes we can appeal to the humanistic side of life. Charity yes, but more importantly justice for those who were enslaved and continue to be today....
My guest is an international phenomena combining his own indigenous music with Brazil and European Classical blues, funk, soul and swing.....it's called melodic improvisation....
He is currently in Florida getting set for a "Jam Cruise," and
Montgomery Bernard Alexander welcome to the JFS
Incredible vocalist talks about his humble upbringings backing up Ben E. King and other American blues artists and moving to the States and playing with Carlos Santana and Bill Kreutzmann.
My guest today is the greatest banjo player the world has ever seen. That could be because of the advent of air travel but probably not.
He was born in Boston, MA a city rich with history and prose and fiddling. This breadbasket of culture lent itself to my guest who was bubbling with an urge to play burning music- bluegrass music.
From the Ash Grove Fiddlers Convention to Farms in Appalachia my guest found himself playing with the father of bluegrass Bill Monroe. In time he recognized Monroe's expectation that he develop his own sound on the banjo, be inventive, lead don't follow, I'll take A Melody.
Which is what my guest did developing a style of playing that focused on the melody. Chromatic hits that required listening to his bandmates, taking chances and learning how to improvise melodically. Just like Ed Cassady and the Georgia Corn Stompers or Earl Skruggs or Bill Emerson.
With this new style of banjo playing Keith joined Muleskinner with a bunch of pranksters including Richard Greene, David Grisman, Peter Rowan and the late great Clarence White- another inventor.
My guest played in road worthy bands and was an in demand session player on both banjo and pedal steel. Might be Ian and Sylvia or a little Pottery Pie with Geoff Muldaur, relaxin his mind with Jim Rooney or playing on the back porch with Tony Trishka.
The dirt farmer, a cultivator of land in Arkansas. Toiling in the fields with a rhythm of his own. Unique, not like Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich or Earl Palmer but a pulsating percolating personification that set the dirt farmer apart from every other drummer.
My guest today is a guitar player with a unique and distinctive sound that roils in his hometown of Woodstock, NY. Unlike every long haired kid who showed up on a bus my guests roots are in Woodstock before Dave Holland and John Simon and Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey and John Sebastian moved up there. Even before the dirt farmer made it to big pink.
My guest percolates with multiple musical units going to the lush green of Maine and the urban jungle of Philly playing guitars, mandolins and dobros passing on traditional roots music to future generations of big eared people. Let the body dance be it in Nashville or Georgia singing for your supper with Vassar Clements, Hargus Pig Robbins, Jerry Carrigan and Tut Taylor.
He returned to Upstate New York in the early 1980s and connected with the dirt farmer who he had once known before. When that farmer was at big pink with fellow artists Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manual who played the Getaway Inn in Saugerties or some small bar in Auburn because they want to connect with the audience. It makes no difference how many amalgamation a of The Band there were. The peaks and valleys, the brown album to a blaze of glory. My guest was part of a band that wanted to play music they wanted to play. Not trying to make a hit for the suits but knowing that from organic creative story telling the magic will reveal itself....the musics hot and you might have to stand - Jim Weider welcome to the JFS.
I have been marinating in different regional pockets of music for quite sometime.
The pockets of this country where unique music developed because of culture, heritage and a need for individuality. Of late the great state of Louisiana has been turning round inside as I have interviewed Ellis Marsalis, Allan Toussaint and last weekend Leo Nocentelli. Those cats call New Orleans home with all the beauty and bumps, they saw their individuality accentuated, they saw their families moving upward and they knew that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.
These are values instilled in my guests generation and harder to find In younger generations like my own. The deep sense of insecurity which is actually the path that drives to you to coalesce around a group of artists who are intent on understanding, listening and trusting in the transcendental musical experience where you leave your physical body.
My guest is from Baton Rouge Louisiana but for reasons I have yet to uncover wound up in the burgeoning LA studio scene playing bass with Delaney and Bonnie displaying the art of the rhythm section with Jim Keltner - he himself a transplant from Tulsa. This honky tonk soul outfit was spurred on by the original blues masters and liquid pure psychedelia which was legal at that time.
This culminated in The Festival Express. A steam locomotive rolling down the track with Rick Danko, Phil Lesh and my guest. He can be heard in this documentary of Tricksters as they careened across Canada.
My guest is a decorated bass player who is in the same master discussion as Leroy Vinnegar, Scott Lefaro and John Kahn. He has a really deep pocket that allows his bandmates to settle inside, develop different themes and sequence the ideas without being rushed.
When Bill Payne auditioned my guest for the band Little Feat he was blown away because everything the eclectic Payne threw at my guest he could handle. This jack of all trades mentality led to the greatest run in that bands history along with rhythm mate Richie Hayward. Again the art of the rhythm section at work. Swing the band and lock the groove while your waiting for Columbus.
My guest has been somewhat of a hired gun for blues rock amalgamations looking for those Cajun/Zydeco influences. Take Bobby Weir who brought in my guest in early '83 to play in the Midnights with rhythm mate Billy Cobham. He has worked with incredible unsung musicians his whole life striving to create real music with his own sound.
How did he acquire his own sound?
He did it on the bandstand playing with Paul Barrere and Bobby Cochran, Sam Clayton and Chico Hamilton.
He continues performing today in a new world that seems to want to dislodge from the gravity of the universe and unhinge itself. Freedom at its best and most frightening (conversely) is when there are no parameters. Throw away the charts cone up with a groove or a feel and see where it goes. Sometimes it won't go anywhere but when it does head out like Ornette Coleman, Lowell George or Jorma Kaukonen it is unexplainable and provides the concentric unison of the circle of magic and the circle of music.....
Knowing the sun rises and sets for all, Kenny Gradney welcome to the JFS.
RAT ON Rat on Rat on. My guest is not himself these days because if he was he would be settling in to the latter stages of life, winding down and having his larger family contingent pick up where he left off. But that's not how this chapter is being written. My guest today is performing at a prolific clip criss crossing the country in an effort to be a link in the chain. It could be doing the Hickey Burr with Cleveland Eaton raising money for Miles College in Alabama or any black college that supports education. It could be spoofing Barry White or James Brown while Melvin Wah Wah Ragin lays down those whammy bar hits. But really my guest continues on in this hosts mind because he still wants people to find their true nature, go towards their strengths and be fearless because my guest is fearless. He is a believer in humanity and helping those get ahead, thinking on the spot during the Original Jam Sessions with Quincy Jones and Ray Brown locking that groove with Monty Alexander. Or maybe it was the time when Bobbye Porter Hall was living @ home with her mother in Detroit when my guest invited her out to Vegas and eventually LA to open up for him. It's the humanity shown to him back when he was slinging drinks @ a local Philly Bar during the burgeoning Folk Scene and to this day my guest is still showing up at the Newport Folk Festival doing renditions of the Car Song..... He developed his comedy chops around the magical hard bop of the times....flutin the blues with James Moody, playing Bags Groove with Milt Jackson or bebopin with Dizzy, Eddie Bongo Brown and Mary Lou Williams. He pushed people out of their comfort zone to get the most out of them. Like the Latin cat Johnny Pacheco or the Organ grinding Richard Groove Holmes who showed up on the comedy skits and sit coms. Charles Lloyd called my show "a search of inner life." Dozens of musicians have told me that I changed their life because I rediscovered relic vinyl they were on, that they themselves had given up on as little more than a moment in time. For them to come around to the notion that their music put me on my trip is a revelation. A Love Supreme. Dr. Bill Cosby welcome back to the JFS....
My guest was born near the Mason-Dixon Line but was close enough to Rock Creek Park that he sucked in all the sounds of Mid-Atlantic America. The bluegrass of Chubby Wise and Bill Monroe, the baselines of Richard Davis, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Garrison, the soul sanctification of Wilson Pickett and Sam Cooke and the Chuck Berry, Little Richard Rock beat.
My guest studied and studied. By studying I mean on the bandstand. Getting comfortable expressing himself at times like a melodic instrument while still locking the groove.
He flew on an Airplane to Wally Heider Studios where they cranked out albums with the cagey Grace Slick singing pop/psych lyrics over the undulating bass of my guest. His Crown of Creation was jettisoning Jefferson and forming Hot Tuna with the biophile Jorma Kaukonen. They play duo's or in trios or at The Fur Peace Ranch just being themselves and staying as grounded as possible.
My guest is in the same master bass discussion as Leland Sklar, The Late Great Jack Bruce, Phil Lesh and Dave Holland.v
Live from The UK Jack Casady welcome to the JFS
One of the 4Ls of the JFS is Lineage. The idea of a family tree, where unique sounds originated from
and where the sound spectrum lives in today's electronica world.
The father of Bluegrass was Bill Monroe, John Lee Hooker Champion Jack Dupree, Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters, Michael Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites were fathers and sons somewhere in that mix. Sam Cooke and Ray Charles slow cooked soul music was real rhythm and blues along with Chuck Berry who could play in 7/4 it didn't bother him.
My guest today is someone who continues the legacy left by Jerry Garcia, Lowell George, Duane Allman and Jimi Hendrix. In unique sound yes, a sound he procured from hours of practice and understanding the rudiments. Once you do that you can play music where you can leave your physical body and feel that love. A love that Wayne Shorter describes as going to the store to get your grandma some milk.
My guest came out of the deluge of psychedelia and improvisational live music. From the Both And to the Keystone Korner to modern day Terrapin Crossroads my guest marinates in a sea of live improvisation.
It is all the more impressive that he is able to continue to tour in a climate such as this. There are no Bill Graham's or Ralph Gleasons today.
How to keep a band together and hone your sound? How to trust and get that feeling that Wayne's talking about when your Grandma asks you to go to the store to get you some milk.
My guest will be performing shows at Sweetwater Dec 5th-8th. Both electric and acoustic.
*w/ special guest Will Duncan
The cycle of birth and death. Who are you born to, what kind of family is it? Is it love or hate or both.
Love and Hate, Fear and Insecurity, Stone Genius one step forward 3 back 2 sideways. I'm Grateful for it all.
I'm grateful to be surrounded by people today who feel the emotions that drive the cycle of life and death. My guests today have been preparing themselves for peace in different ways. It could be through silent retreat for three years on a Mountain of Diamonds, it could be the resiliency of a Kid from NYC who was dreaming and connecting with his multi-dimensional self at as early as 5 years old- a prodigy drummer who hung in those parks in the Bronx banging the drum all day as the side paneling all fell off and he could find his true nature. He saw the worst of the human animal and became a beacon of light, inspiration and perspective without the need for adulation.
It could be a renaissance musician who was partially responsible for the rebirths and reincarnation of improvisational melodic soul in an acoustic trio setting. Playing old barns like The Sommerville Theatre or the Middle East with Ra-Kalamazoo Bob Moses playing free spirited music connecting with his multi-dimensional self. This host used to refer to it as "out of body" but in the cycle of birth and death you either check out or live.
You know you are alive if you feel pain when you are hurt or are the hurter. You know your alive When you have people floating in a see of liquid acid spinning wheels in a circus of sound in Maine and Vermont and Kentucky where the finest bourbon is made to numb you from being alive.
Because being alive means you have to accept who you are. As we have seen with icons they can toe that line of invincibility and than succumb to the lashings of public castration for secrets they may or may not have been hiding for years.
We are not infallible creatures which is why I have convened this panel. How to access your multi-dimensional being us essential to peace or getting as close to peace as you can. My show is about elevating the truths of leadership, how to love and not just be loved, when does the heart speak for itself, in my mind its when life is put in perspective by natural events it could be addiction, it could be the falling apart and repair of a ill fated trip, it could be the dissolution of a partnership or fatherhood.
My guests today have lived musical lives trying to balance between the elevated state of magic and the perfunctory realization of coming off the road to clean up dog droppings in the backyard. You are told over and over how good you are, how spiritual you are, how patient you are how do you do that?
The questions become exhausting because any multi-dimensional being knows they are struggling with the balance and need mentors to get closer to peace. To be satisfied with feelings and getting together to play when it feels right, play in a group and listen to each other, play melodies of the song that the bass and drums and guitar and piano or VOX organ can dance around that and begin to feel peace.
So much is promised very little is guaranteed. One guarantee is that I live for moments like this. Where we can celebrate getting closer to the truth while were putting in time on planet earth.
Tisziji Munoz, John Medeski and Will Duncan welcome to the JFS.
Brilliant Taiwanese pianist talks about her passion to teach and stretch out past her boundaries.
I am where I am today as a broadcaster because of the music created by my guest.
Free form music with constant creation in the same vein as Sonship Woody Theus, George Marsh, Wilton Felder, Jim Keltner and Phil Upchurch.
His gravitational pull has been towards cosmic sources of energy with reams of sequential patterns asking why are you written your brothers off man? When we were lovers, Eruptions from Wolfgang Meltz or polyrhythmic drum duos with Carl Burnett.
I am climbing a mountain getting lifelines from my guest and centrifugal forces of pulse, feeling, magic and movement.
It started in Chicago with John Lee Hooker and Oscar Brashear. Cutting albums under the guidance of Leonard Chess and putting melodic invention in alternative clubs like The Ash Grove where Victor Feldman plays the cuica and some chick is moaning into the microphone while my guest peppers the audience with echoplex variations of Stan Getz and Charlie Parker and I begin to realize that this whole journey has been an open door that leads to 4 doors to 12 to 24 in prisms of light and love which is really what allows you to get blood from the sun.
John Klemmer welcome to the JFS
In a day in age when younger cats including myself feel a need to change the subject it has created a musical feel of anxiety and over reaching. The need to show off ones chops at the expense of real authentic music seems to have pervaded the universal language of communication.
My guest continues to play music that don't allow for attention deficit disorder. He grooves you with Sticky Stuff that if you don't get the first time, he'll do it again and again and again. It's not how many notes you play but rather sequencing ideas that are understandable to audiences who dig improvisational music.
My guest pours mathematics and love into his music being able to leave his physical body when creating. Growing up music was a communal event, a gathering of the vibes that meant more than pacification or having some manufactured beats forced into your ears. He is undeterred by distractions, of which there are many, by practicing his instruments and connecting with audiences in the most soulful way. He's coming back to the great state of AZ to perform in Scottsdale.
Diaspora, the actual transfer of slaves from Africa to the middle islands was endemic of the cut throat policies that empires had and still have.
What kept the slaves together spirituality was the drum and the rhythms that came from the drum...let the body dance the mambo or the bolero or Afro Cuban or bebop.
My guest today is one of the most rhythmic percussive pianists in the world. His sound is unique and has been for the last 70 years. He came of age with Bird and Duke Basie and Ellington before cutting albums as a leader.
What does it take to be a good leader? Knowing the history of the music your playing and creating is being a good leader and my guest has always had major threads of his homeland in his music.
He has been traveling to Africa to listen and hear the chants of the natives along with the elephants and lions and scorched earth where all of man originated.
He plays the Niger Mambo with Big Black in the loft downtown along with Thelonious and Barry Harris and Ray Bryant. Catch up on some sleep, shake off the demons and get back on the bandstand.
My guest today is a rarified drummer that can vacillate effortlessly between the studio and a live setting.
It's not your typical live musical setting. Often there are beatniks and lifers who come to the shows to grab the essence of the live music experience. The one were time and place seem to stand still as even those with anticipatory tendencies are hanging on every note, lyric and fate. Doing this in Casino's and Community Colleges and renovated Cathedrals and Roller Rinks. Flying from LA to SF for a weekend at the Keystone in Palo Alto or the Paramount Theatre in Seattle....then it's back to the studio.....
Playing gospel sessions with Michael Omartian swinging the band on a White Horse, always trying to drive the music forward, studying and trusting.
Other sessions follow pre click track with Kinky Friedman, live touring with Brian Garofalo and Joan Armitrade and like Ed Greene and Ndugu Chancler, Jim Keltner, Earl Palmer and James Gadson he knew how to hold it down in all music because he came up not knowing anything about anybody else. He met people in person connected musically.
The lack of interconnection made it so that if you were hip to music you kept seeing the same cats. No emails or texts or tweets just the human connection- con alma. 2nd Chapter Acts or Linda Ronstadt or Larry Marshall.
PART II
There's no way for me to formally communicate with Jerry Garcia and John Kahn. They got up and exited this planet quite some time ago.
In 1982 The Jerry Garcia Band was looking to find a steady date. Kreutzman was filling in and so was Errico but they wanted someone a little more permanent.
Who's the hot guy in town Kahn asks to Michael Stewart. Why don't you look into my guest Stewart replies. He's busy. But still able to fly to Keystone Palo Alto where the irascible Steve Parrish is there to greet him with a Russian Lullaby and the best sounding drums this side of Kat Man Du:
My guest held the drum chair with The Jerry Garcia Band for 10 years. A period of time that featured missions in the rain and slouching towards Gomorrah, appearances and roller rinks in E. Setauket NY and 24 minute Shining Stars to younger audiences whose brains were addled with potent marijuana and psychedelia.
His drumming style is contagious and his connection with Garcia and Kahn is evident when there might be a lull my guest picks it up with some White Horse gallop that perks up Jerry and there is instant unanimity on stage.
He joined the band at the height of Jerry's drug addiction....some might say he would rather be high than on stage playing. My guest can attest to the fact that even in this precoma period Jerry gave it his all and enjoyed challenges from band mates....if you were going to challenge him you better be ready to get pushed back on....my guest did that time and time again until he got that call from the aforementioned Parish about where he wanted his drums sent. As quickly as the liftoff was was as abrupt as the landing.
But my guest just dusted himself off and continued on with Bob Dylan.
Señor David Kemper welcome back to the Jake Feinberg Show....
In the late sixties and early seventies many of the cats who were playing improvisational music were trying to add on to the musical thesaurus that was John Coltrane.
A spinning wheel of scales and rudiments played within different scales and modalities. Expanding consciousness and spirituality in that people got to witness these performances live.
Maybe it was at a bar with 9 people but this music the music of Train and Dizzy, Miles and Charlie Parker affected every musician of the next generation. Rock players, blues players, southern Dixie - you knew if you could or could not play that kind of music but inherently the respect that was garnered across the board is a testimate to the authenticity of these players.
My guest today is one of the cats who borrowed from the masters and then added his own individual voice. For any pure jazz session my guest got the call, playing with Roland Haynes, Joe Henderson, Herbie Lewis, The Skipper Henry Franklin, Charlie Owens, Calvin Keys and Carl Burnett.
But reading of names and record dates does not do justice to my guest playing which comes through him. It is his ability to leave his physical body and transcend that allows the music to be spiritual. Like Randy Weston and Ellis Marsalis and Thelonius Monk my guest was closer to the source of the music and was able to gofarther back in the lineage to see where the music came from, how it was cultivated and where it had changed. He played with the great Yogi Rudolph Johnson and was smokin' with Roy Brooks in the Chet Baker Quintet.
The evolution of the blues written and performed by Jon Hendricks was a direct critique of where the blues emanated from. It was a reminder of the gospel tinged spirituals of the church and the preachers who slung a guitar over themselves to sing and pick and lament those lost days in the fields picking cotton in slavery.
Cats like the Reverend Gary Davis, John Lee Hooker,Indianola's own BB King, Muddy Waters, Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell epitomized this pan African struggle for basic human rights. They did this through the medium of records which gave these performers identities for younger white cats in Chicago and New York and Marin County who heard these sounds and then plugged in.
My guest today is part of this generation who not only got to hear their heroes on the radio, but saw them up close with no teeth and in some cases had to sight guide them to their various gigs. In some cases they got to perform with them because of the regionalized economic wizardry of Bill Graham and Chet Helms who catered to music events which spoke to music. Not stratified in some genre necessitated label making funny farm but rather saw to it that young white bands shared the stage with soul acts and gospel and blues heck even the preservation hall jazz band.
Bob Weir told me you can listen to these players but you really learn by playing with them. Relishing in their stage presence and eccentricities and calmness. Less is more, look beyond the surface and tell a story.
My guest has been weaving musical stories for the last 5 decades. He was one of the Sons of Bill Champlin who enjoyed going to the original Fillmore and catching Sam and Dave along with James Browm at the Cow Palace, tripping with Phil Lesh and playing hootenannies with Janice Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen. He grew up with the sounds of Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow and his pops. He is an original seeker of sound who was an inspiration to both Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia.
The Sons were a sophisticated Mix of Blue Eyed Soul. They came out if the same school as Canned Heat, Boz Scaggs and Michael Bloomfield. The music has an Oakland funk flavor because of KSAN, Voco and the general creativity of a group of cats who expanded consciousness through legal LSD to see and feel how life really could be. Odd meters, hyperactive vocal harmonies and a bouncing melodic structure helped them stand out gain an identity and provide that essential link in the chain for modern day and future sound seekers....
Loosen Up Naturally. Terry Haggerty welcome to the JFS
Technique on the drum kit is essential but meaningless without the infusion of soul.
Cats have monster chops but sometimes you look up on the bandstand and they are not listening- they are thrashing trying to eek out some kind of ego maniacal communication that does nothing to elevate the music.
My guest today has serious chops and serious soul. It started back with Larry Harlow and Willie Colon and Ray Barretto and Joe Cuba playing drums and timbales on countless Fania albums. The Latin feel the clave beat the infectious cyclical propulsion.
His adherence to Afro-Cuban rhythms was evident in the modal driving McCoy Tyner quartet. Channeling Coltrane's thesaurus' of scales and expressing the deep emotive visceral fire of the African American experience in this country.
My guest was all over the New York Scene. Playing with folkies like Tim Hardin, Stoner Jazz with Jeremy Steig, Jazz Rock with Larry Coryell knowing that the 11th house comes after 10 but not before 12.
It's hard to see live music today. Most bass players and drummers can't sustain the hypnotic pocket. That is not the case with my guest who has to hold it down with Henry the Skipper Franklin locking the groove- or Klaus Doldinger or Brian Auger or Wayne Shorter or John Klemmer.
Alphonse Mouzon welcome to the JFS
Shamanic healer and yogic practitioner talks about Vedic wisdom and indigenous healing modalities that have healed her and her clients.
Esperanza Spalding, Gil Evans, Pat Metheny, Pat Martino, Jaco Pastorius
The Jake Feinberg Show
The upright bass. An instrument that elicits sounds large, round and phat. It could be in some messianic run of scales that culminate in a burning straight ahead tune or out in the ethos Dancing on the Puget Sound or Cannon Beach. Places that elicit the sea salt of the earth splashing rays of black saints like Dewey Redman, Hadley Caliman and Joe Henderson.
My guest today is a living Titan of the bass. He carves out grooves with his bow the same way Richard Greene does with his fiddle or Pat Martino does on the electric guitar or Steve Gadd does on the drums
He grew up in the Pacific North West with high timber and a marvelous fluid music scene that saw all the heavies pass through like Charles Mingus and jimmy Garrison and Sen. Eugene Wright all swinging away as they led their own bands, or locking the hypnotic horn of John Coltrane or the piano of Dave Brubeck.
This is the generation my guest learned from. He learned how to cultivate a sound and feeling that fit the imagery of the song and the players.
He has a committed bond to his music and the musicians.....going over waterfalls with John Stowell or dolphin dancing with Paul McCandless or raising his family the same way Glen Moore did and Henry the Skipper Franklin has. The Jake Feinberg Show is about life and the values you choose to live your life by.
My guest could have gone on the road and made a lot of money, basked in touring, fans and enticements. But, he chose a more wholistic approach. One that incorporated teaching, playing, imploring, writing, praying and loving.
David Friesen welcome to the JFS
The guitar for me had become a residence for me. I had been initially exposed to some incredibly efficient artists in jazz. Not only on the guitar, but many different instruments. This was a dream for me to be able to participate in this community with so many different facets that I was yet to learn in the near future.
Maybe if I would have known I would have turned in a completely different direction. I went to Harlem with definitive expectations and when I say definitive I say that through the lens of a child. Experiencing the ecstasy of a new opportunity. Not even knowing @ that stage of development what that outcome would be.
What was understood became a close friend and it resided within me.
There was always a misunderstanding coming from expectations of others saying, "your suppose to do this," or "your suppose to do that."
"Your suppose to use these strings, and your suppose to use a pick like this." That's the very same way of saying your suppose to worship god like this. Your suppose to wear these clothes, your never suppose to say what you just said.
It's the same thing with the instrument that I've happily resided in for so many years. Its an encasement. A vehicle that provided an opportunity to be mobile and access to different world markets and media. Keeping in mind that you are learning from these opportunities.
My guest today is one of the most highly decorated musicians in our countries history.
To him music has no idiomatic label- it's just music. This is evidenced by the list of musicians he has collaborated with over the years.
Greg Allman, Herbie Mann, The Staples Singers, LULU, Levon Helm, Bobby Womack, Lonnie Mack, Russell Smith, Willie Nelson and Millie Jackson.
I have covered studio cats who played MoTown and The Wrecking Crew in Southern California. Today I have an opportunity to continue my regional exploration of music that existed in this country. That being Muscle Schoals.
My guest was part of The Rhythm Section that Locked the groove for curious artists looking for a gulf coast feel. Along with Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett my guest found his way in, out up and around the cosmic vortex of eccentric personalities, pentatonic scales and passion that makes music feel good.
David Hood welcome to the JFS
We'd get to the studio and John would say, "we're going to do song, something like this." He'd have his guitar and he'd stand there for a second and play some of the tune. Then we'd play it and we'd just cut it. We didn't know what we was going to do. We didn't know how we was going to start it, we didn't know how we was going to end it.
Our band (Johnny Cash) had no idea the song "Boy Named Sue" existed. We found out later that Shel Silverstein sent John this poem. If you listen to the record at San Quentin you'll here paper crinkling that John takes out of his pocket, we didn't know what it was. He just started saying it (BNS), we didn't have monitors back then and we couldn't hear cause the audience was so loud. We didn't know what he was doing, I couldn't hear him. Carl Perkins who was with us then, he could hear John's voice out of the microphone. He kicked off his guitar and I started playing something cause I could keep time with his guitar playing. We recorded a "Boy Named Sue."
We're back in the studio later listening to everything, trying to get a good enough mix to release. It never did get to be good, but we released it anyway. It turned out to be one of the biggest records Johnny Cash ever made. Nobody knew it was going to happen, nobody could hear it, that's the way almost everything we did happened back then.
The hot banjo pickin that came before my guest. Country style picking by the likes of Bill Emerson and his Virginia Mountaineers whose fingers were on fire playing rainbow blues.
This music was cut in the moment, no multiple takes just burn and prey -it was and always will be that leap into the world of improvisation that led to my guest today who is another link in that chain.
A chain that consists Merle Watson who along with Doc toured this country with reckless abandon playing beer taverns and church picnics and the Telluride Bluegrass festival singing about the days of wine and roses with a Return to Forever and ever and Ever.
My guest has pierced through the modern labeling of music by continually putti g himself in unique musical settings- knowing that he might flub a few notes but create the highest creative art form which is "continual spontaneity" be with Dave Mathews or Zakir Hussain or Tony Trischka. Night in and Night out playing multiple chorus' like the fiddler Scottie Stoneman who ignored the 12 bars because he had something to say.
It's like Big Ben Banjo mastered by Rudy Van Gelder or Paul Whiteman or Eddie Peabody. How are you going to tell your story? How does your storytelling separate you from the 5 million of banjo Pickers out there.
My guest has many chapters and many stories in his career. Up till now he has played with everyone from Stanley Clarke to Jerry Garcia from Hobo Jim to his Flecktones. He has sought out new musical opportunities because music is the universal language- a cosmic exercise measuring the tenacity and spirit of both man and his maker.
BelaFleck welcome to the JFS
The iconic jazz clubs in our countries history stretch from coast to coast. There was The Both/And and Jazz Workshop in SF. The London House in Chicago, Lennie's on the Turnpike in Boston and Smalls Paradise in Harlem.
These clubs captured the essence of swing music, the lighting, the intimacy- that visceral feeling of collective unison between bandmates and their devoted patrons.
Slowly though in the age of rock palaces and the switch from acoustic to electric instruments these clubs faded away.
One though did not. It was in Southern California but not LA. You needed to drive out to the sandstone of Hermosa Beach to frequent this club and so many of the musicians from Henry the Skipper Franklin to Gene Perla to Kenny Burrell played at this venue. Cats like Buster Williams recorded with The Crusaders at this club - so did Elvin Jones and Grant Green and Joe Henderson.
Others like Ramon Banda would come as a veritable kid to watch Mongo Santamaria.
This club was the link from be-bop to post-bop. From Chet Baker to Sonny Rollins to Chico Hamilton. Loyalists, smack addicts playing three sets a night that left the audiences ears ringing as they headed out into the salty air of the Pacific.
My guest today was the artistic director of the Lighthouse All-Stars. It Started with Teddy Edwards and Hampton Hawes, passed on to Shelly Manne and Shorty Rogers and continued with Bud Shank and Max Roach. The fusing of these groups coincided with Lester Koenigs Contemporary Record Label which gave identities to those who played melodic invention before the digital age.
When improvisational swing began to fade in the early 1970s my guest took over Concerts by the Sea in Redondo Beach which carried on the traditions of the Lighthouse featuring Cal Tjader and Jim Horn, Woody Herman and Dizzy Gillespie.
My guest was born in 1917, is an accomplished pianist in his own right playing on albums with the aforementioned Baker, Stan Kenton and Miles Davis. He has seen, heard, felt and contributed to our countries cultural heritage by giving opportunities to those who wanted to further the connection between the known and the unknown.
Howard Rumsey, welcome to the JFS
We are given native gifts whether we chose to access them or not. If we access these gifts then it comes down to doing the right thing, timing and some old fashioned good luck.
My guest was one of the artists that put me on this path of interviewing musicians in the business of melodic invention. He started in upstate NY where he had the perfect balance of mathematics and love attending ESM and backing up Billy Holiday and Roy Eldridge. Stints in New Orleans was followed by a move to the left coast as he honed his chops with a west coast Titan in Harold Land and Leon Pettis and Donald Bailey and became a fixture in the percolating west coast scene where the clubs were flourishing and improvisational music was listened too.
He came from a brotherhood of musicians that craved an original sound, original rhythms and original music. My guest came from the school of Bird, Dizzy, Duke....swing the band and adapt...to electric instrumentation which my guest did with ease as he played the slick sly funky fender Rhodes with Gene Cherrico and Dick Birk, Sam Most and Don Alias. Somehow he also found time to play with Elvis for 3 years.
Right place and the right time with the right stuff Frank Strazzeri welcome to the JFS
Music Is People 5/5; expanded 7/7 by Kofi Burbridge † My parents were on top of culture, influenced by it, and fired up by it. In 1961 they were already headstrong about receiving any information about Africa, anything that had to do with the influence on African Americans. They wanted to open that up to us, seeing that we were so hyped on music. They wanted to open our minds to the rest of life, besides “this American way.” They wanted to include it, since we are here. They wanted us to have a broader perspective of what we were involved with and who we are. My dad was really into collecting records. Music fired him up. I believe he snuck a tape recorder into Birdland at that time. He was that kind of guy. By collecting all this music, over time, over time, over time, the way it sunk in was that we started gravitating to these records. They were lined up on the wall, and the album covers were really part of the attraction. There was all kinds of music that he collected, from Fela Kuti, to The Impressions, to Beethoven, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, back to John Coltrane and we’re bringing on Kool & The Gang. Our dad was the gateway into everything and he made us feel that we could be a part of all of this, which in turn was “Hey, you can be a part of all people, because music is people.” You hear Afro-Cuban music, you’re not thinking Austria, and vice versa. It’s about people—at least to me it is. Even though we didn’t know these cultures or many of the people from those cultures at the time, we were hearing the music and it was just draining us and we were in awe of the whole thing. That’s primarily what opened our minds up to pursuing what we wanted to get into. I was two years old when I moved out of The Bronx, although I am hip to a lot of the culture that came out of there. One big thing for me was learning about the history of the actual gang life, Robert Moses, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and people dispersing. Then The Bronx went completely down, and the people trying to survive in those conditions afterwards—that was a heavy thing for me to learn. This is pre-Afrika Bambaataa. The one thing that stopped the violence was the music. The movie The Warriors from 1979 is based on a true story about gangs and gang violence in The Bronx. There was a guy who came up to give peace talks about stopping all violence and he was killed on the spot. The movie tries to portray this in many different ways. What happened after that was that most gangs realized, look, we’re coming down on each other just trying to survive, but we should really be putting our heads together and fighting in a different way. That was one of the most enlightening things I learned about The Bronx. Eventually it led to bringing more people together and one side of the borough able to go visit people on the other side of the borough. What opened the door was dancing—street dancing. Twirling on your hands, twirling on your head, which became the new competition along with Kurtis Blow and Afrika Bambaataa and so many others. There were spinners and guys playing records. Dancing was the street thing. You’ll find this a lot in the documentary Rubble Kings (2015), which is so informative about how they got into it, how it changed over time into music, and how the music itself healed that violence.
"We live in a very very weird society here as far as art is concerned. Certainly when it comes to the art form of jazz.When I came to Baltimore with Jackie back in 1965 there was a very vibrant jazz community here. They had the North End Lounge and they had The Left Bank Jazz Society that was committed to carrying on the tradition of the music and have all kinds of musicians come in and play.
I played there with Nat Adderley and James Moody and these circumstances are no longer in existence.
As I think there is really only one jazz club here in Baltimore that has a consistent policy. Unfortunately it's located in a neighborhood that is very crime and drug ridden. It's just weird, in order to get into this club you have to be buzzed in which sends another kind of message about the safety of that area."
When I look at our society, the economic landscape and I relate it to jazz or music in general - our culture.
One of the things I have noticed is that our culture is continually being stifled. Culture is the underpinning and backbone of any society. When you see programs which are being pushed forward to nullify education, to take away someone's ability to even eat and clothe and house themselves when there is a push to deny the right to be healthy. This is at the underpinning and I am becoming more and more fearful of the move in that direction.
Hopefully I can count on the intelligence and sensitivity of American Society in General. But it's here and were going to have to deal with it. Otherwise we will have to endure negative consequences beyond belief.
Culture, Art and Music stimulate the human spirit and the human intellect. If these attitudes are allowed to move forward and exist they are going to deny and destroy that energy that society must have coming from its culture.
For example when I came along, if you were important in the Jazz Club you worked there at least 4 weeks period if not longer. It has been relegated to weekends now. The mere fact of having that time space limited to what it has become, in my view denies people access on a daily basis to things that fortify their spiritual life.
My big problem with all of this, I am fearful we will become spiritually dead here and when that happens anything can happen.
History has shown this happening before with Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and we all know all too well what that produced. We don't need another Holocaust, we don't need another Hitler."
Lewis and Clark were pioneers, so was Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo.
They walked the barren deserts and sailed the high seas looking for new unique unforeseen land and people. They were seekers who took that lonely road - not seeking fame or fortune but to calm the inferno inside them that pushes any iconoclast to the boundaries of the mortal.
In music there are pioneers as well- Bill Monroe and John Lee Hooker, Allah Raka and Dizzy Gillespie, Reverend Gary Davis Jimi Hendrix and my guest.
A Jewish cat from Brooklyn who looked to the Medicine shows and traveling circus' to find the authentic people he was searching for.
He rambled back to NY where he befriended Woody Guthrie and became embedded in the rich folk/poet scene that was burgeoning at that time. His impact has been immense yet he like Columbus took the high lonesome road of Appalachia which led to Nashville and then Mill Valley.
He met Pig Hargus Robbins and Tut Taylor and Johnny Cash along the way.
Nat King Cole put his life on the line playing music. He was an inspiration to many a young pianist who saw the way to communicate musically. To break down all the barriers that people put in there way.
Nat King Cole and Oscar Peterson inspired cats like my guest who grew up in Chicago.....which was brimming with the baddest cats around Elliott Randall, Richard Evans, Morris Jennings, Cash McCall, Charles Stepney and an unlimited amount of Young/Holt. These cats contributed to my guests albums, movie soundtracks and live performances at the Lighthouse or the Jazz Workshop.
These melting pot of brethren thrived on commerce based record labels like Chess Cadet which fostered African American roots music like Ahmad Jamal and my guest.
It was a month at the London House growing up with those who were inspired by Monk and Blakey Playing with the late great Cedar Walton.
My guest is an ambassador of music taking his bands from Bahrain to Tucson. He has lived in the Windy City scene developing the groove, the feel keeping the African swing element into the music.....developing relationships within the urban community which fostered the community integral to melodic invention.
My guest has seven children and 14 grandchildren his legacy is cemented and now he will try to pour wisdom and faith into the younger brethren
Just a link in the chain Ramsey Lewis welcome to the JFS.
This week marked Holocaust Remembrance Day which was an historical event that saw the anguished cries of millions of Jewish people incinerated at the hands of the Nazi's.
Jewish musicians have always had a soft spot in my heart especially if they can swing like my guest who developed and identified with his black brothers who lived under oppression and slavery for years similar to the gulags that were strewn across Eastern Europe.
My guest played organ and piano and within the swirling confines of south side Chicago where the ChessBrothers owned a stationary spot which allowed them to promote Otis Rush and Muddy Waters, Ramsey Lewis. My guest also idolized Jack McDuff and Groove Holmes and Jimmy Smith. Cats who could lock the groove with their left hand and solo over the top with the right while Sam Lay or Harold Jones or Bernard Pretty Purdie held it down.
My guest came from a contingent of white authentics like Elvin Bishop, Michael Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites Harvey Mandel who sat at the feet of the titans, learning how to improvise on the fly and developing their own individual sound. They also always kept the blues in their muse.
Chicago was a bastion of blues and post bop when my guest headed west to Marin county with Michael Bloomfield wailing on Blues in Orbit while self medicating and surviving in a tough business that my guest found success in with the overlapping strands of Bob Dylan and Al Kooper, Harvey Brooks, Neal Merriweather and Charlie Musslewhite Marc Naftalin, Boz, Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs
Unlike cats like Kweskin and Muldaur my guest adopted the plug in and the electric mud that was being slung across hippies shoulders even if Muddy Waters couldn't stand it.
He continues his musical collaborations today with the same grey beards that looked up to and had opportunities to play with John Lee Hooker, The Reverend Gary Davis and Papa John Creach.
All good things in all good time Barry Goldberg welcome to the JFS....
The distinctive sound of the Bay Area came from individualistic drummers like my guest. My guest wound up in a psychedelic rock
Folk outfit known as Quicksilver Messenger Service. A group of Mavericks that combined a wide range of instruments into their music which allowed it to span multi-genres. You hear all the influences in their music and it starts with the drummer.
He could play hard driving rock or Bossa nova, he could play Afro Cuban rhythms or hold it down while a horn section led by Ron Taramina
Blew over the top.
His influences were his peers, Greg Errico, Bill Kreutzmann, Spencer Dryden, Eddie Moore, Eddie Marshall. His band mates were David Freiberg and John Cippolina
Paradiddles and polyrhythms with a new accent on the blues complete with very loose structure and a western psychedelic approach that helped swing the band.
A negative thing that happens (on the bandstand) is that you get in the way of what music “could happen.” I try to stay out of the way and allow whatever’s about to come through to come through.
The other magic that happens is with other players on the bandstand. You have to have a connection with those people, and they all basically have to be looking for the same kind of revelations.
That’s what I find with Astral Project, we’re all very trusting on the bandstand. All the great bands have trust between the players and that’s why certain things happen.
Johnny Vidacovich is a great example because his mantra is “making whatever’s on the band stand sound as good as it can be.” As a drummer he can really control that, and he can really control that in any genre, that’s the amazing thing about him. If it’s a country and western gig, he’s going to bring it to a higher level. If it’s the highest level of the jazz gig, he’s going to go there too. I try to bring that to what I do as well.
It’s an ongoing process
The longer you play the more consistency you have, but even within that there’s highs and lows, even with the best musicians.
"The sustainability of art is constant movement between modes and scales, lyrics, melodies, symmetry, odd meters and a fundamental believe in the huminality of music.
My guest today has been performing in Big Brass Bands the last 6 decades. He has been creating trends and staying on the productive side of the hill even as the fallibility and short comings of man are self-evident.
He was co founder of the A&M record label and was instrumental in fashioning music that appealed to a society that was going through a cultural revolution. Their ears were open to many different styles of music including West Coast jazzers like Pete Jolly, Chet Baker, Leroy Vinnegar and Shelly Manne.
He developed good working relationships with Quincy Jones Who was working on "You Got It Bad Girl" as The Girl from Impanima had come and gone and a newer slicker form of blues and jazz known as funk came into the American Lexicon.
My guest employed street cats like Tommy LiPuma and Nick DeCaro. My guest plays a varied mix of Western swing, Afro/Cuban/Mariachi Country/Pop. Before labels he was a musician who straddled all genres evident from his collaboration with South African Freedom Fighter, Hugh Masekela.
Since 1974 he has been collaborating with his wife Lani Hall forming a duo playing concert halls, hockey rinks, Film & TV shows, and in their own living room swinging their way through the day or into Tucson on the 26th for a gig @ The Fox Theatre.
Herb Alpert welcome to the JFS
The rock opera needs some good talent. The energy needs to rise and in order for that to happen you need to command the stage.
My guest was an integral part to one of the greatest touring live ensembles in the history of the western world. He joined Frank Zappa at the tail end of the seventies
He brought that stage presence and his unique styling to a true jazz band. Playing symmetric and asymmetric scales. Different modes and scales and harmonies and melodies within stanzas of the same tune.
My guest has had a prolific solo career of his own touring with different bands and playing music from his soul and getting stuff out of his system.
Ike Willis welcome to the JFS.
My guest today is an unheralded swamp bucket honk a Billie toe tapping entertainer. He was born in Arkansas and devoured all there was musically speaking. He toured the southeastern United States and when he was back home operated the Rockwood Club where the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty came to play.
He took that gospel infused rock n roll boogie woogie roots to Canada where he formed a band which included Robbie Robertson, Richard Manual, Garth Hudson and Fellow Razorback Levon Helm. This Mojo Man survived and thrived in the music industry by touring and cutting albums with cats like Duane Allman and Pat Travers. He barnstormed North America playing Maple Leaf Gardens and Madison Square Garden. From greasy strip joints to The Last Waltz on Thanksgiving @ Winterland.
Ronnie Hawkins welcome to the JFS
Grief counselor and yogic practitioner talks about overcoming the loss of her baby boy and how it has made her a empathetic teacher, healer, mother and wife.
Brilliant pianist and film score composer talks about coming to America and being embraced by the jazzers
There is no way I would be where I am today if it wasn't for a place my guest helped lead and cultivate.
He cultivated land in a town called Elizaville with but a deli, a fire station and a post office. Nothing for miles, space, Eternity, high skies and the Schain Shack.
What was built on this land in Elizaville is Camp Scatico. Call it a state of mind, I always looked at it as a place to find yourself. 14 summers I attended their and I missed the summer of '97 because my guest told me I was expendable.
He was right, I slept away most of that summer. But you learn early on not to underestimate my guest.
This is a Jewish Summer camp but the closest thing we came to observance was The Friday Night Sermon led by Squirrel who was coming off a counselor softball game at Pontiac and than it was off to the C court....the spiritual part of camp came from the lineage that existed within generations of Holmans, Poritsky's, Roses, Cami's, Strauss' that came through this outdoor synagogue of archery, hounds and hairs, apache relays and flies buzzing around my army blanket looking to get their mouths around some Easy Cheese and Cracker crumbs.
Yet the magic remains in part because of my guests approach. He came to my Grandparents apartment with his father Flick in 1986 and they presented Camp in a very matter of fact way on film if I remember. Going to visit Scatico for the first time I remember the green paint chipping off the lower hill bunks, egg water the ball fields and Joyous Lake.
The backboards on the A court during most of my time there were wooden which gave unusual bank shots while I was barking out the starting lineups for the NAT tournament.
My guest has had to reinvent the camp since a tragedy my last summer. One that happened 4 days in to camp. Nobody went home.......but we live in a different time with a new captain Cory Schwartz at the helm on Boys Side.
My guest always said That The Feinberg Family brought that essence to camp that was irreplaceable be it Shakey or Steady we learned how to relate to people both older and younger, lost weight every summer and came home in August with someone else' boxers, socks and mix tapes that kept us burning on the hot stove for the next 10 months.
Prove it all night, Dave Fleishner, welcome to the JFS...
When I started my show 4 years ago It was with the understanding of taking my native gifts and doing positive inspirational work, building a brand which at its core is about substance over style. As William Faulkner said, "history is what's happening today."
First I had to develop my investigative journalistic chops which had been dormant since Boston University in the late nineties. Than I had to find my voice which really means having the nuts to ask questions of intelligent people about things that most aren't comfortable talking about in private.
I have connected on a very personal level with the greatest musicians of the past and present. The deepest hang with Cats like Steve Gadd and Bernard Pretty Purdie who were holding down Rudy Van Gelders fort in Englewood Cliffs, Or the drum chair at Mikells on the Upper West side strutting their Stuff with the late great Richard Tee.
My guest today has built his brand by staying on the cutting edge of giving people what they want.
Give the people what they want let the body dance be it
MTV, or South Park even Camp MTV.
But his business acumen has been shaped by his love of music. A love that was instilled in him by his mother who went wherever there was rhythm.
My guest saw the world at an early age. The 3rd world to the 2nd Power that his mom showed to him and his siblings helping them shape their views on social justice, tolerance and dignity. The harder the blues the harder it swings.....be it Carnival in Trinidad or the Steel pan bands and the Calypso that ultimately turned into Ska.
He is a music fanatic going to see the Night Tripper or catching the last Allman Brothers show with their manager Burt Holman.....
Holman, Holman, Holman, that name sounds familiar, that's right Scatico Your Face. The nexus between Bill and James, Boys Side Girls Side, 1A1B and now 1c .
My guest' name is emblazoned in the social hall where chicken fights of Color Wars Past conjure up memories of Flicks sermons, Lazy Days and the College Bowl Gold Rush.
My guest went to college in Boston just like this host except my guest came on the scene when radio broadband was cheap. On a fledgling FM Radio Station @ Emerson College my guest was heard round midnight in the late seventies playing Rastafari with a side of Ox Tail. Going into Dorchester and Roxbury finding the cats who were playing Dub Reggae scratching out Lee Perry Junior Murvin and Brother Bob Marley.
My guest has been masterful at identifying talented writers, hosts, producers, entertainers. accompanists who when put together create witty relevant programming that to its credit delivers the news more authentically than the strained major networks who placate institutions that have lost the trust of the American People no matter what their color.
You see it today in the streets of New York where young people can't breath and are trying to find the next leaders of social justice. Because leaders have vision like My guest who is able to identify talent and creativity not yet in its fullest form, he trusts his intuition and knows that you cannot do everything the best. That in fact there are others who can complement you and take something trendy and make it iconic.
.....MTV, Beavis and Butthead, The Colbert Report, the Daily Show South Park. These are not shows that last a few years and fizzle.....these shows are the gold standard of television entertainment.
It's that point of view, to know more is there than meets the eye. Being Rock Steady because the Harder They Come The Harder they Fall one and all....
Doug Herzog welcome to the JFS
As the sun settles over the whispering pines of Elizaville, NY a new summer is set to begin at Camp Scatico.
My guest today is one of the most fiery and inspirational characters I have ever come across who went to camp. He was making a name for himself long before I got there learning to be a leader under the tutelage of Oshatz and Johny Deutsch. This manifested in music appreciation, u13 championships, unsportsmanlike conduct, girls side, Friday night sermons and setting a tone for younger more impressionable campers.
He was my counselor during "The Fish Years" heading up to Lake George or SPAC on an off day and playing General for the Grey in 1988 as this host hit half hook after half hook over AJ Hoffman in a pre-lunch B-Hoops Day 4 color war matchup.
The reason my guest is inspirational is because in the summer of 2000 the red Qualye 2k Jeep drove through the gates of Scatico. After years as a camper and counselor, Ringing the bell at Hobart, Countless benders @ The Seagrape my guest decided to buck the trend, not give in to skeptics and come back to wave that flag wide and high for cats like myself and Cory Schwartz and the Rabbinical Sam Safrin.
He came with an unabashed curiosity and live Tom Petty/Dylan albums cranking after a return trip from the Rhinecliff Hotel and a long walk up the Deli Trail. He is part of the lineage that exists from Nat Holman to Bert Holman from Randy Goldstein to Sam Gold. He and his sister Pam spent multiple summers sporting the green and white.
He has contributed to our society 5 children of his own. Maybe someday they will grace the ballfields with their presence to continue the family tradition that makes Scatico what it is.
He is now a senior partner @ Crossroads Strategies and has been a prolific policy advocate for a host of American based industries including Expedia, Koch Industries Public Sector, Citizens for responsible energy solutions and The I-69 Mid-Continent Highway Coalition.
Part of the Greatest Story Ever Told Todd Weiss welcome to the JFS
There has always been ways of getting expression out. In the sixties I was in High School we had AM radio and FM radio. There was a show called "Morning Becomes Eclectic," that was on a station that played a little of anything. That had all kinds of music including free jazz. In the bigger cities like Los Angeles in the late sixties and early seventies they had everything. There wasn't a lot of country western actually, you had to drive up to Bakersfield to hear that.
When I first moved out to California The Whiskey A-Go-Go was in its heyday.
Taj was playing at the Whiskey A-Go-Go with Jesse Ed Davis. Jesse got off the stage and I went up on stage and said, "hey man you sound beautiful."
Paul introduced me to Don and Larry Taylor and we did a couple of gigs at The Troubadour. They were pretty well received and then Larry said, "man this ain't it, this is jaaassss...he wanted to do something else and he left. I brought in a friend of mine from Fresno named Victor Conte. Victor became famous for a couple of other things- he played with Tower of Power-he's a great, great bass player. I'm willing to bet that if he hasn't touched his bass in ten years he could pick it up and be as funky as anyone on the planet right now.
Bad jazz is when people are playing real hard and nobodies listening.
Lagos used to call it "Bar Mitzvah Jazz."
No matter what kind of music you play people kind of expect a show. There's so much offer on cable, concerts are huge and the magic of ensemble playing which is people who can play even if there just playing chords behind somebody else. Even when it's a singer it can be smokin" if its ensemble playing and people are listening to each other.
Don't get me wrong, we practiced for hours. It's not a question of practicing, what it is a question of is hearing the other person. Getting off on backing up, you don't have to take a solo to get off. It's not like watching a porn movie. Your part of it. If your playing rhythm guitar behind Sugarcane, your part of it.
Paul (Lagos) knew so much. He used to study Joseph Schillinger compositions. He and Cane used to play duets that would just fly off, you can hear that on the recordings but we did that all the time. Sometimes that's shit would last 15 minutes. We do the intro to the song, Don would sing a couple of versus, he'd take a solo, sing another verse. The bass player and I would stop and he and Paul would play for 15 minutes. When we came back in it was knowing when to come back in. This isn't to say that Victor and I were so brilliant we just came in at the right time. No one ever said, "I needed you cats to come in later or early because their was no later/earlier it was just so obvious from the ensemble playing that we were doing. We would bring it down to a certain level and come back in and that's called music."
Prior to full interconnection and the complete digitization of music mastering we had in this country pockets of eccentric engineers who more often then not wore more than one hat.
Rudy Van Gelder held down the fort in Englewood Cliffs while performing optometry in the daytime. Michael Cuscuna found his way to Woodstock engineering Bonnie Raitt all the while hosting free form radio programs and writing linear notes. Same for Marty Feldman and
Eddie Harris
Major cities in this country had venerable studios that cooked with music from across all musical spectrums. Chess Records in Chicago, Stax Records in Memphis, Muscle Shoals in Alabama, Sigma Sound in Philly, MoTown in Detroit and The Record Plant in LA.
Another major record creator was Fantasy records. My guest today was a major engineer during the gravy years of the studio after Max and Saul Weiss sold the shop to Saul Zaentz. But as with other engineers my guest wads jack of all trades. He was the rhythm and blues drummer for the label when they were still in Oakland playing with Ray Shanklin and Tower of Power singer Lenny Williams.
When he became the lead engineer at Fantasy he sought out and trained younger cats on how to create a warm room sound, when Fatansy expanded he was responsible for outfitting the studios and then hunkering down with a Heavy Axe and David Axelrod, Butterfly Dreaming with Flora Purim, Tambu with Cal Tjader and Charlie Byrd and the NTU Troop with Gary Bartz.
He was immersed with all types of musicians. Cats like Sonny Rollins who might come out to cut an album before heading to Japan to Country Joe and other Bay Area mainstays who helped liven up sessions just by being within the complex.
Put in a live audience for Joe Williams or Cannonball or work with Ed Bogas on arrangements for the Vibes of Truth.
This was coupled with a very open radio dial which played a lot of local area favorites like the aforementioned Tjader, Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders and Bola Sete. It should be noted that without Born on the Biyou none of this might have ever happened.
You listen to the warmth that these records give off. The homey close knit quality and the musicians understanding of how special a place it was and you begin to see how regional music developed. Orrin Keepnews relocation to Berkeley and the acquisition of the Prestige catalog only furthered the eclecticism of the musicians. All of a sudden McCoy Tyner found a home there so did Larry and Fonce Mizell as well as Wayne Henderson and Woody Herman.
It was a family of Zen Tricksters who cared about the music and the musicians. Things were cut using analog tape so there was no way to put lipstick on a pig if Pleasure or The Vibes of Truth flubbed some lyrics. You couldn't fix crappy instrumental takes. The artists had to know their shit and so did the producers and the arrangers and the engineers. Everybody's craft was respected and because of the amount of effort put forth by the team often a good product came from that.
In the great lexicon of drummers some are often equipped with a lot to say. They know their primary job is to accompany and swing the band but it hard when they have their own thing to say.
Mose Allison once said that producers and A&R guys wanted drummers to play backbeat in order to make a hit song or record. While there is nothing wrong with backbeat it has in some ways has stilted what drummers think they can say with their trap set.
Of coarse drummers can overplay and get in the way of free form improvisation but like the late great George Muribus said a about my guest he is never stepping on his toes.
Born in Alabama my guest today has the New Orleans stomp and strut mentality. Instruments can be made from many objects and the transformative sounds they make fuel spiritual swinging melodic percussive sound. Just look @ the kinds of people he has played with. Ellis Marsalis, Tom Donlinger, George Marsh, Mike Nock, Mel Graves, Len Lasher, Richard Waters, the aforementioned Allison and Muribus and the celebrated Aussie Bryce Rhode.
He continues to gig in the Bay Area. Playing to people of all ages and all parts of the world. In many ways the music he contributed to some 40 years ago holds up well if not better in today's overly produced, machine reliant music landscape.
Always with something to say Lee Charlton welcome to the JFS
My show has been dedicated to entrepreneurs. Creators of percussive instruments that increase the sonic nature of music. The "Mark Tree" and the water phone, the Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band and New Music of the West.
My show has also been dedicated to the congero. The hand drum that was introduced to this country by Dizzy Gillespie when he brought Chano Pozo to the states. The same can be said for Armando Peraza who started with George Shearing then Cal Tjader and eventually his own career.
My show has also been dedicated to the original masters like Buddy Rich and Earl Palmer, Max Roach and Cozy Cole, Elvin Jones and Ron Tutt. Guys who played light but fierce. Using smaller sticks and playing less notes but finding a way t contribute to the session and elevate the music to a higher level.
My guest today fits into all three of these dedicated themes. He is a creator of rhythm using one hand to create the beat which frees up his other hand to add splashes of colors and polyrhythms to create space within the music. He has made many of his own drums out of barrels and clay.
My guest is a congero in his own right. He developed his chops seeing the world in the US Navy Band touring South America and other middle world continents where the intoxicating sounds of Mongo Santamaria pulsated my guests brain. He has used the cungas in non traditional country settings or bluegrass settings since settling down in Music City USA in 1970.
And like the original masters he can swing the band in an authentic fashion because of feel. He has enhanced countless sessions from Doc and Merle Watson to Ray Charles and Vassar Clements, from Tony Joe White to Billy Joe Shaver and Hargus Pig Robbins.
Here remains as active as ever in today's music business. Helping mentor younger musicians on the less technical aspects of swing- those being love, life, leadership and lineage.
Live from Nashville, TN- Kenny Malone welcome to the JFS.
Sicily is 17 miles from the coast of Africa which is where the origins of rhythm lie. The ancestral heritage of that country bled into the soul of my guests family who came to this country to play straight ahead, pulsating melodic invention, syncretic music engrained in New Orleans, supported by the mob and appreciated across the world.
My guest is a bone player who came up as an original left coast All-Star with Stan Levey and Conte Condoli, Leroy Vinnegarand Shelly Manne Gerald Wilson and Monk Montgomery.
Guys who pioneered blues music in the army. Driving pulsating rhythms into Europe and Asia and then bring it back to the states where clubs like Donte's and The Lighthouse and The Manne Hole supported the music night in and night out playing My guests charts and Emil Richards odd time signatures and Gabe Baltazars swinging saxophone.
My guest was doing it before I was born playing with his brother drawing a long lineage back to mother Africa where we all descend from.
Mike Barone Welcome To The Jake Feinberg Show
I started my show the day after Gabrielle Giffords was nearly assassinated in Tucson (01/08/11). The entire community was in a state of shock and for this host I was just Trying to get my sea legs on the radio. While the community was mourning my guest was going through a transformation of his own. From Space Navigator to family pillar, from Desert Storm Patriot to healer, from an abstract belief in god to a deepening in his faith. My guest sat by his wife beds side while she healed. Because of modern medicine and competent surgeons she survived, although some close to her did not. She rehabilitated in the finest clinics in America slowly relearning to speak and eat and all other daily living skills we take for granted. Maybe my guest did to but after that tragic day he was by her side every step of the way. Pulling from the Cosmos a deep well of intestinal fortitude that he poured into Gabby. As she mended the couple realized they had reached yet another demarcation point in their lives. No longer was she just a politician and he a gutty astronaut. They were now public figures that gained international attention for overcoming the odds. Whether or not they wanted this, natural events gave them no choice. Maybe it was not having a choice that changed my guest. As we sit here today my guests identical twin brother just broke the record for most consecutive days in space by an American Astronaut. My guest has taken his fair share of trips into space using what we know of modern engineering. His aerospace acumen is such that he became a NASA space shuttle pilot in 1996 and made four trips into space including the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 2011. He is also a navy captain and naval aviator flying missions in the first Gulf War. While he has consistently sacrificed for his country he is now an American searching for responsible solutions in one of the most irresponsible times in our countries governmental history. Mass shootings have occurred in South Carolina, Connecticut Colorado and Oregon since January 2011 and despite heavy support from President Barack Obama no legislation has been passed to limit the ability of unhinged or mentally unstable individuals to get their hands on assault weapons. Nothing has been done to change the background checks before you can purchase guns. We have a society that glorifies violence and many big companies who would just assume to see the status quo stay the same. That's where my guest comes in rallying victims family members and trying to change hearts and minds so that are kids can be safer, our discourse can be civil and more pragmatic approach to governing can evolve. Just a simple twist of fate Mark Kelly welcome to the JFS
Good Leaders are hard to find these days in Public Life. Transcendent figures like Pope Francis make you again realize in the power of the spirit and love. My guest is a transcendent leader in the world of music. He has had a positive impact on so many lives. Recycling Reusing being resourceful in the face of adversity. Most importantly making bread for his family and breaking bread with his bandmates at Jazz Alley. My guest was the leader of the band Tower of Power. He led a frontline horn section when the band was known as "Extension Five" with Rocco Prestia playing like James Jamerson. Tower of Power was some of the first Acid jazz that I got of on. The funk came out of the gutbucket Oakland stroke before Urban Renewel. The lyrics were transparent and spoke to cats like Kenny Burrell because you got to keep both feet on the ground. The swing element came from Drummer David Garibaldi. He was a jazz drummer who plays funk for a living and his drum drops helped set up Countless groove albums that eventually turned into modern day break beats. My guest sometimes changes horses in midstream. This host believes that my guest does this sparingly and when you come into his band you are family. Which means you do your job and not anybody else's. It means that if you know your strengths then you can go off and my guest will let you get it our of your system.
Spiritual horn player talks about his gravitational pull towards tribal burning music that makes the masses uncomfortable.
Most people think of the violin as a classical instrument. Most classical cats are pretty uptight. It takes someone with unbridled passion and bravery to step outside and swing down a lazy river road, through the heart of Memphis, or play rock with jazz asthetics.
Because when you play the blues you have to throw the book away. My guest came from an era when you could be an impoverished improviser. The tale end of the Beats were still around to expand consciousness and live their own way in a slowly conforming society.
Work at a bus station or play some timbales or do lots of conscious altering chemicals that pretty soon there's Thunder Rolling Across the plain swept prairies that my guest played @ with Bob Dylan.
It was Dylan who discovered my guest as she was on her way to a Latin Boogaloo on the Lower East Side of Manhatten. Can you really play? My guest had no time to think only rest on the past which she exhibited a selfless true nature that created Kharma over years that led to this unfolding Dharma tic collection of experiential learning.
Going from an literal feisty street hustler to cutting albums with Bernard Pretty Purdie and Dee Dee Bridgewater. If she had crossed seconds earlier the encounter never would have happened. Nothing is strange, only strangely familiar. Scarlet Rivera welcome to the JFS.
My first experience with "The Motherland" was playing with the Umoja (Unity) Ensemble. We were scheduled to play in "The Rumble In The Jungle." We were scheduled to be on that show. Miles booked some gigs in Europe so I couldn't do it.
The next time I visit Africa we're going over there for the 50th Anniversary of their revolution in Ghana. I stayed a bit in Ghana, the next year I was made a Chief. I've been going back and forth for the last fifty years. I was enstooled as a chief, a friend of mine took me to see the primary Chief. We started hanging out and I visited the Palace. We got tight and he said, "I'd like to enstool you as a chief." My official name in Ghana is "Nana Mensah."
I never played for him. The first thing we got tight in was that my wife and aunt donated a bunch of computers for a school in one of the villages. That was just vibrations and a whole new world for those kids. He wanted me to be one of his personal advisors.
They slit a goat in front of me, cooked it, ate it.
I've never mentioned that in any interview in my life. You went never never land on me."
African Folklore is still healthy but you see that change is coming. My son and I were just in Cuba in May. We were standing in the middle of Revolution Square and I sent my whole family two months later. My wife, my kids and my grandkids. I said, "I want y'all to check this out now before McDonalds gets there. It no longer will be a picture of change, it will be Ronald McDonald on the front cover.
Sonically Lazy 7/7 by Mtume I always looked at sampling like somebody making a quilt. The quilt is made up of many other blankets. You have to learn how to make your own blanket. I don’t down hip hop. I think it was a very creative thing, because for the young black kids, music was taken out of the schools. When was the last time anybody’s seen a music store in a black neighborhood? Maybe thirty years ago. You go to Harlem, and there are no music stores. It was the genius of desperation that brought about sampling. It also kept the DNA of Funk and RnB alive for kids who never really heard it. It’s gotten to the point now where a lot of the cats are playing with a band, and I find that terribly interesting. We have to go back to the period when hip hop was starting. There was a great social divide in the black community between the older blacks and younger blacks, especially black men. Many in my generation denigrated hip hop and rap. But each generation brings its own music. That divide gave a lot of anger to the hip hop artists, who felt they weren’t getting respect. If you have no youth and all old people, your glass is half empty. All youth with no age, your glass is half full. We have become sonically lazy. The only cat who ever broke out of the box was Sun Ra. The rest of us, I don’t care what avenue we take, we’re still in that box.
Back in the 50s and 60s you could find no more Racist state in America than Alabama. Swampland and urban squalor blacks getting hosed down and the overt fears of one race towards another was revealed. These overt acts of hostility provided character development from folks like my guest who grew up playing black clubs on the Chitlin circuit. Because of the communal/spiritual nature of music it pushed back against the epidemic of Rascism. It strove for love in this case trust with a fallen Allman Duane that is as the band decided to go with a lead piano player alongside the gun slinger Dickey Betts. This was gutbucket music mixing Appalacia/Dixie/Blues/Cajon/Swamp/funk/ down @ Capricorn Records..... This laid back boogie woodie permeated my guest as he became connected with Grandmother Earth tending farms in Georgia learning about the earth, how to heal it...bring the Sea Level Down just a little because the Fever's always there. Playing the same chromatic scales over and over again until the audience got the point tripping their faces off after a 21 min mountain jam. Or branching of to play with the Stones or Eric Clapton. Chuck Leavell Welcome to the JFS
Rubbing a N** Head by the late Jon Hendricks English Lords, when they came to America, when they got off the boat, the first thing they did was go to the Waldorf, put their clothes away, and go uptown to Harlem and listen to some jazz music and eat chicken and waffles. They loved it. They’re the ones that gave jazz the prominence it has today. I’m a distinguished professor of jazz at The University of Toledo. I teach my students, 250 per class, that America is the only country on earth that has no respect for its own culture. It has respect for every other culture in the world. Every city has a big art museum that costs at least a million or a million and a half a year to keep up. That’s French. Every city has billion-dollar companies to keep up. But that’s English. In other words, American culture was kept up by the cats in the Mafia. They were Sicilians who originally came from Africa to Sicily. Louis Armstrong said, “If it wasn’t for them Sicilians, there wouldn’t be no jazz in America.” The thing that was most interesting to me was that they loved the music because it was African, and they were from Sicily, which is 17 miles from Africa. They had heard the rhythm of the drums in their ancestral home. They were the ones who came to America and they supported us. They didn’t treat us like ns. They treated us like human beings. That’s the whole thing, and they gave us the best of what they had. The thing that made it possible was they were selling girls for sex and all kinds of drugs: cocaine, marijuana, alcohol. I worked for a branch of the mob that supported jazz in the Midwest. I was working at 12 years old with Art Tatum every night at an after-hours joint called the Waiter’s, Cook’s and Bellman’s Club in Toledo owned by the Mafia. Both Art and I were able to start our careers because these people existed. They gave us a chance to work there and grow in our work, because the more you do it the easier it becomes. At that club, they ran alcohol down from Detroit, which was “wet.” Ohio was “dry.” Art and I used to stand out in the hall, because we couldn’t go into the room where the customers were. The Mafia used to come by, park those big old Packard cars outside, come in and take off their overcoats and hats, hang them up, come past Art and me standing there, and rub my head. Rubbing a n**s head was lucky for them. I met everybody coming through there, all the orchestra leaders: Duke Ellington, Jimmy Lunceford, Andy Kirk, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong. They all came through the club. I witnessed the whole sociological emergence of our cultural art form, I was in the middle of it while it was taking place. These musicians were beloved by the American public totally, and you had no problem selling them. The audience loved them. But America—I mean, White America—has been born like a jackass to the human being when they’ve dealt with their own musical contribution to the world, which is jazz. They still don’t handle it right. It was not been given the respect it deserved. It should have been much more respected than it was. They used the rhythmic parts and the musical parts to form a pop music of their own, instead of taking what we already had contributed. I thought it was time that someone told the story of Evolution of the Blues. The Mafia gave us the opportunity to play our music. They told us about what was going on in New Orleans and they told us a lot of things that we didn’t know. I put the @rhyme [CORRECT WORD?] together and made up the show.
The success of Batdorf and Rodney was a confluence of factors. They came of age during free form radio. You might here The Flying Burrito Brothers followed by Cannonball followed by Buck Owens.
The jam circuit was alive and well for these seasoned woodsheders. They could go coast to coast have a week or more engagement building indigenous fan bases because you were in such close proximity to the band. Along the way they ran into other musicians that influenced their sound and maybe even joined the band.
Record companies had cats like Ahmad Ertegan who saw a place in the enclosing record industry for this acoustic electric duo. Let's get me down with the swampers in a Muscle Shoals with Barry Beckett playing vibes. Or back to LA with the likes of Jon Barbata Russ Kunkel and Brent Mydland heating up and cooling down all in sync.
These cats weren't playing Lydian scales rather honky blues lighting up movie theaters, playhouses and college campuses.
In these times of electronic music one way of coming back to a middle ground is by playing acoustic guitar, with great output but little amplification. The messages are relayed in stories unpackaged or uncorked slowly discriminating into danceable music.
Still doing it after 4 decades John Batdorf welcome to the JFS....
On Wolfgang (Bill Graham)
When I was in college I was real tight with a few of the guys from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) which was a band that emanated out of the area. The whole spirit of that area was beautiful. I remember being on the Chitlin Circuit and we'd go up Mandrakes to play a gig.
We had a manager named Bruce Gladner who's company was Shady Management and my god if there ever was a name as prophetic this was it. He also had the band "Zephyr" which included Tommy Bolin.
Bruce had an affiliation with Bill Graham and so because "Wolfgang " (Sklar's Band) becoming closer to Bill and David Rubinson who was a major record producer up there. We cut a few demos that I have that have never seen the light of day. A few 45s.
Bill's real name was "Wolfgang," and we thought, "there's no better way to suck up to our new manager than to name our band after him."
It was about a year later that I met James Taylor and we did a lot of work at the Berkeley Community Theatre and suddenly I was involved with Bill on a much more regular basis. Plus we closed out the Fillmore East we were the next to last act. So I got to be real tight with Bill.
It brings me back to "why did he have to get in that helicopter?" Bill died in a helicopter crash. There was a car waiting to take him from Concord but he needed to get back. The weather got real bad and I think they hit power lines. What a loss.
When we played at The Greek Bill would always do the most outrageous back stage events. We'd show up and the spreads and the Hawaiian themes. He was a master of ceremonies just loved to be in the middle of everything.
Bill loved the musicians but he loved the audience more. I remember we went to a gig just to hang out and I won't mention the artists name but they had finished their set and the audience was just screaming going nuts wanting an encore. The band wasn't really acting on it they were sitting back digging themselves. I see Bill take them by the scruff of their neck and push them back out to the stage yelling, "get out there!" More than anything he wanted the crowd to have a great experience. He really believed in that relationship between artist and audience. He wouldn't tolerate any BS from anyone. You read stuff about people disparaging him. He was a task master in an incredibly positive way and his priority was always to make the show and the scene better."
Go Ahead by Jerry Cortez What turned into Go Ahead had several different incarnations. The first was a band called Kokomo, which featured Billy, Brent Mydland, David Margen, and Kevin Russell. Billy was the only member of the Grateful Dead in Go Ahead. Apparently, Brent was kind of in the wings saying, “That sounds like fun; I want to be part of that.” So Brent got involved and eventually Bob Weir got involved. I love Brent. I miss him so much. He was such a good guy and a remarkable musician. Even at rehearsal, man, he was playing like it was the last time he was going to play. Every time he played, you’d see his whole body move. We used to rehearse at Front Street, the old funky part of San Rafael. That was where the old Litchfield’s Hotel was. There were hookers. I’m thinking, “This is Marin County?” It was a two-block radius of drug dealers and hookers. Front Street was right in the middle of all that. That’s where we rehearsed. Garcia would show up and check us out. He dug the band actually. We played one gig in the Bay Area in Concord. The place was about half full. I don’t think they promoted the show. That was the first show Garcia came to. He was the first guy backstage after the show. He had a cigarette in his hand, and he came up and said, “You guys were fu*king great, man.” After that he came to our rehearsals.
This journey has provided me with an education. The education has occurred because those who seek have always sought truth. In the case of my guest it was the stone truth of music and the musicians who made it.
The swing of Dixie and the marching bands. The Ed Bogas Soundtrack Machine and the clave beat of Cal Tjader. Boys turn to men because they believe they can play with the titans - no barriers, colorblind with the less said the better. Say it with your sticks.
More often as with my guest someone opened a door and he chose to walk through it. By walking through the door it opened a Gateway to new musical opportunities, gigs and tours. Being to loose to truck and sing for your supper.
My guest as with most from the Tribe did not forget the opportunities afforded to him by his mentors. He is the first one to recommend cats for gigs or cultivate the local music scene by hosting jam sessions in the Susquehanna Valley. He learned this from Joe Henderson and Vince Guaraldi, Van Morrison and Phil Lesh.
My guest can play standards or free form music. He can hold it down even when there is no time, wood shedding for hours and then putting his own individual stamp on the music. Still keeping the beat after some 50 years of creation, Steve Mitchell welcome to the JFS.
My guest today has been a band leader for over 60 years. He made his name playing the vibes which is this hosts favorite instrument.
It's a percussion instrument with a warm sound and can be played in a trio setting the way Red Norvo did with Tal Farlow and Mingus or in a Quintet setting like Cal Tjader did with Armando Peraza, Al mcKibbon and Dick Birk.
It fits into all types of musical settings and it was popularized by my guest by his virtuosic approach and an ability to create an output within the big band ensemble.
My guest today is a lover of people. He has an insatiable desire to play music you can tap your foot to. That's what Jack Kleinsinger told me about my guest. He's played on the east coast and west during the heyday of bebop and swing. His peers include Bill Holman and Chet Baker, Jimmy Rowles and Ray Brown, Milt Jackson and Harold Land.
These cats had to sing for their supper because if they didn't sing there would be nothing left to eat.
My guest was a relentless entertainer and musician. He created a following through his gesticulations and banter along with a Jitterbug Waltz when music was made for dancing. His collaborations with Steve Allen and Star Time increased his name recognition in the often obscure world of improvisational swing or melodic invention.
He continues to be a link in the chain
For younger musicians who are searching for something to say. There are no more live clubs on every corner of urban America, there are no longer 1 month residencies at the London House or Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse or Lord Chumleys and the barriers and stratification that have been put up in music hurt the ability for experimentation and chance taking because mega money has superseded quality art, pacification rules the day as opposed to the visceral culture that was visible on Market Street in Chicago or Harlem. Ultimately the ego has superseded the music in that individuals now project their own monster chops at the expense of the accompanists, the listening and the love.
This is why lessons in life from the old guard are key. It's why my guests son plays with venerable grey beards Ron Carter, Kenny Barron and Ron McClure......time for some good vibes. Terry Gibbs welcome to the JFS.
Art is to be shared and not to be judged. Shared in a world of non conformity with others who bring their own gifts to a project.
In the case of my guest he is saint maybe his hardest critic because he at a relatively early age got his feet wet under the tutelage of Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye and Allan Ginsberg: he experienced the power of music as transcendental and knows that this can only manifest through mystery, mysticism and authenticity.
This is easy to say but hard to do as I watch my guest warm up his fingers plucking the chords to Little Sadie or feeding off the symbol work of Winston Watson or Transcending Sunship Woodrow Theus. He is deliberate but impatient, mellow but edgy, enlightened but humbled by his experiences knowing that when you put yourself out naked, exposed for all to see the emperor in fact has clothes. Cowboy Neal on a bus to never never land........
Oliver Ray welcome to the JFS...
Iconic Bay Area drummer talks about the funk roots of Oakland and playing every night as if his life depended on it.
Location: Winter Count, AZ
The true nature reveals itself all the time. It is the process by which you are able to look in the mirror and not look back except to promote the values of Elvin Jones, Colin Walcott and my guest.
To swing was never s question for my guest as well. It just mattered that it feels good. Music of Another Present era is finding your true nature in the music of Oregon a band that continues today and reaches into the breach of classical music with jazz changes using world instruments or maybe Ralph Towner on Ringmodulator.
My guest was born and raised in Portland and at an early age connected with Native American Jim Pepper who's free spirit is in the same vein as Leon Thomas, Carmen MCrae and rasa an Roland Kirk.
The records I own in which guest is featured allow me to expand consciousness and be more at peace to discover my true nature.
Oregon is a band that features Polyrhythms and Odd Time they were an acoustic counterpoint to the electronic development of Mahavishnu in the early seventies.
The ability to express yourself in a non verbal fashion enhances your perception of man and the music. At times the music takes over, the player knowing that it comes from another space or place and trusting in that sincerity.
I sit here today in Winter Count, AZ with my guest in a true desert oasis. A camp of the earth and the indigenous. To remain connected to the cosmos then you must remained grounded to the earth knowing that if you don't practice the wood upright bass will humble you.
Too often in life we desire bigger things failing to see what we have in front of us. Unable to appreciate how far you and your bandmates have come. Can you see the growth and painstaking groans of a space bound child sent flying at a summer music festival or the Brooklyn Bowl.
Blue Eyed Soul was Boz Scaggs gig but my guest is doing the Blue Eyed Blues.... sticktuitiveness that resembles the gritty industrial ragtime of Kingston, NY that brought about folk trios emulating Peter Paul and Mary and produced offspring who are pissing on the constitution trying to stand out in the age of digitization.
Interconnectivity is good in the sense it can put your faces up with an article for all to see but what about feel? Isn't that what Leroy's music is all about. They have evolved from a standard lay den play it safe group to a close down beer tavern honky tonk bar band. Delta Blues with a Chicago Shuffle, a Southern Rock flair with a little bit of Hudson Valley gumption that carries the music and the spirits from town to town and city to city.
What do you have to say for yourself. You gonna be a cover band or your own band. Can you support your fellow comrades and reach that transcendental place as a collective unit? The more that happens the more the band will grow but that takes everyone willing to put themselves out there, taking chances they may not have taken before.
All good things in all good time Jason Gallagher welcome to the JFS.
Within the belly of the beast in this country lies the soul turnaround of African Preachers from the South. They need to be black because certain portions of blacks were enslaved and some say they still are. They have to be black because they need to have good rhythm.
They need to be from the south where Montgomery and Birmingham are seared into the minds of every kid who watched the black and white videos of (Police Cheif) hosing down innocent people. The south had the most overt Rascism and impoverishment so to come of age as a minister with the underclass you were them once and you know what it's like to walk in their shoes.
Even when your flying high in the city of Angeles you still know what it's like to be in the poor mans shoes. You know how to talk to the bumpkin or the metal worker or the illiterate boy who impregnated your daughter because you know you can't be saved by two different saviors.
You have to be a preacher because you bleed charisma. You spend a full night partying on Saturday night, meeting with varied interest groups on Sunday morning and afternoon and then give a thunderous speech from the pulpit calling for each human being to find themselves, do it through relentless passion, fire and brimstone but also the cagey insights that keep a Rev. Cleage on your side or the adoring loyalty of Corretta Scott King.
My guest today wrote about this African American Preacher from the South. CL Franklin. Who Sang in Strange Lands like Memphis and Buffalo and Detroit. Franklin was part of the confluence of entertainment, politics religion and burgeoning soul music that led to a genuine cultural uprising. Franklin didn't have the IQ of Dr. king but he was a street scholar who didn't spend a lot of time not dealing in black and white. Ask his son who was not excited to go to Moorehouse but then received a stern choice from his dad who was a single parent who raised nearly all of his children. His first wife Barbara bailed back to Buffalo but CL stuck with it with the helps of maids, mistresses and the gumption to bring coalitions together. When tensions were at their highest CL was at his coolest.
While this host has primarily looked state side for hotbeds of regional music there were cities north of the border that were just as impressive.North of the motor city lies Toronto in Canada which was a mix of immigrants and hillbillies. Farmers and Fishers and Indians all there to seek independence from the culture of conformity. Cats from cabbage town or the rural country where pussywillows and cat tails abound.This independence was a testament to knowing the land and inherently survival in this land.."write the music, write the chords, don't rely on others be self reliant.
My guest today is a dreamer, a poet and performer. He uses a multi sensory physiological structure to craft songs, see the earth, be the earth. Don't be thrown off by the early morning rain because it might be the most peace your going to get all day.
He relies, on analog cassette tapes, like this host, to write down lyrics, thoughts and ideas. There is no stimulation that is digital. He remains committed to painting his legacy year after year after year knowing that his greatest songs were in conjunction with Moonshine and bottles of beer- something about that spontaneity.
He is from the same area that has produced Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. The same city that has given us Garth Hudson Richard Manuel David Clayton Thomas and the Shays...Lenny Breax.
Still driving motorcycles with Bob Dylan and the ghost of Rick Danko close behind he does not dwell on the past or obsess about the future. He stays in the moment and in music if your focus is there and your soul is there then that's when the intersection of music and magic occurs.
He's coming back to The Fox Theatre Feb. 8th Gordon Lighfoot a pleasure to welcome you to the JFS
In the live music experience the most important aspects that can be conveyed to the audience are authenticity and individuality. True nature and differentiation.
Not being a good rock star helps. You wear any old clothes and grab a hot meal not leaving on a jet plane but taking a bus.
The conundrum comes into play when a non-conformist becomes part of a mainstream sensation. Then the planes are waiting at SF International as my guest is ready to board to Japan because the trio is in high demand.
My guest today has lived as authentic a life as possible in both music and education. He grew up in Manhattan and spent summers in Woodstock before it was overrun with kids at the greyhound bus station with a guitar in one had and a painting cap in another. The seasons of Woodstock encompass the moods of any real human. These moods have all poured out of my guest....the raw winter wind off the Catskills, the burning embers of summer into fall as Puff the Magic Dragon floats in from the Hudson.
My guest is a master performer and an individual with a deep commitment to history and the ties that bind. Film canisters filled his house when John Simon was living in a land of Sunshine. It was not just Pontification it was the inquisition. The capturing of major events before interconnection. The music mixed with messages of social justice, racial equality and humanity.
It does not surprise me that my guest has devoted a large portion of his recent years to education. The idea that the non-perfect girl like Janis Joplin can come along and stamp out the material world. Don't get limited by choice. Seek and Discover and stand up for yourself as long as your visiting this planet.
Melodic invention- a word developed by another bass player named Putter Smith who defines this as European Swing coupled with African Rhythms. It doesn't really matter where it started because it was sprinkled with Dixieland in the south Harlem Soul in the north Blues in St Louis up the Mississippi Delta to Chicago. This fusing of music included a young farmer from the valleys of California who worked a farm by day and sock hops by night. He became a fixture of San Francisco melodic invention being partially responsible for desegregating the army with his mixed race bands like the guys he grew up with on the farm. His first group included my guest who like Al McKibbon and John Heard The Skipper Henry Franklin, and Scott Lafaro found his way through the European swing by using African Rhythms. His rhythm simpatico was Joe Morello who brought an additional element of 5/4 time and a Dixieland bouncy that further colored this mixed race band. He is the only living member of the classic quartet. After taking five my guest went on to collaborate with Billie Holiday, kenny Drew, Sonny Stitt, Cal Tjader and Monty Alexander. He has written books on bass and played the supper club circuit of upstate New York, he has toured the world bringing melodic invention to India and Japan and South America.
Further was originally a Quartet and then for awhile it was just the three of us. Towards the end we started moving away from low-fi records, trying to make our sound a little bit better. There was a time we didn’t even have a bass player, it was just three guitars and drums. We knew we needed a keyboard player and bass player.
I saw this kid at the radio station one day, he was kind of like a punk rock/emu kid. I said, “can you play any instruments?” He said, “I can play guitar.” I said, “do you think you can play bass?” He said, “I can try.” I said, “do you want to come to practice Thursday?” That guy was Chris Gunst.
I left Further to do a project with Sony and eventually after Further dissolved, they started a new band called Beachwood Sparks. That’s when Farmer Dave came in.
There was a radio show that a couple of the guys from Beachwood Sparks had on KXLU, the local indie station out here (SoCal), they actually got in trouble, and almost got kicked off the air, because in the middle of the punk rock/indie rock, they would play David Crosby and Gram Parsons, and that was a big no-no.
Master pianist talks about his career from upstate New York to the Big Easy to Ball St.
Yogic practitioner who is leaning into her true nature and taking a spirit mind approach to learning.
Runaway Bay you say? Sounds like a gong with the ghost of Marcus Garvey and the chants of the sugar shakers......
The drum is a language all of its own. The rhythms on the 1/3 instead of 2 and 4 set reggae apart as a modern music be it ska, calypso, dub rock steady. My guest is from Jamaica and was part of the regional music of that island with The Bush Doctor Peter Tosh, Brother Bob Marley, Monty Alexander Sly and Robbie and Ernest Rangelin keeping the sounds of diaspora within the new bass drum beat.
My guest is a bad cat so he came to the states and established himself as a go to percussionist for poets like Gil Scott Heron spoke of the oppressed and B-Movie operation that was happening states side.
The magic remains in the music when those with strong rudiments can leave their physical body to create transcendent music that keeps me together.
Natural Expression by Sunshine Kesey (daughter of Ken Kesey and Mountain Girl) I saw Jerry Garcia on stage from my infancy. At the time their events were considered the safest and most loving place anywhere. I grew up at Grateful Dead shows and New Riders of the Purple Sage shows, which all felt like a safe place for kids. I had full run of the place, because I was one of the oldest kids. I was one of the first rock and roll babies in our group and I’d start bossing the kids around. That was a little scene which I can see now was a little unusual. But at the time it seemed natural, because we were a traveling circus, and everyone traveled together. It was just natural that you brought your kids, your dogs, because your home was the road. You had to bring what you wanted with you. We went on the road a lot. As time moved on, there were more kids, and things got a little bigger and crazier. The road was longer; then I think we stayed home more. Then later in time Annabelle would go out on the road with Jerry by herself. She was 12, but it was considered OK and safe. It was like a huge village that would look after your kid. I used to run around in those big halls in the audience, trucking around by myself. I knew where the stage was. I knew how to find my folks. I loved running around and having a good time, getting into mischief and tripping the spinners. I never saw my mom and dad as a couple. They were never a couple in my time. They were friends, thankfully. He was married and had three children. Faye was friends with my mom as well. Luckily the spirit of friendship and the appreciation for my life being in their life was evident. They wanted me in their lives, so I got to be part of the family. The times being what they were, all those little fences around what we do had melted away, so it wasn’t considered a terrible transgression. I don’t think my mom ever assumed that she would say “we.” There was never any jockeying for position. It was like a natural expression during high times. I think the complications showed up later. A lot of those ideas about free anything did not survive the test of time. Basic things like “Whose food is in the fridge?” It gets compli-cated. We were never a commune per se. My mom is a powerful person, a powerful personality. She has a real good sense of family, too. Not just our immediate family but our entire tribal family. She has done so much to knit all this stuff together. Even as the “ex” and being pushed away, she herself is pushy and does what she wants. She made sure her girls had access to their dad and the scene. I myself would have been shier: “I’m not invited, I’m not coming.” She made things happen and she continues to make things happen. She keeps the soul of the village somewhat together. I know that in 2015, the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, she made a big move to make sure that folks who were part of the Grateful Dead for years and years and years were invited where they hadn’t been invited. She wasn’t going to play by the rules. She wanted to have Steve Parish invited. She said, “If these people are not invited, what a terrible crime against our whole scene.” My younger sister Trixie said, “You can’t be doing this, you’re going to rock the boat.” My mom said, “I don’t care about the boat! I’ll buy them tickets if I have to, this is just not right.” Last year it was great to see her in action and being a true matriarch to our entire group. She makes people uncomfortable, like my dad did. She would push the bounds. As her kid sometimes I would be like, “Oh God, I’m embarrassed. I can’t believe this is happening.” Then at the end of the day she had pulled off something so cool and made something happen that nobody else would have done, just by being pushy and going there.
“Skinny Dennis”
In my early teens I started to fiddle around with lyrics and thought that being a musician was something I could do or wanted to do. I got into that around the time I started playing guitar. I’ve always leaned on being a singer/song writer than being able to shred.
I’m fascinated with the old world tradition (Europe) because those songs were traded by traveling musicians. They didn’t have recordings, records and the internet so they traded them in person and that’s how it spread.
I found folk music in my early teens and than became obsessed with acoustic music and melodies play out in a song. The content and the landscape is really interesting to me. I come from the Midwest so folk music has always felt like home to me.
My thing hasn’t been as much of a studio project, it’s been more of a live thing. I lived in New York for five years and started putting together bands out there. We’d get these residencies going where we’d just play every week. I’m in situations where I’m writing songs and playing my songs. In the classic folk tradition I’m learning and playing songs by Merle Haggard, Waylon and Willie.
That’s how I’ve been able to let my material breath - play the songs out live, find a place to do it, put together a band and just keep doing it.
There was this place that opened right before I moved out of New York, it was a country bar called Skinny Dennis, which is a homage to Waylon’s bass player from the 1970’s. We were playing there every week and it’s sort of a set crew, with a little bit of a rotating aspect to it. That kind of thing keeps you on your toes, that uncertainty or different vibe coming into the picture forces your music to be more fluid. There’s a certain sort of joy and levity from doing that stuff.
In the residency style just being a band leader causes this heightened awareness of the people around you and organizing this stuff. I got to a point where I was constantly putting these shows together; getting material together, getting people in the same place. Plus you sing every week so you’re just cranking after awhile. You get to a point where you can just sing your ass off - it keeps you sharp.
Somatic healer talks about her inner work in the ongoing journey towards enlightenment.
Stalwart banjo, guitar and string bass player talks about being raised by older black musicians on the bandstand and living a musical life in The Big Easy.
It’s Just Metal, Joey by Joe Russo What a badass move by Phil! He took a chance on a guy (me) who had never really listened to the Grateful Dead, except begrudgingly at parties or quitting my high-school band ’cause they wanted to play “Fire on the Mountain.” It just wasn’t my thing. Our paths crossed in 2006, when Marco Benevento and I were play-ing with Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio and we did some dates with Phil & Friends. We played together at The Jammys and did “Casey Jones” and “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” I was yelling out, “Guys, I don’t know this song. How does it end?” These were two of the easiest starter tunes, and I didn’t have a clue. I asked Phil, “Hey man, is there an ending?” He just laughed at me. For him to tap me for Furthur three years later was such a badass move. He knew I didn’t know anything about this, and I do think that was his plan. Why are we going to have people just regurgitating what he and Jerry and Bob did? Let’s share these songs that we wrote, that are clearly important songs, and let’s get some new information on them. That’s such a punk rock move to hand over something so cherished to a bunch of asholes who have no idea what they’re getting into. I’m thankful every single day for that opportunity. He brought me into this world, and it changed my life in so many ways. When Terrapin Crossroads opened, I was pretty much the house drummer for Phil for months and months. It was me and Phil and whoever else was brought in. I was pretty much on every single gig. I remember Neal Casal coming in, and I believe that’s where we first met. Phil never gave anybody a set list and never gave us tunes to work on in advance. One of the first gigs, Phil said, “We’re going to play ‘Terrapin Station.’” Neal was petrified, just petrified. We got to talking and became fast friends. We were both from Jersey, we both realized we like really shitty hair metal. I had no idea how deep that well went for him. I was trying to help him out. We were taking about Terrapin and Keel and all these shitty metal bands that we both love, intermixed. The next day we were going to play “Terrapin Station,” and I was on the back patio smoking a cigarette. He came up to me and told me, “Joey, I fuking got this sht.” He put his legs in an A frame and held his guitar metal style and said, “It’s just fucking metal, Joey.” He went and played all of “Terrapin.” He adjusted his view on how to approach it. We were laughing our asses off, and he killed it that night. It was such a lovely cool moment of seeing him have this breakthrough and the connectivity of all the stuff we learned up to a certain point that can inform how well we do in the current state. I always joke that my life in Furthur was like that movie Slumdog Millionaire. The only reason I was able to play all this Grateful Dead music was because, all through the years, these little tiny moments informed the way I played. I played more country/rock singer-songwriter music with my friend Chris Harford in Band of Changes, and all the crazy jazz shit with Fat Mama and odd-time stuff being a proghead as a kid. That all informed me to be the guy for that time to be in that band.
With the passing of Dave Brubeck this week it brought again to the forefront the idea of bold conceivers.
Those who can compose and arrange and orchestrate. Those who can read music and those who have that element of street music the swagger, the smoothness, the focus.
The ability to listen to the hip cake bass lines of Gary King. the opportunity to conduct and arrange big bands for movie soundtracks and national television programs and the occasional wah wah pedal parts for the old farmer Joe Beck.
My guest today is a bold conceiver who caught the eye of Quincy Jones at a music festival in Indiana. His trio in the mid-sixties was the most formidable in the mid west. Somewhere Dave is smiling!
My guest was a core component of Creed Taylor's stable of musicians. His music was the fusing of rock and jazz with the implementation of symphonic sound. It epitomized the early seventies and brought to prominence the classic breakbeat albums that crate diggers lust for.
It has continued to Blood Sweat and Tears to Earl Klugh to Harvey Mason to funk in a mason jar to Grover Washington in north Philadelphia wailing away with Richard Tee.
The visceral quality of music is evident everyday of my life. Its that place in music where you listen and hear. You can hear the intuitive senses to support, listen and lead. And you can listen to the endorphins popping as the collective unit reaches the height of the climax.
Bob James welcome to the JFS....
On Detroit: "My mother sent me to school there to go to Cass. Tech. There were no segregated schools in Detroit, MI. There were no segregated colleges in Detroit, Mi. We were second to Juilliard and we were a high school! Juilliard recently celebrated its 100 birthday but they have only had jazz for seven years now. Cass Tech had a symphony orchestra and three jazz bands in the school. They taught harmony, orchestration, percussion. They did a lot to improve the situation in jazz and of course some of the finest jazz musicians came from Detroit."I played with every black band in Detroit, MI. I ended up playing with Mckiney's Cotton Pickers and the Chocolate Dandies who were led by Benny Carter. Both of these bands were managed by Gene Goldcat. Gene owned the Greystone ballroom in Detroit. The Greystone ballroom was a club that black people could not go into but every Monday night was "black night" for black people. And it would feature one of the great black bands either Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway, Earl Hines or Jimmy Lunceford. By doing this Monday night music he helped improve the situation and give attention to jazz."
There were guys who thinking of the bass as a first voice. You had cats like Eberhardt Weber on upright, Stanley (Clarke), Jaco (Pastorious), they were definitely trailblazers at that time on the electric bass.
Then you had cats like Monk Montgomery whose credited with being the first to play the electric bassist. When fender gave the bass to Lionel Hampton who gave it on to Monk. We're talking 1951, the first precision bass. Monk was still chomping at it, still laying a foundational sound. Then you had all the guys like Kenny Baker who played bass on all The Gamble and Huff (SOP). You had Val Burke who was the bass player with "Willie And The Mighty Magnificence who was the backup band out of New Jersey that did all the RnB groups like "The Moments" and "The Whatnots." Then you had Robbie "Kool" Bell from Kool And The Gang. He was using the bass guitar as a first voice. What I'm doing is just a continuation of that, those guys really led the way.
Musical ideas bear freshness. When you think of an arrangement where everyone is just playing a role. We never thought about the instruments as being the instruments that they were. They were always vehicles for moving out of the realm of whatever that instrument was. I never thought of the bass and being the bass. I knew it was an instrument that had a certain tone quality but when it came to the composition and melodies we were always all free and all equal. Ornette never thought of himself as being the leader of the band, of course he was, but in the musical sense he always felt as though he was inside of the music and not standing out in front. It was all participation, moving in the same direction.
Explosive guitar player from Grand Funk Railroad talks about his extraordinary musical career.
Conduit to divine spiritual music discusses her musical life and learning her singing patterns though rhythm and dance.
The Jewish musician, often an afterthought in melodic invention. Italians, Blacks, Latino's sure but prolific Judaic studio cats - get outta here.
Still when you immerse yourself within the musical tribe you find that the brothers come in all shapes and sizes, creeds and colors.
If you can keep time, play behind the beat or in front of it, hold it down While Harold Vick is blowing cosmic waves, lock the groove with James Brown or go cross country with Bob Mann then you begin to get an idea of my guests pedigree.
He swung himself through Lou Soloff's disco inferno and Melissa Manchesters mascara, he had a funky good time with Walter Bishop Jr, and snuck in through the back door with Robert Palmer.
He is a drummer who sees only two kinds of music just like Duke - good or bad. While this hosts obsesses about dexterity my guest is more consumed with the soul symphony of Mancini, Milhaud, The Temps, Limelighters, Skruggs and Cash.
He is in the same master drumming discussion as Hal Blaine, Ed Shaunessey, Harvey Mason, Dick Berk, Donald McDonald and Levon Helm.
He continues his prolific percussion work today with Big Dot Records and Deep Diner Music. Oh, and he got the memo about how vital his knowledge and wisdom has and will be for future generations.
Allan Schwartzberg welcome to the JFS
Just happy being myself so says the man who is held together by music. Music played with adherence to the world around us and the unique features of each enclave, village and Appalachian trailed that has been carved out by man.
Sometimes I will travel back to Taiwan where my wife is from and I see the indigenous people, the Native Soil and the organic nature of life the way my guest creates music. From the earth itself.....
His grunting, scrapin' tripping, to get inspired. Learning from his dad who was privy to the swing of Bird, Monk, Basie, live Basie.....his mom cooking peach cobbler and bringing a southern expectation and swagger to the table.
Music is the salt of the earth. The roots must have been deep because this cat chose to play music. When harvested, cared for and loved his music transcends this earth and takes the audience with him. Although he loves the earth, he's more interested in evolving on the blues which go back to Diaspora and the lineage of all brothers.
Tempo change no problem just not going to tell anyone. He's playing with guys like Bill Rich, Howard Johnson and John Simon, David Grisman and Ralph McDonald who have the musical vocabulary to swing to the center of the world.
He's coming to the fox theatre October 12th. Taj Mahal welcome to the Jake Feinberg Show.
When the spirits call they do so with the understanding that I understand that I am merely part of the wave of history and that if I am to do a decent job covering ethnomusicology in the states then it my job to push that boulder up the hill a little bit at a time until the next cat comes around to push it a little bit more.
I get to realizing that the real authenticity of my show is interviewing the guys who play for a tree of genies high above the clouds dropping radiant acoustic bombs at a black union house on a Sunday afternoon in Buffalo, NY with Wade Legey playing round midnight or the great drummer Frankie Dunlop scouting talent for the Aquarians.
Interviewing cats who fed off of a lifetime of Tony Williams and Art Blakey press roles and interwove their apparatus into an amalgamation of African rhythm and European swing.....melodic invention.
My guest is in the same master bass discussion as The Skipper Henry Franklin, Cecil McBee, Stafford James, Gene Perla Jamie Myritt, Earl May, Herbie Lewis and John Heard.
He has sought out different kinds of players because diversity in music and flow is that much more interesting. Be it Ohio, Pennsylvania, or the lower east side with Beaver Harris and Eddie Harris and Joe Chambers these brothers came of age at a time when there was no jazz curriculums in the schools.....if there were they were being made up by the students who were incorporating their sights and sounds from the bandstand, going five to a car and crisis crossing the country with the likes of McCoy Tyner Gary Bartz, Neal Creque ,Shelly Manne, Harold Land keeping time and the pocket but also advocating for odd time and songs of his fathers.
My guest knows his people and their music traditions. He remains steadfast in his approach to creationism believing that you create your own legacy....and that's the trick no matter how many different ways your name is has was will be spelled...
Juini Booth welcome to the JFS
On my program the Bay Area has been a major focus of my journey to a land before my time. The heliport, Denny Zeitlin, Vovo, Sly Stone, Jacks on Sutter, Jimbo's Bop City, Wally Heider Studios and so much more.
Yet, another part of the Golden Bay is San Jose which had it own regional music scene separate from San Francisco. East Side San Jose, the gospel and blues coming out of the church and night clubs churning notes that were Fixing to Die with Hamstrung Guitar and a Hammond Organ with the Leslie Speaker swirling goodness to the masses who could take in the music live and see the likes of John Lee Hooker, Mel Brown, Boz Scaggs, Steve Miller, Linda Tillery, B.B. King, John Turk, Cornelius Bumpus and Michael White.
Floating between genres my guest has always tried to convey a spirit of oneness, inclusiveness and sophistication. This has been in different neighborhoods, in different towns, different cities all over the world. When you combine His mind creation and soul creation you get a heart that beats in polyrhythms determined to pump energy and love to all those he comes across.
Clifford Coulter welcome to the JFS
The latter portion of the sixties was a gymnasium of live venues which permeated sounds of acoustic instruments like Fritz Richmond's washtub base or Paul Harris' ivory for the evening. An even dozen sophisticated white musicians trying to play authentic roots music with their mentors.
Through these live venues you saw the visceral qualities of Tim Hardin, Sivuca, Odetta and my guest all in one week. The differentiation the non conformity in a non violent way all the while playing music that was made live and not manufactured.
My guest today was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame at the turn of the century but he is more roll than rock. Sure he appreciated Beatle mania and some of the world culture they brought to the states but my guest wanted to plant the American flag in the heart of the country with a blending of Native American, folk, classical blue ridge mountains cooking burning instrumentals and singing his way out of prison in some back road Georgia town looking for Doc Watson or a Lovin Spoonful of the Tarzana Kid.
He has been able to maintain and stay true to his art which can be hard in the " biz." He is an old folkie like Dave Van RONK and a conveyer of authenticity like Bob Dylan.
He cares about community- he lives in an artist enclave that sells nostalgia t-shirts but still has a freshness from the Catskills, near the Berkshires because your a big boy now.
My guest is playing Friday November 17th at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and the show sold so fast they added the 18th as well.
John Sebastian welcome to the JFS
Do you know what SRP stands for, it's an acronym for a very sterile system of learning that leads to followers, copy cating, no individuality.....in music SRP stands for Standard Recording Procedure.
The way of confining musicians to make music they don't want to create. The ties that bind, the money the 3 record companies remaining in this land.....a squeamish representation of dosing Billy Eckstine with punch on the way down to Vanguard Studios.
My guest today is an authentic musician who is comfortable enough to be himself. This carries through the music, which because of the acoustic setup allows my guest's voice to become an instrument....there is no amplification! The output is done by the people themselves - whatever they had to give in front of five people in a barn with a combined total of 3 teeth or in a coffee house in Cambridge, MA which is across the Charles River from Boston University where myself and my guest both went.
My guest is unconventional, a jug band junkie when crossed with legal LSD made for a real groovy time. Fellow comrades Geoff Muldaur, who smoked his first joint at Sabino Canyon, Fritz Richmond, Bill Keith, Maria Muldaur and Blind Lemon Jefferson all providing peer and mentor support in an experiential way.....they weren't getting an education in the classroom.
This resurgence of regional American roots music was spurred on by independant record labels who saw transracial music as a good thing. This adherence to the acoustic itty by certain labels allowed this music to be heard by DJs who would mix in some Berry Gordy MoTown, Ray Charles from La La land and Tito Puente from the palladium.
Their education was faith based with a common understanding that helping others was good, communicating non-verbally is all encompassing and mind expansion is necessary for new art to come into existence. But make no mistake, it has to be authentic, the artist must have creative control and if those back in the game saw any fleeting hash tag of commerciality they ran from it like a wild horse with a relaxed mind.
Just back from NYC fresh off some gigs, Jim Kweskin welcome to the JFS.
Free your mind and your ass will follow so says the parliamentary head of funk while my guest is creating funk for your ass....
That southern fried home cookin....that homemade bread and biscuits and gravy and cobbler with a side of Harvey Mason or Jimmy Madison or Clyde Stubblefield going across 110th street and catching a big payback of marching bands and the gulf coast sound coming from the Crimson Tide and the southern home fried gumbo marinating inside my guests jukebox memories....
Of listening to Horace Silver and Curtis Fuller, getting on stage with the God Father of Soul at night and listening to Tyree Glenn and Count Basie- a self proclaimed jazz snob my guest was gonna be a milk man until he found out that Damn Right He Wanted To Be Somebody- rock in' Funky Water Gate with a date on Soul Train and knowing that George Bohanon had locked down all the studio work in Southern California.
My guest is one of the most gifted bone players of his generation- similar to Wayne Henderson he took that southern grit and boogie Woogie and combined them With his jazz sensibilities that he learned growing up watching big band after big band in his fathers living room. Seeing how these cats handled themselves and gaining a trust in his own individual sound - passing the peas with Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis and Van Morrison.
He's kept his lips in good shape and now carries the torch with the new JBs fostering the legacy of the hottest back up band and promoting the magic gumbo that when stirred correctly can elicit the sounds of the church, the wards, the nightclub and the love.
Hit it Fred Wesley, welcome to the JFS....
I was still a Young Man When I was working @ tower records following a stint @ Boston University in the late nineties when I came across a compact disc of a band that seemed to fit inside the Jake Feinberg pocket.
Nice melodies, contrapuntal piano techniques, power horns and the funk drumming. It was harder soul then the Temps and more modal then the Brubeck/Desmond/Guaraldi Tjader Jazz across the Bay.
They had infectious hooks, polyrhythmic percussion and messages that spoke to the changing dynamic of cities and the soul circuit of music as a conduit to magic.
My guests drumming chops came from his work with Tower of Power but it also came in the form of Jacks on Sutter, The Vizedero, Jimbo's Bop City, The El Matador, the Black Saint and all his pocket trap buddies.....Eddie Moore, Gaylord Birch, Mike Clark, Eddie Marshall, Dick Berk Greg Errico and Jerry Granelli. Being able to play live for nights a time in Japan town with some sticky sake and udon noodles next to Chester Thompson ambidextrous organ, Greg Adams trumpet or Lenny Williams urban renewal of the Oakland Stroke.
San Fran gets all the pub but Oaktown is the gritty dirty scrappy step brother who over performs and out maneuvers it's more glitzy neighbor. Don't change horses in midstream because the hot bet is on the boogie down east bay grease that cooked that stew of Sly Stone, The Fillmore District and East Side San Jose and Barry Bonds.
My guest today is in the same master drumming discussion as the aforementioned cats as well as Mickey Roker, Lenny White, Bernard Purdie and Jim Keltner. He has the chops to play in any musical setting because he can feel and is sensitive to the bump city that might be on the 1/3 or the 2/4 or a quick hop skip over to the BART station to learn some drumming techniques from the birds on hippie hill.
He's open to playing if the music is good just like Taj Mahal or Sam Lay or Michael White. He's open to painting the rhythm and hue because let's face it- the books still being written...David Garibaldi welcome to the JFS......
I knew how to play a shuffle because I listened to music and played what guys played in the shuffle. When I was playing in "Riverboat Soul Band" we had a couple of songs that were shuffles. It was a ten piece band so when I played the shuffle it felt fine.
Charlie (Neville) pulled me aside and said, "you know your shuffle sounds great, but it would feel really good if you played it a little differently." I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "well I'll show you." Charles played alto in the band we were in. He sat down on the drums and played his hands and his feet all at the same time playing the shuffle. "Ta-Tat, Ta-Tat, Ta-Tat, Ta-Tat, Ta-Tat." It was so stripped down, so basic, then he said, "now take that shuffle and whatever you do you're always thinking of those notes when you play. You can play just quarter notes on the bass drum, you could play just backbeat on the snare drum but the shuffle is always inside. That was in its simplest form, that was a shuffle. I know that other guys who heard me play a shuffle like that would look at me and say, "what's he doing?" Pretty soon they'd be playing the same thing because it felt great and they couldn't figure out how it felt so great.
I felt really comfortable with my pocket when I was playing the shuffle. I remember I went to a gig downtown (NYC) and Hugh McCracken was playing with "Corbett and Hersch." The drummer in that band was a guy named John Siomus. Siomus was the original drummer on "Frampton Comes Alive." He was an amazing player and an incredible human being. There was a problem after FCA because Siomus was promised some participation he didn't receive so he left that band.
Peter had to replace him, I did a couple of months of that FCA tour, Newmark did some of it.
I went to see John playing with Huey and John played the shuffle. On the second hit of the shuffle he would start his right hand. He would be playing "da-dat, da-dat, da-dat and on his right hand he'd be playing "da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da." The whole thing felt like it was a dotted triplet sixteenth, rolling feel and all he was doing was two different start times with the same rhythm, one with his left hand and one with his right hand and one with his left foot. It was all sort of unison but his right hand would go "da-da, da-da, da-da."
When you take all these subdivisions of time apart in their simplest form that's the definition of how I approach playing. That's what I assume this conversation is about.
Sometimes you hear people speaking a different language like Spanish. You don't really understand the language but you know what they're saying.
Other times you hear people speaking in Chinese and you don't have any grasp of what it is.
When I listen to Monk play improvisation with a trio or quartet that's a whole different story. I really understand that this guy is thoughtful and he's not racing anybody
Oddly enough when I listened to Monk, before I understood how his mind worked (mental illness). When I listen to his music I really understood where he was coming from. I may not have understood exactly what he was playing but I understood where it was coming from. That made a huge, huge impression on me, even playing the drums. If you look at Monk play you see what he's thinking and you can see what he's feeling and you hear it. It translates from his brain to his heart to his hands to you. That's the kind of improvisation for me.
In the early days I played so much with Dave Spinozza because we grew up together and we were in bands together. If I wasn't playing in "Brethren" or Johnny Winter or Edgar Winters band than we were doing gigs at Mickell's. We played a ton of really groove and improv stuff. Somebody would write a song like Tropea (John) or Leon Pendarvis.
We would play the head a couple of times and than Pendarvis would blow or Spinozza would blow or Will Lee would start going off. I liked it cause it didn't last too long. I'm thinking you say everything you need to say in a minute or two. Give them each a minute and let's move on to the next song and see what they have to say there. I didn't like it when songs lasted 15 minutes.
I've heard guys say everything they need to say in 15 seconds and be very very good at it and move on.
There was a guy I worked with out here in LA and I did some gigs with him.
He was doing some gigs and he was calling me to play live with him. I've seen him play and I know he's great cause we did some sessions together. I said, "I'll do it but let's not do these solos that last 15-20 minutes."
We rehearsed a little bit and so talked with him about it, he said, "yea man that sounds great."
We got on stage and I swear to god I was yelling "stop, move on" in the middle of tunes and he never paid attention. I told him after, "this isn't fun for me, this isn't what I want to do. I don't want to go see a guy slamming cymbals, throwing sticks at the kit for 20 minutes on one song. That's what I felt I was doing. We were repeating phrases, we were going back and playing the same thing over again.
So many now make up their own history. The economic, political and spiritual essence of this nation has been askew for quite sometime. I don't cry for no hipster.
Why should I?
This go it alone approach has not fostered but hindered the ability of bands to form a nucleus. A hard crusty nucleus like my guest today had with Clyde Stubblefield and Phil Upchurch or before that with The Ardells which was comprised of Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller.
I am not a hipster. I seek knowledge from those who were able to document the rhythms created during diaspora by primary source. The origins of the awkwardness, gentrification and racism and bigotry that still casts its ugly head in overt and covert ways
When Scaggs and Miller went to west Marin my guest decided to finish his degree and pursue a doctorate @ Sussex in England.
The regional music of The Midwest from Chicago to Detroit to Milwaukee. AB Skhye, the ability to uproot and relocate to a house boat and The Soul Turnaround of Blue Mitchell.
My guest has had a prolific career as a lead pianist and singer on his own records, found his way into Blue Thumb and recorded with Tony Williams.
But the Bums Rush came along so my guest has had to reinvent himself promoting the magic of writing books, performing for changing audiences as the urban grit disappeared and took the inner city funky blues with it.
The musician is the document," says Sidran. "He is the information himself. The impact of stored information is transmitted not through records or archives, but through the human response to life."
Putting In Time on Planet Earth Ben Sidran welcome to the JFS
"Ultimately in the big picture the best music happens live, I believe. In front of an audience where everyone is interacting and there's interplay. Everybody's playing at the same time the audience is playing @ the same time.
You may have preconceived notions before you hit the bandstand of what your going to do and how your going to do it- your going to get your favorite lick in here but magic happens when everyone is doing it together.
If you can capture some of that and at the same time you can hear everything real good and you got a great room sound and the detail is there then that is really a beautiful moment. As opposed to - we've all brought our hand held tape recorders to clubs if you really want to hear what the guitar player is playing or what the keyboard player is playing or what the singer has changed the lyric to that you really can't hear.
I have always been interested in creating some magic with the audio and try to capture the live performance vibe as much as possible.
Where to begin with my guest today. Maybe in the Cosmos dwelling in a lab suit concocting a keyboard that allows Dave Brubeck and Darius Milhaud to reincarnate themselves in a bastion of Hammond Pedals that's Pigpen brought over from Novato.
My guest has written many chapters on his ride through life. He was at the forefront of what was then considered "New Music." He was one of the avant garde composers who was expanding sound sonically - not just playing but listening to Phil Lesh who he met while studying Astronomy @ University of Cal Berekley. He happened to settle in an area with the likes of Lesh, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Guys who were writing classical charts while world music was spinning all around them.
My guests relationship with Lesh led to a stint with the Grateful Dead which was after he dropped Acid and developed music in Military IBM frame computers.
During his time with the Dead he helped craft three albums and played on the same bills as Country Joe and the Fish, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana....the Fillmore had 6am jam sessions led by Merl Saunders and Wes Montgomery was playing the Both And.
Science, Space, The known the unknown, the mind expansion of legal LSD and collaborations with The MIDI wizard Bob Bralove.
Oh my guest received his PHD in music from Harvard University, has been inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame and continues to teach music theory today. Currently in long Beach for a gig this evening Tom Constanten welcome to the JFS
The Degradation of Love...
"To soon after birth, we are not allowed to come into the world and then be called to love. We come into the world as some egoic manifestation self serving extension of our ancestry. This is the first hurdle. How do we get over that? Now we're a Bobby. Now we're a Mary. It's just that, no more no less. Already subordinate to anyone larger then we are. So we are born into this madness and we are just kids! Kids have the potential of the divine. We are born out of and from the royalty of spirit. The culture doesn't see it that way."
We have a caste system. We have a racist system. Anything but life as a royal thing. We are talking about the materialism that has been in ingrained in us which is suppose to be good! But it serves a self defeating purpose. It makes people less. "Oh you have ears this size? You don't have hair like us. So the materialism then relative to appearance is misused and its been perverted to a degree where we have the kind of racism that's total nonsense. Where in the world does the heart enter the conversation. When does the heart get to speak for itself. We have self speaking for itself everywhere. What it perpetrates is more difference and less division amongst people and sadly conflict and destruction."
Playing the Drums.
I had a fever and it was intense. As a child I was snuck into the Palladium and met peeps like Mongo Santamaria. It actually was like coming home. Coming from a culture that on the weekends particularly we would be congregating in the park for these meditations these descongas as they were called or discharges. The people are from the islands and in the same manor that people would go to church, they would feel the rhythms to calm the body. Whatever the people could make of the music, you had several drummers, got some horn players anybody and everybody was welcomed into this particular healing. From that culture which is a beautiful culture. It was socially integrated and tribal and functional in a social way. Then I found the Palladium. These guys found me playing my five Conga drums in Brooklyn Heights and they said; "man check this kid out! Check this cat out." I felt at home but It wasn't meant for me to stay with these Latin Cats. My particular function was to appreciate my roots as sacred feeling power and tune into the rhythms of the cosmos.
"I didn't know what music is or was. I just played it."
The Gallop, the rhythm, the beat the pulse. A driving pulsating rhythm that makes the body move and the mind expand.
Music in Africa has always been used to alleviate the pain and suffering of the common folk. Held under the thumb of military governments, foreign oppressors and self inflicted wounds.
This music the Afro-Beat comes from the drum. An apparatus that has been used over centuries to communicate. It was used in Africa during colonial times. They were used during diaspora on the ships as the slaves were traded amongst the islands, they were used in Congo square when music was played outside and this non-verbal communication sparked an identity in these Americas.
My guest today is a world renown bass player and percussionist. He grew up in Nigeria, amidst the forests and animals and listened to countless hours of shortwave radio taking in jazz, blues, rock and other world music. It is no surprise that my guest was at the center of this blending of genres with Victor Olaiya , Fela Kuti and Joni Hastruup in Monomono. My guest plays hypnotic baselines. The kind that have you rocking back and forth, free of clutter and chatter and distractions. This vibration carries into your soul and naturally it emboldens you to be yourself.
He came to the states in 1985 with King Sunny Ade with intentions to preserve the rhythms of his people and promote a new generation of western players in the age of digitization. He now lives in the Bay Area and keeps the pocket with the
Afro Groove Connexion, West African Highlife Band and the Nigerian Brothers.
Baba Ken Okulolo welcome to the JFS
"I kept saying daddy, daddy I want some drums, so eventually he bought me some drums. I was a little girl maybe 4 or 5 years old. It was something innate that he wanted to cultivate.
When there's eight kids in the house and 10 people total you don't want to hear any drums or banging. It was an innate energy that we had. We were rhythm.
I was just doing a session and I was trying to get the choir to do a combination of rhythms. They weren't nailing it so I said; "look, y'all follow me because I am rhythm."
Stepping Into Tomorrow, Nolan Shaheed, Harold Johnson, The Voice, 17 Points to Longevity in Show Business, Sexual and Sexy, Percussion, Cuica, David T. Walker
The Jake Feinberg Show
Back when I was a junior in college I went to see my guest with John Medeski @ the Sommerville Theatre in the Cambridge area of Mass.
I say in the upper reaches of the venue a small vaudeville style place perfect for intimacy through improvisation.
My brain was addled with some kind of mushroom tea so as my guest thrashed, chanted, communicated and swung the band he was giving me a preview of a trip I did not know I was on.
His career has spanned the last four decades. He has been a drummer with Gary Burton, Dave Liebman, Jack DeJohnette, Harold Vick and (spiritual teacher).
He was at the forefront of the east fusion movement with Larry Corryell and the band (). Call is psychedelia mixed with vocals and jazz changes....today aside from his prolific playing schedule he also teaches @ the New England Conservatory of Music.
Gratitude is the Attitude
Ra-kalam Bob Moses welcome to the JFS
Oh the whispering pines.....the Appalachian trail carving out a pathway towards the Mississippi Delta. The old hickory BBQ and the bourbon and the blending of gospel, blues, Bayou boogie and Jayhawkin' through the cornfields.
My guest hails from the great state of Kansas. He has done and seen it all in music. Played at the Grand Ole Opry, local watering holes, Medicine Shows, Mafia laden clubs and lesbian joints. That's before during and after being a swing man on the Kansas Men's Basketball team taking a page out of Pistol Pete Maravich's play book.
But my guests career runs thick, with a fearlessness and security that still holds up today. He has played with Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Hahn, Richard Manuel, Mac Rebenack, George Marsh, Maria Muldaur and Mel Graves. He has awed people over the years with his propensity to lean on that Hammond B-3 and illicit the sounds of the church and the bay, and sittin on a dock in muscle schoals Alabama with a cowboy hat and a maverick attitude.
He has made albums as a leader and been a prolific sideman. He has always wanted to reflect in his music a genuine sense of originality and playing music- not the type that can be labeled, just music. That will be on full display today at the Early Bird Cafe.
Mike Finnegan welcome to the JFS
First generation Italian immigrant talks about building his American Dream and how his family has inspired him to keep growing.
"We Camet to the Conclusion" By David Lindley In those days (Mid/Late 1960's) there was free form radio, Tom Donahue. You would hear George Jones, Ravi Shankar, and Jean Luc Ponty, and then some more George Jones. It was that way on purpose, which was a statement, a really eloquent statement which is, ‘Music is pretty much the same, for the same reasons.’ It showed everybody that all these people were going through pretty much the same thing. It's all valid.... Anything that sounded good to me, I would go after. I heard Sabicus play Flamenco and that was a huge moment. I said, “I want to do that. I'll try some of that out.” Then I realized I would have needed to start out when I was 17 years old to learn all that complex traditional Flamenco. I was listening to Ravi Shankar and classical North Indian music; I loved all that stuff. It was during that period that The Beatles came out of all of that stuff. To me they sounded like folkies except plugged in. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is like The Louvin Brothers, Jim and Jesse, and The Virginia Boys. It all sounded so familiar; it's okay to plug in. That's what happened. Jerry Garcia and I had a conversation about this one time, and we came to the conclusion that it was pretty much the same thing. He approached The Grateful Dead stuff as a bluegrass musician. That approach was familiar to me, ‘cause that's the one I use, plus a bunch of other stuff."
Behind the washtub basses and the fret less kind behind the Tuba's and any other instrument is the individual who engages with that apparatus.
The sound that emanates from this instrument can depend upon the proficiency of the player, there use of scales and notes. Mathematics are part of it....but ultimately to be in a band you need to have a gig. And to have a gig you need to have soul. A collectivist mentality that as an accompanist you are doing your job making the leader sound as good as possible.
My guest today came into his own when the musical spectrum was wide open. You had 1st generation blues players who were experimenting with electric mud, you had younger male and female artists who were looking to turn back the hands of time. Exploring jug band music and American Folk Music in a more modern setting.
My guest musical career seems to have spanned several lifetimes. From Maria Muldaur to Bonnie Raitt, from Buddy Guy to Amos Garrett. From the cabins in Woodstock to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles my guest has continually reinvented himself. Adapting to the times and the changing dynamics of conveying authentic live music.
He is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and producer and its an honor to have him on the program
Did you ever feel lonesome? That high lonesome feeling of Appalachia. Where lush green hills and streams created the perfect environment for Bluegrass Music.
How then do you account for musicians who didn't grow up in this region but were still able to be authentic and true to American roots music.
Obviously it starts in the home. And my guests home was full of instruments and musicians. He understood the Alamo and how too beg steal or borrow two nickels or a dime to croon, yodel and sing be it Tex Mex, Bay State Boogie or the train of the sea.
Truly though my guest was always a performer. However he was one of these 2nd generation players who had the opportunity to learn @ the foot of the master Bill Monroe.
And what did he instill in my guest? How about the idea of cultivating your his own sound? "What do you have to say for yourself cause you sure sound a lot like me and that ain't good."
Be yourself and burn. Don't matter if its in front of 5 people with a total of 3 teeth in a barn in Eastern Kentucky. Don't worry about perfection. You need mathematics but you also need love, spirituality and urgency when you play this music. Otherwise it is sterile and nothing like the Blue Ridge Mountains.
My guest today is one of the most accomplished American musicians in his generation. Quality and sophistication, adaptability and appreciation of cultures. Inherently a kid from Boston who was as authentic in his delivery as Tex Logan or Red Allen, Winnie Winston and Ralph Rinsler.
He has collaborated for the better part of 4 decades with his peers David Dawg Grisman, Bill Keith, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Richard Greene, Warren Smith, Ozzie Ahlers, brothers Chris and Lorin. John Nagy, Billy Mundi, Herb Buschler and Bill Stevenson.
He shows no signs of slowing down even if he occasionally feels sorrow for the deeds he has done.
Still Old and in the Way Peter Rowan welcome to the JFS.
Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, NTU Troop, Contrabass, MBOOM, Joe Chambers, Mannes School, Howard King, Richard Davis
The Jake Feinberg Show
How is one elevated to the land of giants especially when it comes to music. For my guest today it had a lot to do with biding his time, forming deep collaborations and a selfless heart.
He has played spiritual burning music with a generation of musicians who were prolific in their writing, arranging and unapologetic viewpoint on the African roots of jazz. Donald Byrd, Billy Higgins, Clifford Jordan, John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell, Eric Kloss, David Williams, Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter.
Like the organist Jimmy Smith my guest today wants you to feel what he's playing. Stick with a theme, do it again, make it apparent to the listener and player that he will be relentless in his pursuit of ideas that can permeate the mind and let you dig it.
My guest today is a messenger who has delivered soul bop and soul jazz to audiences around the world.
He left the university of Denver and came to NY where he became an instant mainstay @ the old Birdland. The tunes he has written have shared appeal among fellow collaborators like Art Blakey, the aforementioned Hubbard, Wayne Shorter and all the eastern revelers.
Today he is still as active as ever and it is a great privilege to have him on the program.
Cedar Walton welcome to the JFS
tuba, donald fagan, merl saunders, tony saunders, Ralph MacDonald, Bernard Purdie, Fantasy, Marlena Shaw, Larry Nash
The Jake Feinberg Show
This is a great interview of a fabulous musician who is not recognized .. unsung hero. Love him so much. On this great talking, Mundell could said that he can play with Frank Wess who is 91 years old too and still plays his ass off !!!
"BEETHOVEN" (REISSER JEAN-MICHEL)
All around badass producer and guitarist from Texas talks about living the musical dream.
I had just come to New York and I was working with Kenny Dorham in the fall of 1959.
I heard John (Coltrane) wanted to form his own quartet and leave Miles. Out of the blue I got his number and called him. I said, "I know you don't know who I am. I'm currently working with Kenny Durham but I would love it if we could get together and maybe play a little and talk about the music." He didn't say yay or nay, a couple of weeks later he called me and he had rented a little rehearsal studio about a block and a half from my hotel and we met there in a tiny room and an upright piano. We played some of his music and talked. That was it for then and didn't hear anything until he called me a week later and said, "I'd like you to come out to my house in Hollis Queens for dinner." I took the subway out there and he picked me up at the train. We had a lovely dinner that Naima made. We talked and played a little more and he drove me back to my hotel in New York. He said nothing and then about a week later he called and said, "would $125 a week be okay to start." He had a job at "The Jazz Gallery" in downtown Manhattan on the lower east side. He was hired for four weeks initially and then they kept extending it two weeks, two weeks. He was there a total of 26 weeks in a row which is unheard of. A half a year playing in the same place, six nights a week. I was privileged to work with him for two of those months. Then McCoy Tyner joined the band. I later found out that McCoy was his first choice but he was contractually bound to "The Jazztet" at the time and he couldn't get free until that particular time. To be experiencing the absolute joy of the audience. It would be like a church meeting, after his solos they would literally stand up and give him standing ovations in the middle of the song. Pete LaRoca was the drummer and Steve David was the bassist.
I was still trying to find my own voice when I was working with Coltrane. I was not really happy with my own playing, I'd say to him, "is there something I'm doing that you don't like or is there something you'd like me to do that I'm not doing. His words were, "I respect you too much as a musician to tell you how to play."
"Infinite Void"
The MWANDISHI Band was evolved out of things that came from the past like from the Miles Davis (Bitches Brew) type of thing and the avant garde music of John Coltrane. This particular band was so unique in that it incorporated all those aspects of things from the past and brought it right to the forefront. It encompassed what was going on, from the racial turmoil, the revolutions that were going on. It was right at the forefront of society and was reflective through the music that was created. It was on the cutting edge of creativity.
Coltrane inspired everybody individually in the band but he passed in 1967. We didn't start until 1970, but Bitches Brew was in at interim. The music from BB influenced the "wide open spaces" that the MWANDISHI Band went for. Rather than just getting bogged down by chord changes, going around playing the same chord changes. Coltrane brought the avant garde part of it, it was like looking out into the infinite. Every night it was something different. We couldn't wait to get to the gig because we knew we would go into the infinite void somewhere."
Louis Armstrong was always smiling, grinning and catering to the audience and an incredible artist.
Miles took a different approach. He wanted to get into the fabric of the music itself and not be distracted by the audience, whether they were smiling or clapping a lot. He wanted to get into the essence of the real creative aspect of his musical endeavor without being distracted by applause.
Miles had vocal chord tumor so his voice was very raspy, I think he was self conscious and that's why he never talked unannounced.
Just the way he moved, it was like he was walking on air. His presence that he commanded whether you saw the front, the side or the back of him was such a mysterious event. Just talking about it gives me chills, but it impressed me when I was just a teenager.
When I saw Coltrane live people would go, "boooo," and walk out. When Coltrane was with Miles, they used to tell Miles, "get somebody else, he sounds horrible." It sounded gorgeous to me but people are so accustom to hear what's pleasant to their ears and don't want to do anything new. That their incapacity to look past their nose.
It was such a joy, listening to KSAN and driving to Wally Hieder’s studio and going back to Oakland listening to Dusty maybe 69-early 70’s..return Vietnam end of 68 so new life exploration. Best song Lightsout Mahdi. Thanks Don Alberto
The urban legend of Detroit is only for those generations who were not alive during the time when that city epitomized Asphalt Canyon Blues.
What we see today with the Motor City is a shell of what it was when my guest today was growing up there. A thriving car industry driven by a migration of blacks from the south after mechanized equipment replaced plantation workers. This combination of family, church and education brought about a generation of local musicians like no other. Barry Harris, Ron Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones Donald Byrd and my guest.
My guests roots are in Detroit but that was only the beginning of his journey. While @ Wayne St. he started recording with the late great Dizzy Gillespie. This was followed by stints with Oscar Peterson, John Coltrane, Jimmy Smith and Kenny Dorham. He has recorded as a leader on the heavy jazz and blues labels like Chess/Cadet, Pretige, Muse, Verve and Concord.
By the early 1970s on top of his busy playing schedule my guest started doing college seminars which included the first regular course held in the U. S. chronicling the music of composer, pianist and bandleader Duke Ellington.
His unpretentious and practical style has helped galvanize knowledge and wisdom for a generation of up and coming musicians who did not experience the breakfast sessions in Atlantic City, Mean Ole' Frisco or music before idiomatic breakdown. As Duke said music, "it's either good or bad.
Today my guest is the leader of the music and ethnomusicology department at UCLA. Perseverance, preservation and whistling' while he works, kenny Burrell welcome to the JFS
In The Land of Giants
JF
In the 21st century the so called digital age the role of a producer and a musician has devolved into a potpourri of inanimate objects, the # of records you sell, how to make a hit, the drum machine, and a shrinking more rigid music industry.
It's a far cry from when my guest first happened on the scene. From this hosts perspective idioms were less important then individuality. Enclaves of regional music crossed the great divide from Arkansas to Toronto. Leadership was defined as getting out of the way and letting the wolf howl, or letting the music play the band.
This thesis is backed up by the experimentation that went on within the record industry. My guest was involved as a producer and player with Bob Dylan, The Band, Big Brother, BS&T, Seals and Crofts, Taj Mahal and Paul Simon.
He came from a classical background with an understanding of how to fuse players who had chops to play across the entire musical spectrum. He did this as a producer, arranger, song writer and composer.
It was a Woodstock and post Woodstock mentality that led my guest to his own LPs that are a vexing mix of spoken word, riddles, swing and chance taking. A mix and match of local artists in residence and the hippest of NY studio cats.
I spent the entire Christmas Break dancing in a land of sunshine with no inclination to go.
My guests records have held up through the years and like strawberry wine have gotten better with age. I spent the entire Christmas Break dancing in a land of sunshine with no inclination to go.
he continues to create in his own way and is about to embark on a live tour including a trip to Ellenville, NY and then to Joe's Pub in NYC on April 25th.
King Harvest has surely come, John Simon welcome to the JFS.
he state of New Jersey is situated perfectly between two musical Meccas. The soul brotherhood of Philadelphia and the Big Apple. Musicians who were lucky enough to grow up in this state were privy to the sounds of Dionne Warwick, Sigma Sound Studios and the vibrant African Jazz foothold that was beginning to take root in New York.
My guest today took in this music and immediately began to cultivate his own sound. This individualistic streak was the catalyst for his Band The Wizards and Oz which evolved as a live playing band hitting the each coast college circuit.
My guest honed his chops on Stage and became comfortable as a singer and a multi-instrumentalist. After high school he found his way to Ithaca is gorges @ Cornell University where he formed another college circuit band called Oz and Ends. Utica, Rochester, Syracuse, Providence, Burlington you name it the Oz was there. Somehow he found time to complete his studies and graduate but not before he formed a new band called Glory River which was eventually signed to Jimi Hendrix' electric lady land label.
After experiencing the regional music scene of upstate, NY he headed west to California where he wound up working with two of the best vocalists in modern music - Van Morrison and Jesse Colin Young.
Stints with Peter Rowan and Gene Clark was followed by a collaboration with Robert Hunter and Comfort. It was @ this time that he caught the attention of John Kahn and Jerry Garcia who saw his electric keyboard wizardry as a new and fresh sound compared to the half dead acoustic player that Keith Godchaeux had become. My guest was part of the JGB quartet from late '79-1980. While it may not be the longest tenure of any keyboardist the power of the group and Jerry's adherence to some sobriety lent itself to some remarkable live performances that have been released commercially. Just in the last month March 1st 1980 in Passaic was sent into the digital processor for the masses to enjoy.
My guest has always tried to play across the musical spectrum. Be it reggae, jazz, new age, movie soundtracks or tv shows and his continued growth spawned a commercial DVD entitled keyboards made simple....living on the edge Ozzie Ahlers welcome to the JFS.
Philadelphia, Jackie McLean, Carl Burnett, Pat Martino, Chestnut Street, Mosaic Records, Todd Barkan, Tributaries
The Jake Feinberg Show
Scarf in the Wind, Arp Modulator, Mel Graves, John Hammond, George Marsh, SYGZY, Expanding Minds
Jake Feinberg Show
Sons of Champlin, Geoff Palmer, Commerce, Mike Finnegan, Oscar Peterson, Bill Vitt, Yoshi's,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Urban centers in this country used to swell with regional music. Go from Indianapolis>Chicago and Detroit you would get 3 different sounds.
Chicago was a lightning rod for amped up young musicians to come and cut their teeth. For those lucky enough to have grown up there it meant marinating in northern soul and elegant jass. The swirling organs no bass pedal, the psychedelics and the melodic vocal arrangements all fusing together in the shadow of Chess and Delmark Records.
My guest today lives in Nashville but his roots are Chicago through and through. His charisma and loneliness are authentic in his playing or writing. Maybe sitting behind a keyboard or a bass guitar my guest has been a part of American Music History as a writer, arranger and performer. His career includes stints with Rufus and Chaka Kahn, Glenn Frey, Chicago, The Bangor Flying Circus, Minnie Ripperton and Howard Wales.
Live from Nashvegas David Hawk Wolinski welcome
Anyone who has followed my show understands the spiritual and multi dimensional aspects of the JFS. All music's are covered, coming directly from the musician's themselves. Black dirt lives again today on my program because of Brent Mydland. He was the multi dimensional keyboardist who expanded The Grateful Dead's sound. He quickly dropped the bar lines and was chasing Phil Lesh down one rabbit hole while Billy Kreutzmann was dancing on a pin. My guest today is someone who knew Brent better than most. One of the most prolific lyricists in the Western World, he and Brent worked together because it was real as thunder, real as the sun shining. It's so very undefined, the last time I spoke with my guest he was in Mobile Bay, AL. We talked about how Ram Dass was a snake oil salesman early in his career, the April experiment, Bob Weir's angular chords, hanging with Neal Cassady and melting into a cube of LSD while watching Raga concerts at Wesleyan. We didn't talk about his collaborator in chief Brent Mydland. By the time "Built To Last" came along Brent had the most published songs on the album. His felt success real fast and it shot him up and brought him back, and eventually underground. His spirit remains with me as it was in the late nineties when I was at Boston University. I had a chance to talk with my guest while he was giving a seminar on the internet at Harvard. We talked about Brent for 10 or 15 minutes but over the years I misplaced it. Lash the mast..... John Perry Barlow welcome back to the Jake Feinberg Show
"Rock Medicine"
Bill had this amazing ability to pick people. As long as I knew him he always chose people for specific things they were able to do.
He would always say, "don't ever think we're in show business. We're not in show business, we're in the business of public assembly. We put asses into seats, and we do it better than anybody."
I was really good at dealing with people, especially crowds. I also had this ability to anticipate problems before they arose. I had a good "shit hit the fan"' mentality too.
We were doing a whole bunch of shows in the 70's at Winterland which held a little over 5,000 people. We always had problems at the shows with drugs and alcohol. It was a finite number of problems and depended on the kind of show you had. The heavier the show the more problems you tended to have.
Every once and awhile we would do a show at The Cow Palace. The Cow Palace was three times the size of Winterland, but the funny think I noticed almost from the start, was that we didn't have three times the number of problems. We had nine times the number of problems. It became a geometric progression with medical type problems.
Bill booked this show at Kezar Stadium with Led Zeppelin in 1973. This capacity was 50,000. I'm running the numbers in my head and I'm thinking, "oh shit, this could be a really big problem."
I went into Bill's office. Usually when I went into Bill with an idea the first thing he would say is "how much will it cost," unless it involved the safety of the audience.
I went into him and gave him all these numbers and said, "what can we do?" He picked up the phone and called Dave Smith at The Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic and says, "I'm going to send my guy over to you to explain what we need." He never asked me how much it would cost.
David Smith asked two of his doctors, Skip Gay and Darryl Inaba, and they put together the whole "rock medicine thing." Setting up places to handle medical type problems that arise at shows, people freaking out, nodding out, or overdosing or drunk and throwing up.
Prior to rock medicine, when there was a situation, it was either call an ambulance or call the cops. If it was just someone freaking out, take three or four of the staff and just sit on him.
I'm just the guy who came up with the idea, that's the anticipation thing."
I didn't join Bill Graham until 1968 in New York. Prior getting into the scene my exposure to music was "Cousin Brucie" and AM radio. The first contemporary rock show I worked at the time was at The Anderson Yiddish Theatre. One of the acts on the bill was Moby Grape. I turned to someone and said, "what the fuck is a Moby Grape?"
I was friends with a guy in the West Village named Tony Lecht. His cousin, Neal Anderson, was a partner with Sandy Pearlman who ran 415 records. They were students at Stony Brook.
Stony Brook University was the first place that started bringing acts (California/England) in and doing shows. There had been some shows in "The Village" but it had all been fly by night stuff.
I was working at Tony's bar from midnight till four in the morning. Neal came and approached Tony about bank rolling this little theater they had on 2nd Ave and 4th Street (The Anderson Yiddish Theatre). It was Theatre and music but all in Yiddish. All Jewish Theatre....from what I hear Michael Tilson Thomas' Family was involved with the Theatre.
They needed like 15 grand and Tony went for it, he brought me over there. I was an usher but the place was totally chaotic so I started organizing it.
I get a call one day from Tony. He thought of me as his muscle, I never thought of my myself that way. He said, "this promoter from California wants to talk with me." They set a meeting at the Tin Angel on Bleecker Street, right above and "The Bitter End."
We order some food and we're waiting for this promoter to show up. Tony thought of himself as a semi-wise guy. He grew up in Brooklyn and went to school with two of the nephews of Carmine Lombardozzi who was one of the Mafia Dons in Brooklyn. He thought he was "connected," but he really wasn't.
This guy walks in with a big shoulder bag and introduces himself as "Bill Graham." I had never heard of Bill, he seemed like a pleasant enough guy.
He opens up his bag and takes out all these yellow legal pads and starts talking about how he's been doing shows out on the West Coast for several years now and he has a great relationship with the acts and managers and their agents.
He had been to The Anderson Theatre and was very impressed by the way it was run, the technical aspect of the whole thing. He thought, together, we could really do something in New York.
At this point Tony stops slurping his soup and goes totally off the charts. It was like a bad Jimmy Cagney impression....."who the fuck are you coming into my town and tell me you're going to be my partner.
Bill is taken aback but doesn't say a word. Finally Tony stops and Bill says, "well, thank you for your time, I'm sorry you're not interested." He shakes my hand and Tony totally ignores him.
I said, "you know Tony, there's something here and I think you just made a really big mistake."
The Fillmore East opened just about a month after that. Bill must have had the whole thing in the process and he wasn't asking Tony to let him in to his operation. He was inviting Tony to become part of his, which Tony never realized.
A month later The Fillmore East opens up and Tony is totally out of business. His whole tech staff jumped, I didn't because I was his friend so I stayed with him. I stayed with him until the opening night of The Fillmore East with Big Brother and Ten Years After and Albert King.
Tony told me that day that he had printed up 2,000 counterfeit tickets to Bill's show. He was trying to disrupt the whole thing, which for me, crossed a line. I walked on him.
Graham had it under control and it was a great show, it was the opening of a whole new era in New York for Rock & Roll music.
I was in New Orleans working on a record with Allen Toussaint and Randall Bramlett.
The guy I shared a room with at The Howard Johnson had pneumonia and when I came back to New York I felt like I just wanted to be in bed. I had never felt like this before.
They wanted to put me in a hospital but I had a gig that night with Steve (Gadd) and Richard Tee, Cornell (Dupree) and Eric (Gale), Gordon Edwards. I had the gig and I didn’t want to miss the gig. That was a night where I was just playing by instinct. I wasn’t thinking about anything at all, I just wanted to get through the gig and play the right notes and go home. That was the night where everyone was coming up to me saying, “you’re playing your ass off. Oh my god, I’ve never heard you play so good!”
That happened subsequently a bunch of times, where you’re so sick you’re not thinking about technique, you’re not thinking about performance, you’re not thinking about somebody in the audience or what’s going to happen after the gig or the next gig. All you’re doing is concentrating on surviving.
The San Francisco sound is more about a state of mind. One of independence, curiosity and experimentation. Psychedelics played a role but make no mistake it was a pleathearu of mavericks who made that SF Sound.
Guys who were looking to stir things up with late night jam sessions @ the Matrix. Loose open ended affairs with cats who played @ the Heliport and West Marin.
A 12 minute space funk jam with Bill Vitt flashing a style he cultivated @ Dave's soul kitchen and John Kahn a Bloomfield favorite who grew up wanting to be Scott Lafaro. There was also a guitarist named Jerry Garcia who was well schooled in bluegrass and psych rock but was a curious cat who desired to stretch his vocabulary. Garcia openly acknowledges that my guest did more for his ears then anyone else he came across.
My guest today is a keyboardist and Hammond Organ extrodinare who came from the Midwest and firmly laid his flag in that SF scene.
Before heading west he honed his chops working the southern RnB circuit working with Ronnie Hawkins, Little Anthony and the Imperials James Brown and Jimmy Hendrix. Upon arriving in the Bay Area he formed his own band known as AB Skye and found studio work with the Grateful Dead, Martin Fierro and Harvey Mandel. He also has laid claim to several albums under his own name such as Rendevoux with the Sun and The Monk in the Mansion. It's been a long time coming Howard Wales welcome to the JFS.
Happy New Year!
When this host looks at the mass of interviews that he has done and continues to do he realizes that the full impact of the stories, camaraderie, and spirituality may resonate years after I have left this life.
To be discovered or rediscovered is a mystifying and gratifying at the same time. My guest today has had a career full of starts, stops, punching bags, blue notes and love bugs.
He grew up in sunny southern California during the cool bop era and came of age with fellow luminaries like George Coleman, Grant Green and Mickey Roker.
His albums for blue note represented the soul jazz of it's time. The swirling organ lines, the fender bass and rapid fire melodic solos. Opportunities with Groove Merchant produced more electric groove music that epitomized the moody and jaunty 1970s.
Still my guest flew under as other organists like Charles Earland and Groove Holmes took up much of the space. However with the rebirth of soul jazz in the late eighties and early nineties my guests albums became highly coveted for music fanatics and crate diggers alike. All of a sudden my guest became a household name with a generation that wasn't even born when his albums were pressed. His infectious smile and earnest efforts have earned him solid acclaim with the music community and in the record books.
I can only hope that the interviews that I am doing have the staying power and sustenance that my guests music has had.
Reuben Wilson, welcome to the JFS
His career emanated across the border from Detroit in Toronto where he became engulfed in the myriad of live music and the traveling acts that came through.
His unique sound came in part from the Delta blues players who picked their way into Chicago and wound up with legions of younger white wannabes who heard, felt and plugged into the authenticity of Willie Dixon, Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters.
As these aspiring musicians grew there names became part of one of the great pockets in our music history. Butterfield, Bishop, Mac Rebenak, Levon Helm, Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Bob Dylan. Telling stories through lyrics, language and sound
Without Catalyst there would be no JFS. Thanks PB, JF
Pat Britt, Henry Franklin, Michael Howell, Norman Williams, Putter Smith, Vince Lateano, Billy Martin, You Run Like My Grandmother, Catalyst, Little Doubletoe,
The Jake Feinberg Show
When I was 22 years old I started practicing Daoism. I became very close with a teacher in New Jersey. I received a lot of amazing openings. It was a time when I actually stopped playing music because I was so into my practice. Music was something I did for myself. Performing and trying to please people seemed like something that was messing my head up, I gave that up. I obviously went back to it.....
The Dao for me is the nature of our being. My upbringing was tough, like most people. There was a lot of suffering and at an early age I recognized that there’s something wrong here with everything. I was very quiet as a kid, I felt I didn’t need to be part of all the insanity that was going on which sent me into music tremendously. I felt there had to be a different way to live. My teacher introduced a lot of ideas to me that were beyond anything that I would think of as spiritual. I would say, “I’m trying to raise the energy up the spine, and I’m getting stuck here.” He said, “why don’t you try to get in touch with the energy before it manifests into a thought.”
“Whoa, wait a second, what does that have to do with energy channels and all this “chi stuff.” He was trying to stop my mind, which is the essence of everything in all practice, really. The energetic practices are hidden in there, in some kind of poetic way. Most of it is about doing nothing. Having no internal reaction.
I was experimenting with mushrooms and doing some peyote ceremonies, but when I started practicing Daoism I actually stopped. At first I would do the practice and eat mushrooms and get stoned. Eventually I found out it’s robbing me of my energy and it can open you to deeper levels of consciousness, but it’s something that goes because it’s an external thing. Being present and aware is different then going out or being in a trance state. These outer things were taking away from my being present.
I stopped all drugs and drinking and everything. It was around then that I was having different experiences while playing music, even playing drum kit for “rockish” kinda of bands. I was just being completely present with it, in a devotional way also. That’s a big part of it also, being grateful of the gift that you have as a musician and how the music comes out of you naturally (in my case). I studied later....
Being grateful for what is coming through and being devoted to that and surrendering to that, then music becomes a completely different experience.
The best way is to lead by example. It's nothing that has to be loud. People are always looking, even when you don't know they're looking. You don't have to be a band leader to live like someone who wants to make a difference.”
“The best days of my life are the days that I wake up and I don't know, and then I'm open. You can't always give someone the answer, if they're not asking the question. You have to time when you think it's the right time to give information. If it's not the right time it's not the right information.”
“I'm not in a situation where I'm the leader a lot, so it's how I deal with things. How I act and how I react. I think you have to react that you are a leader."
"People that were recording for a living made it a point to get in to play. A lot of times you'd get the call if the first call wasn't available. You never go in starting at the top of the list. You always try to go into the city (New York) to get on the list by doing something that sounded good, by playing in a rehearsal band, by meeting musicians and exchanging numbers. Music is word of mouth business.”
“When I first came to New York I took anything I could get. Rehearsal things, demos, most of it didn't pay. It was a matter of playing with as many different people as you could and trying to get your name out there."
"If you let the music be the inspiration and you find the right thing for the music, chances are it will end up being your voice without you trying to make it anything other than what's right for the music.”
“It would be my voice cause I played it, but it's not like I'm searching for something that has the Steve Gadd stamp on it. I'm just trying to play something that's going to work for the music. That's how I've always approached it."
When all my dime dancing is through I will drum for you. The person who might not play music but will dig what I'm doing.
You have to feel the music, or your passion, self medicate, learn new things, shed old skin and live to see the beauty of your palette.
My guest today is an all time great both in the studio and playing live. He learned this from cats like his peers Gap Mangione and some Sing A Long Junk from Paul Simon playing those South African rhythms swinging the band burning inside.
Maybe it was down on the lower east side playing with Herb Bushler and Joe Farrell going for this time across the Atlantic for a concert in Europe. Playing Post Hard Bop with modal magic that continues with all his friends who have gigged, jammed and communicated, Michael Urbaniak in the funk factory or playing along side Jimmy Madison in a black jazz...with horn arrangements and a great blend of Rock music with jazz aesthetics.
Ultimately when my wife was pregnant with my second daughter and I kept listening to the title track of Steely Dan's AJA the epic build between my guest and Wayne Shorter willed me to name her Aja. We named her after the song my guest drummed on. Oh and they did that in one take.
It could be a big White Elephant with Warren Bernhardt, loft sessions, playing with Richard Tee or a Penny Arcade with Herb Bushler. Drum drops from the lap of Creed Taylor, Symphonic Soul with Hubert Laws
When all my dime dancing is through I'll drum for you Steve Gadd welcome to the JFS.
Racism, Diaspora, Big Black, Englewood Cliffs, Leon Thomas, Bill Summers, Hippie Hill, Tin Palace, Van Morrison,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Everybody dreams, some dreams are narcissistic and petty, some have dreams so vivid that they almost seem real. Others dream and put those dreams into reality.
When you take the natural attributes that have been gifted to you, dedicate yourself to your craft and dream for the stars nothing can stop you.
This mantra is not easy to establish. Self doubt creeps in, barriers artificial or not arise like a hundred year old cactus in the desert. Remember when you throw a t onto can you get the word can't which can prove to be the biggest detriment.
My guest today vanquished his insecurities by diving head and shoulders into live entertainment. He was singing and dancing for opera companies in high school all the while being encouraged by his parents. He played the saxophone and flute in The marching band following in the same vein as Hadley Caliman, Sam Most and James Moody. He took the T off of can't and became a brother of invention.
His career has seen him cross paths with Frank Zappa, George Duke JLP, Roy Estrada, Chester Thompson Ike Willis and the Fowler Brothers.
His stage antics and personality brought a new dynamic to the already independent and percussive laiden Zappa band. He sang about real people and real places which allowed the audience to feel connected to the musicians.
He has performed in RnB and Gospel outfits and has put out albums of his own including the 2002 record "Balls" which was an opportunity for my guest to strut his stuff to legions of younger fans who may not have been around for bongo fury....
A great musician and even better person NMB welcome to the JFS...
Fearless and divine yogic practitioner talks about healing and loving herself and being able to inspire others to transcend their thinking mind and access the spirit mind through meditation and kundalini yoga.
Multi-dimensional actor and railroad avatar talks about collaborating with theatre troupes in Eugene, OR and his roles in Shenandoah and Animal House. A fountain of youth and humor within the milieu of pranksterism.
Jake…I really enjoyed the interview. Glad to see you speaking to a lot of great musicians and documenting important bands.
Bill Cutler
There was a time in this country when a younger generation chose to buck the realities of linear life and carve their own paths. Legacy paths if you will. This generation had been inundated with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, and were bored to death.What was resonating inside them was the sounds they were hearing and emulating from the smokey blues players who sung about real life and played acoustic instruments. Everything was in mono. It's not easy for white folks to comp Blind Lemon Jefferson, Reverend Gary Davis and Shakey Jake. For it to be an authentic emulation this generation had to understand the stories and the regional sophistication of these masters. They had to be eclectic and musicologists in their own way scouring for those obscure LPs at Village Music run by John Goddard My guest today was part of this generation who set out to learn from these masters and add their own accent. The messages and stories came through in their own cadence with washtub basses, mandolin's, dobro's and pottery pie. Old folkies like Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk and my guest were the precursors to psychedelic electric music. These jug bands were looking to turn back the hands of time. Singing about being sleepy or having been all around this world, performing @ folk city and coffee houses with the likes of Bill Monroe, Tex Logan and other forefathers of traditional American Music. My guest today is a prolific singer, song writer and multiple instrumentalist. He plays the guitar, organ and saxophone, started his making albums on Prestige Folklore and Reprise and playing with all the heavies. Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Gene Dinwiddie, Maria D'amato the aforementioned mentioned Van Ronk, David Grisman and John Kahn Fritz Richmond and Bill Keith. It's an honor to welcome Geoff Muldaur to the JFS
“Ego Dissolution”
Why a psychedelic is so potentially beneficial is that they have the effect of shaking up rigid thought patterns and behavior which gets fixated. The person makes the same mistake for the rest of their lives.
What happens in a psychedelic state, particularly if they have a good psychotherapist to guide them, is that their wish to overcome their problem (depression/addiction) becomes stronger. Under the psychedelic effect, the “default mode network” (ego) is reduced to the point where maybe people have a complete ego dissolution.
It’s as if you’re restarting a computer. Suddenly it shakes up the whole setting and a new setting can come into place which hopefully is better suited for dealing with the situation in the real world.
The drum chair and he who sits in it. A barrelhouse of polkas, stripper gigs, game shows, jingles and soundtracks. It's about feel. The terms that have come about are nothing more then playing behind in front or on the beat. When my guest hit the studio scene he was ingratiated by Earl Palmer who was feeling the groove to many grooves in fact that he recommended my guest to all the Producers, like Phil Spector who hired jazzers like Conte Condoli, Plas Johnson, Pete Jolly and my guest. Baja Marimba, Psychedelic Percussion, Three's Company, (Come and Knock on my Door) Dawg Grass with David Grisman, stone Jazz gigs with Howard Roberts and Tommy Tedesco playing Dee Dee's Dilemma into a little boss's into a ballad into a funky blues. My guest felt his way through the music because he knows that songs tell a story and the drums have to envelop that story. Some stories are happy or sad, some speak to regions of our country some don't make sense at all. Some stories go on for decades with the same performers like John Lennon and others were a one shot deal. He is an master drummer just like Elvin Jones, Jo Jones and Philly Joe Jones and Benny Benjamin He is the most recorded studio drummer in the history of modern recorded music. He's given others opportunities because not all enter from the same entrance. Hal Blaine, welcome to the JFS
Muscle Shoals, Levon Helm, Jeff Davis, Amazing Ryhthm Aces, Nashville, Lucretia,
The Jake Feinberg Show
You ever hear the expression, "you know this is really artistically appealing but not commercially viable."
If you have then you were probably pursuing an artistic endeavor that reeked of the truth, dripped with humanity and exposed the status quo.
My guest today heard this many times in his life as an actor, film maker, reporter, writer, astronomer, linguist and cable car grip man. He wanted to create black drama's that represented the Afro folk who he met everyday. Not some kabuki character who was artificially produced by the Hollywood Industrial Complex.
However, his films and point of view was anathema to behemoths like Columbia Which resulted in my guest paying out of his own pocket to get this media disseminated to the public even if his films might have only been shown in black porn theaters.
After spending time in the Bay Area he took his family to Europe to study astronomy, change his name to make it more Dutch became fluent in French wrote several short novels and interviewed Malcolm X.
He made some noise and came back to the States and wound up in the studio with jazz stalwarts Herb Buschler, Howard Johnson and Warren Smith. He made music that sang although he couldn't sing. He spoke of guts, determination and his frustrations with the American World View.
He personally funded "Sweetback's Badass Song" which portrays a black prostitute who seeks to punish those who are corruptive and engages in multiple sexual encounters with many a willing female.
He was at the forefront of Blaxploitation films and his pontification is considered a pre-cursor to rap music except that he actually had something to say. He was the first African American Investment Banker on Wallstreet
and his blood line is strong as his son Mario is a renowned actor.
Melvin Van Peebles welcome to the JFS.
Occasionally on the Journey I wonder why I pay homage to those players who I never met, or saw play. To know authenticity when you never experienced it.
I have interviewed Ira Gitler, Herb Wong and Nat Hentoff on this journey. Guys who produced records, wrote linear notes and filled in the human with the being.
I interviewed Fred Taylor who among other things ran the Jazz Workshop and Paul's Mall which was a duel musical outlet for psychedelia and jazz.
And now we get to North Beach circa '72. A gentlemen by the name of Todd Barkan takes over a club next to the police station called it the Keystone Korner. 750 villeo street...
He creates a club that provided accessibility to great leaders for anyone who appreciated authenticity and love. He was a musical match maker who cared about the musicians idiosyncrasies and how to fit personalities and make them work.
He charged $3.00 during the week to see Cannonball Adderley
$3.25 on the weekends. The entire club permeated with the warm home cooking of Ora Harris. For those who wanted to roast a joint there were ionizers on the ceiling that sucked the smoke right up so that it would not bother the people around them.
Now, this establishment was already stepped in psychedelic blues like Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders.
And now the wheels turn again. Merl's cousin was Eddie Moore who played in organ trios with Merl in the Fillmore District where Calvin Keys would sometimes play the breakfast set. Calvin Keys said "if you weren't playing the Keystone when you were in San Francisco then you weren't playin."
And Eddie Marshall came out because of the 4th way and started wearing his dashiki's with James Leary and Herbie Lewis guys who made up a rhythm section with vibist Bobby Hutcherson.
Carl Burnett would come in and smell Ora's banana bread when he played with George Cables and Freddie Hubbard.
Rasaan Roland Kirk (a boyhood friend of Barkan's) and Grover Washington Jr. Played benefit concerts in Oakland to raise money so the Keystone could obtain a liquor license.
Understanding true freedom of expression, a player in his own right and Someone who validates what this radio host so desires Todd Barkan welcome to the JFS.
I realized at a certain point that this (melodic invention) was what I was suppose to do with my life. It was to develop this music, this melodic improvisation and carry it through and expand it and get better at it. At the time all you wanted to do was get to a point where you had enough chops that you could play what you heard. Then it becomes, “I need to hear more, I need to expand my hearing.” I’ve kind of been in that ballpark since I was thirty. You’re trying to expand your hearing ability without being phony. I’ll hear a recording and it will just kill me. I live with that for a year and listen to it over and over and over again, and not by willpower, but because I’m drawn to it.
Everybody should have that rhythm going at the same time. A great player like Sam Most or George Muribus or Sonny Rollins or Charlie Parker, you can take their stuff off and remove the rhythm section and it’s still like there’s a rhythm section there.
There was a point when they “outlawed” upright basses on gigs. You couldn’t play at The Playboy Club with an upright bass. Woody Herman called up and needed a sub for that night, I ran down to the gig and walked in with my upright and he said, “what’d you bring that for?” Even a band like that, they were using electric basses.
One time they sent over an electric bass player to play with Thelonious Monk. They started to play and Thelonious stood up and said, “wrong sound.”
You can really recognize someone by their intonation, and that’s what really makes them sound different. That’s what’s different about the upright bass, like in the violin family, you can play your own personal intonation. I can tell Paul Chambers from Ron Carter, even if they play the same notes.
When you’re playing electric bass it’s the same as pressing a keyboard. You have no control over the intonation.
Along the way on my journey to cover the greatest generation of musicians I have discovered that in many ways the drummer can set the tone for an entire session. If the drummer has a preferred style and gets locked into that style then they cannot fit into different settings. They get locked in a mold and their growth is stunted. If however the drummer has the chops and channels his ego to fit into different musical arrangements then you have the makings of a real swinger. My guest today has the deepest most condensed resume of any musician I have talked with. Because he was in high demand he accepted unconventional opportunities that fostered his own creative input and growth. His power and rhythmic timing elevated many of the great electric blues sessions of Cornell Dupree, Joe Cocker and Chuck Rainey and BB King. His ability to swing the band gave Prestige Records a huge lift as he contributed to his own career as a leader as well as those of Charles Kynard, Boogaloo Joe Jones and Sonny Phillips. He has been a drummer for gospel and rock outfits. Along with the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin. Let it flow James Brown, Gil Scott Heron, Galt McDermott, Leon Thomas and Steely Dan. Bernard "Pretty" Purdie welcome to the JFS....
Allan Toussaint, Taj Mahal, Kenny Gradney, Lowell George, Chico Hamilton, Jimi Hendrix, Mothers of Invention, Dennis McNally,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Timing can be everything in life. When you're born and when you graduate college. What era did you live through and are you satisfied. When Art was considered a sustainable form of business? My guest today took advantage of his timing and luck and fused that with an adventuresome often stream of consciousness taste in music. He understands his own Jewish roots and has devoted much of the last 15 years to promoting unsung international heroes like Chiune Sugihara who as a Japanese Diplomat helped thousands of Jews escape Lithuania in WW II. This bass understanding of history fused with his musical musings melded into an amalgamation of Moby Grape, The Pointer Sisters, Cold Blood and Buddy Rich. He produced African Jazz albums by Herbie Hancock which focused on layers of rhythms that would change moods within the 18 minute track. Like a sleeping giant the tune moved from hypnotic percussion from the entire band to moody black jazz to funky blues back to Hancology. How this ever was pressed on a record and furthermore a major label is vexing to this host. From my insular vantage point it speaks to a time in our society where stretching out was accepted and flaunted. The language of the rhythms indicates a lean towards education and teamwork with an onus on the accompanist. Values that have become liquidated in an downsized Music business. No longer an industry the major labels make offers based on how many Twitter followers you have and not on the quality of the content. My guest has always been content driven from his earliest days on Columbia Records to his merging with Bill Graham and the evolution of Fillmore and San Francisco record labels which produced the sultry funk of early Tower of Power Records. He has dealt with the biggest personalities in music and film like Francis Ford Coppola during the making of "Apocalypse Now." Or rediscovering a magical shepherd with Miroslav Vitous. It's what the kids want, it's the real thing. David Rubinson welcome to the JFS
Piano wizard and magician talks about collaborating with his peers and expanding musical vocabulary on the bandstand.
Titanic tenor player talks about his musical life; the ups downs and everything in between....
My guest today is an example of someone who was born in the right place at the right time.
He was raised in San Francisco and during his formative years when arguably the greatest music cultivation was occurring. The core group of Brubeck, Desmond and Tjader and Guaraldi spawned a new era in melodic jazz, never removing the street element but conjoining swing elements with Latin rhythms, bossa rhythms and African percussion.
At the same time Santana's Latin rock escapade was burgeoning as well as a bunch of Mavericks who were acclimating themselves to this fertile hotbed of cross music fertilization.
My guest got sticks in his hand and became part of it all. Bola Sete, Noel Jewkes, Jon Hendricks, Dr. Denny Zeitlin, the airplane, GD, the aforementioned mentioned Guaraldi, Benny Velarde and countless other gigs @ Jimbo's Bop City, the Both And, the Workshop
The Jake Feinberg show started as a look deep inside the spiritualism of man and music from a certain period in our musical history. It was a time before labels and idioms dared to matter and linear notes were chewed up and thrown out with the bath water….if you actually had any running water.
As my show has evolved it has settled nicely into interviews with those who sought to creatively express their thoughts; they did this by breaking color barriers, reaching over these barriers and showing great strength and love in their playing and how they treated others.
Country boys have been few and far between on my program. However like all art that too is evolving. These farmers were high on the hog, noting corruption at the Piggly Wiggly Supermarkets and hearing the sounds of raspy blues originalists on the AM radio.
My guest today grew up in rural Iowa with no electricity or running water. When he was ten his family moved to Oklahoma where he began to hear the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed on the radio. He traveled up the Mississippi on a scholarship and wound up traveling Market Street watching the blind dobro players strumming in Chicago.
It was in the Windy City that he met Paul Butterfield and formed the core of the most explosive and forward thinking blues band. As they played the blues circuit in Chicago my guest decided to head west and wound up where else? The Bay Area which was percolating with Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and many other musicians who were experimenting with electric instruments and psychedelics and beautiful woman.
The raw blues playing of my guest forged an alliance with the rest of the cadre including John Mayall, John Kahn, Mark Naftalin, Phil Wilson, David Sanborn, Maria Muldaur, Steve Miller, Pinetop Perkins and Eric Clapton. And that is just the 1960s……
A lot to talk about with an American Music Icon, Elvin Bishop, Welcome to the JFS…..
Trinidad, African Messengers, Ron Carter, Eastman School of Music, Gap Magione, Cedar Walton, Jacob's Ladder, Woody Shaw, Art Pepper, The Blackbyrds, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway
The Jake Feinberg Show
i just loved hearing Gildo sharing his stories. have been a fan of his for many decades.
must add that the chicken and waffles place in NYC was Wells (Roscoe’s is in L.A.). that was actually where i first saw Sonny Rollins.
funny story about Prez calling out his own names for the tunes. what challenging times Gildo experienced.
loved hearing Gildo talk about Ozzie Cadena, whose wife Gloria still carries for her late husband in booking Sunday matinees at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach.
Gildo is obviously a treasure and so are you, Jake! next time i’d like to hear him talk about working with Lorez Alexandria. thank you so much for another great interview.
Valerie Bishop
Spirituality in Music comes from the intimacy between musicians. Letting go of control and allowing collaboration between humans. Taking chances and playing what you feel is also an inherent component to spiritual music.
Then we turn to the apparatus- the instrument itself. When you think of the violin it conjures up images of a classical setting very formal with improvisation limited to the whims of the conductor. It is truly the spiritual ones who can blend their soul and instrument to take it outside of the accustom idiom. To use the violin in conjunction with electric instruments like guitars, horns, keyboards and percussion. My guest has been doing just that for the better part of the last half century with the likes of John Handy, Jerry Hahn, Eddie Marshall, Kenneth Nash, Ron McClure, pharaoh Saunders John Lee Hooker and John Coltrane. Using the violin as a conduit to further improvisation Michael White welcome to the Jake Feinberg Show
We didn't collaborate, we went to see each other play. Tommy Flanagan and Kenny Burrell they were about the best two players around. I followed behind Tommy Flanagan, you know what I'm saying. I said, "all these cats can solo, I don't know how to solo." I had to come back and figure out how to solo.
Bess Bonnier was a blind pianist I grew up with. I said, "Bess you got that machine, can I use your machine?" She had a machine where you could slow down the record all the way down. She loaned it to me and that's how I learned how to solo.
All of us were all connected, there was no "white or "black." We were all connected.
I teach my students that the drum is a means to an end, not an end in itself. They seem to have gotten it reversed. A lot of drummers use music to play the drums to show off how well they can play, how fast they can play. I say, "you use the drums to play music, it's a musical instrument."
Ringo Starr said, he never really practiced the drums because he always played in a band. He just knew that he was playing music in a band and he happened to be playing the drums. He could have been playing any instrument. Therefore the drums became his voice within the band, not an end in itself. It's like using your tongue, pallet and lips to say something, you don't practice saying things really fast to impress people about your vocal technique. You're using your tongue and your mouth and your larynx to say something. The drums are being used as a means to an end.
Vassar Clements never played anything the same way twice. He never knew what he was going to play, it just came out.
Bill Monroe didn't like that improv they Vassar did. One time they're all standing behind the stage at "The Opry." Vassar's back there talking and he left the room. Bill told everybody else in the room, "you know that man right there has ruined more fiddlers here in Nashville than I can count." Kenny Baker said, "ah, he didn't ruin me."
Great interview with Raul Matute of Cold Blood. His classical training and interest in big bands are evident in his playing and arranging. I respect him for choosing a “regular life” in Socal vs. a life of touring. He clearly never left music tho! - Johnny Mac
"If my brother's death had been more sudden it would have been much harder, but we knew it was coming. I remember I was playing a concert in Tennessee and heard from my sister that he was really not doing well and it sounded like the end was eminent so I thought about him through the whole concert and the whole way home, by the time I got home he had passed already.”
“It didn't make it easier because you're dealing with a whole new level of grief. In the ensuing years I've tried to do what I thought he would want me to do musically, spiritually and husband/father because he measured so high on all those fronts. His surmise inspired me to start writing music for the first time in a long time.” “My brother was so serious and he worked so hard at his music, his main inspiration was John Coltrane and I think he continued that tradition by practicing for hours and hours and hours everyday and he was never satisfied with his own playing and kept adding to his vocabulary. Usually when you get a little older you tend to slow down a little and he didn't.” “Later in his life he got interested in Bulgarian Folk Music and studied with local Bulgarian musicians and started to write. Again he reinvented the saxophone, it was completely different from anything he'd done before and anybody had ever done before.” “There's a tradition of Eastern European music that features incredible technique. There's a lot of woodwind music entrenched in the music, particularly in Bulgarian folk music, wedding bands and virtuosic stuff. I think that caught his ear." JAKE: “Is a musician still seen as a viable livelihood?” RANDY: “Playing music is seen as a 'Musicians gift to the world.' We're supposed to hand out our music for free and that's not in stride with what I was brought up to do. As a player I don't think people have respect for how much time and work goes into practicing your instrument and trying to write music. It's not fun in that respect and we want to be paid for it.” “There are parallel realities going on in pop music, you do have machines practically involved in every almost every record you hear. Even the stuff coming out of Nashville, although it seems that's where most of the musicians have settled. They're playing on the newer country scene and I like to hear that. On the general pop music scene and urban scene it's mostly just hip hop machines with a rapper and one or two guys scratching. Even when you see a lot of groups on TV they're kind of faking it. It's very sad for me, I like to see a band play."
Music is a language that musicians speak. When you start getting into the original music of the United States the richness that comes out in the music is like nothing else in the world. When "Sissy Strut" was released all the musicians in Berklee were mesmerized because it was a feel of music we could understand but not relate to. Different people began to tell us it had to do with the whole New Orleans thing.
Harry Blazer and I were both going to Berklee and in those days I didn't have a car or transportation so Harry would drive me all over the place. He would ask me in a very humble way if I could teach him about time feel. Harry and I would go to my basement of my house in Boston and we would practice time feel.
We both fell in love with "The Meters." That allowed us to bring a perspective into jazz that rhythm sections did not have then. When Gary hired us we were able to bring that feel to the session.
I remember Peter Erskine telling me how much that record ("Gary Burton New Quartet") influenced him and George Mraz the same thing.
Be a brother. One of the original cats on the Bay Area folk scene with Garcia, Nelson & Robert Hunter
Canadian singer songwriter talks about going to the states with John Lee Hooker and joining Blood Sweat & Tears
Gifted singer songwriter talks about being an independent musician with a bent towards social justice
My dad was an ambassador to Victoria, South Africa. When I was 15 years old we were at the bottom of Africa, there were a few mines there. Enough that they had mine workers and the mine workers always danced when they were off. The miners were from all over Africa so there were all different types of music.
I started to go out to these mines to watch the people dance and to hear the music. I had never heard music quite like that before. I was a jazz fan in Montreal. My dad worked there for four years and I took in as much as I could.
Drumming was not the main thing, there was a drummer. The main thing was the singing. They were singing songs in their own language and I couldn't understand what they were saying all the time/ever. But it was damn good, I would sit there all morning and learned a lot about music from them.
Legendary studio guitarist talks about his experiences playing on the chitlin circuit and working his way into the west coast studio scene with Barry White
Singer songwriter talks about playing Grateful Dead music growing up in Long Island, busking on the streets and becoming a TRI All-Star.
Sly and the Family Stone, Humanity, Victor Pantoja, Jerry Garcia, Tim Bogert, Bobby Cochran, Don't Let Go, Joe Zawinul
The Jake Feinberg Show
To believe that you were part of real movement towards social progress is validation to some. For those who were actively involved in cultivating the spirits of the change is magical. When the involvement is through rhythm then the spirit transcends. My guest today came from one of the greatest regional hotbeds of local music - the San Francisco Bay Area. He was the drummer for Sly Stone and the Family which fashioned multiethnic multiracial bi-gender members intent of exposing the city by the bay as a place of experimentation, intellectualism and a down right fuck you to American conformity. My guest moved on from the Family and made stops along the way with Carlos Santana and played with some of the greatest Afro Cuban percussionists including Victor Pantoja Willie Bobo and Armando Peraza and Coke Eacovedo. Guys who were rooted in the rhythms made popular by Bay Area vibist Cal Tjader... From Latin Rock to Weather Report and the Boogie Woogie Waltz with Joe Zawinul. While dwelling in fusion he was also tied into the Novato scene. The barn with Mickey hart and Bill Kreutzman, Zakir Hussain. Maybe a trip over the Lee Charlton's to play with the gravity adjusters expansion band. Ultimately this paved the way for a connection with Jerry Garcia and John Kahn in this hosts favorite pocket of that band lifespan. I wish there was a riot going on! Greg Errico welcome to the JFS.
Hu Jake
Didn’t know Bob Jones, but do remember playing at the Trident with Larry Coryell and the great bassist Albert Stinson. I used to stay on a houseboat in Sausalito when I played at the Fillmore West in 68. Also Jim Pepper was a fan/friend of Noel Jewkes. It’s a huge universe but we are all more connected then we know. Yes?
Love Always
Hu Ra-Kalam
My guest today is an icon of country music. He along with Buck Owens helped form the Bakersfield Sound. A dusty picking style that fed them on those freight trains and on the bandstand. My guest today was a rabble-rouser. Mama tried but couldn't hold him anymore as he ran roughshot in the west. My guest went to prison in his early days, working jobs for the prison, had a hard time getting it out of his head, so much so that he began writing about all these experiences Singing Me back Home before I die. These experiences and stories told through and by my guest catapulted him to stardom and branding and than a concerted effort by my guest to change the publics perception of what they think it's like to be a music star. He's saddled up in cowboy bars and Casino's and saw Johnny Cash @ San Quetin who along with Bonnie Owens helped inspire my guest to write and sing and entertain. He's coming to the Fox Theatre here in Tucson this Thursday Merle Haggard welcome to the JFS.....
Don’t Give Me No Sugar Cubes When I started touring, Bill Cosby took over my room above the Gaslight. I was at The Village Gate opening up for Coleman Hawkins doing standup. Bob Dylan said, “You gotta come to the Gaslight.” He kicked Cosby out of the room to give it back to me. Cosby thought anytime I would offer him a drink it was filled with LSD. He was certain that everything that I touched turned into LSD. Who else thought that was Jose Feliciano. “Don’t give me no sugar cubes,” he used to say.
The Golden Lion Once I got to New York, I established a gig at The Golden Lion in Hartford, Connecticut doing jazz and poetry. It was a hit; it was huge. Every Monday for years, Beatniks would line up around the block. I brought in people like Don Ellis, Jaki Byard, and Jimmy Giuffre. We got paid: that’s how I got these guys to come out. Every Monday was a payday. We would leave New York City and drive to Hartford and do it. I’m just a hippie poet in an altered space. “Space is the place,” said Sun Ra.
Beat Generation Jazz Poetry It was John Mitchell, the owner of Gaslight Cafe, wanting to make more money. I read my poetry at the Gaslight and became the poetry director along with John Brent. I suggested to John Mitchell, “Hey, why don’t we try a little folk music, between poetry.” He said, “Mr. Romney, I’ve made all my money with poetry!” I answered, “C’mon. John, let’s just try it.” It was a smash. I remember when Bob Dylan came down into the Gaslight. He was wearing Woody Guthrie’s underwear. He had a sign on his guitar that read, “This machine kills fascists.” He said to me, “Hey, man, can I go on?” It was a hootenanny. I just grabbed the mic and said, “Here he is, a legend in his own lifetime. What’s your name, kid?” We ended up sharing a room above the Gaslight. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” was written with my typewriter.
The “Jerry Area” We introduced Hippies to granola at Woodstock. They had never seen it before, and we brought it to them in little Dixie cups. It was unheard of. Some people had heard of Muesli, but barely. We made the granola in our free kitchen Tom Donahue, the father of FM radio, was putting together this sequel to Woodstock, Medicine Ball Caravan. Warner Brothers was desperate to do a sequel to Woodstock. The idea was to have a caravan of buses driving across the free world and stopping hither and yon to do concerts. Warner Brothers would fly in their stars to do that. That’s how I ran into Larry Brilliant and was hired to be one of the doctors on the trip. He jumped on the bus with his wife Girija, and he was Dr. America. Seva is such a beautiful cause. To be able to go to the other side of the world and enable people that are blind to not bump into sh*t anymore. You get psyched! What a gift. It was so easy to pitch artists for this particular cause, because it is so self-evident, and we have helped five million people on the other side of the world. I make calls to artists, and they find it very difficult to say no to me. My first task when Seva was first put together: We were given a small grant from Steve Jobs to gather in Heartlands, MI—Larry and a lot of docs and health workers and Danny Rifkin from The Grateful Dead—to do something. I went to Detroit to get on an aircraft, and who should be on that plane but the Grateful Dead and they didn’t have parachutes. I went to the drummers first and Jerry always says, ‘Might as well.” Bill Graham didn’t know we were putting on the show and it was a benefit. He was screaming, “Why am I the last one to find this stuff out?!” I was backstage in the “Jerry Area” with Steve Parrish and we were exploring some vegetation. Bill came back and handed me this note. I opened it up and it was a check for $10,000. I said, “My God, Bill, why are you doing this?” He said, “Because you did not hit on me, my friend.”
Gravity Will Get You Smiling A clown is a poet and also an orangutan. I first started being a clown back in the ancient times, forty-odd years ago when we came to Berkeley. Some doctors at The Oakland Children’s Hospital knocked on my door and wanted me to go and cheer up kids. I wasn’t sure, but someone handed me a red rubber nose and I was invisible. I’ve never taken it off. I’m the guy that ties balloons to the barbed wire. I’ve been arrested as a clown with my giant shoes on. They chased me down in this ravine, and to climb up I had to do the herringbone. I was arrested as the Easter Bunny at The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There were a bunch of cops there and they did not want to be photographed busting a bunny. I was walking directly towards the lab and also had a life-sized human foot draped across me on a chain. All of a sudden one of the cops screamed, “Bust the bunny!” It was then that I whipped out my “Get out of jail free” card, laminated. Everyone’s got a monopoly set. Go and laminate the card and use it any time you get pulled over. You must get it laminated; there’s something about lamination that really impresses the police. I’ve been pulled over for stuff from time to time, and that laminated card always brings a smile to their face. One time I was flying into Chicago to do a benefit for The Chicago 8. I was wearing a World War I jump suit and an aviator hat with a duck beak that squeaked. These cops dove on my ass. They wanted to see some ID, and the only thing I had was a picture of me in the San Francisco Chronicle dressed as a hamburger. It caused the cops to crack up. They wanted to take me downtown, not to arrest me, but to show me to the other cops. I got them to relent and they let me off in front of this practical joke store. I went in and bought a three-foot plastic banana. I blew it up and started walking across Chicago. These cops came up and asked, “What are you doing?” I answered, “I’m walking my banana.” They didn’t want to talk anymore after that; they just drove off. Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life. Harpo Marx used to say, “If all else fails, stand on your head.” I maintain that if you stand on your head, gravity will get you smiling.
Never Eat When You’re Angry When we met at Stanford, right from the get-go, Kesey and I were making tapes together. We’d sit there in the dark, get high, and rap with microphones into a reel-to-reel tape recorder, doing these off-the-wall, off-the-cuff stories, plots, and situations. We were both good at making stuff up on the spot. Kesey was an absolute genius at it; I would fill in a lot. Actual novels, making up the characters and the dialogue. We’d pull out the tape recorder and we never knew how good it was when we were doing it. We first started doing it in relation to writing. Can this stuff be transposed into a book? Can it be sold; is it worth anything? So later we’d listen to it and see if we thought we had any ability in this direction. It actually was pretty good, but it was really raw. There were no cheerleaders singing “rah, rah, rah.” We realized we had a talent, but we were really not brought up to speed in that respect until we had Neal Cassady with us. He was the absolute master at talking. He didn’t always make stuff up, but he was able to talk about everything that had happened in his life and weave it into long convoluted stories that always had a moral to them. “Never eat when you’re angry; no one was ever happy angry.” Luckily on the bus trip in 1964 with Neal driving, we all had microphones set up and speakers going, so you would hear us all talking and rapping at the same time
Early Acid Heads When Kesey went to jail in 1967, it was right at the beginning of the year. 67 was the Summer of Love. We were all still in the Bay Area, but things were changing by then. The word was out, the publicity was in, about San Francisco. It was attracting more and more people. The flower children were followed quickly by the sharks. It was not the kind of place we wanted to be around anymore. We wanted to get away, and a lot of the early acid heads did the same thing. They went under the asphalt back down into the earth and they flocked into Northern California and Oregon. All the Pranksters came up here to Oregon, and we had a communal scene out there at the Kesey Farm while he was in jail. It had a barn and a pump and a septic tank, so we just set up housekeeping there. That summer we were buying 50-pound bags of rice, beans, and flour, eating tortillas, and growing vegetables. There were those types of communes all over Eugene. As time went on, we branched out and found our own places.
His Shoes and a Note Fourteen of us got busted at Ken Kesey’s house for pot. We went to court, and our lawyer made a deal where we all got off except Ken. The reason was that Neal Cassady had already been busted twice for felonies. In California if he went down for another felony, he’d be in jail for another ten or fifteen years. So they made the deal that Ken would take the rap and the rest of us would go free. When it came time for Kesey to show up in court and get his conviction, he didn’t show up. He “committed suicide.” He left his shoes and a note on the beach in California and disappeared. What really happened was a buddy of his drove him down to Mexico in an old truck. We knew about it, but the rest of us were still doing the Acid Tests in LA. We had the bus down there, we had a place to stay, and we were doing these shows every Saturday night. The Hog Farm had joined up for that. LSD was going to become illegal the next day in California. So after the Acid Tests, we jumped on the bus and headed down to Mexico. We went way down in Mexico, on the ocean. We stayed there six months till our visas expired and we came back along with Kesey. During that time my first wife came down with my kids to visit. My second wife was down there and gave birth to our daughter Casa. Mountain Girl birthed Sunshine Kesey in Mexico. They’re about a month apart in age.
The Wave Just Happened In 1966 acid had really come on in San Francisco. It was different from anywhere else, as we found out. San Francisco people weren’t tied into the big LA money, record business, movie business. People were doing on their own all kinds of things we were doing during the Acid Tests in terms of dance and filmmaking and music and art. We’d rent these halls and bring people together. It got so big that in January 1966 we had the Trips Festival in San Francisco at The Longshoremen’s Hall. All these disparate groups together for a three-day Acid Test. They might as well call it that: it was all psychedelic. It was a really wonderful thing to all of us to realize “Hey, there a bunch of us doing this.” Ken Kesey would say, “We didn’t create the wave, the wave just happened. We were lucky to ride the crest of the wave, but there were thousands of other people riding that wave, and it’s still going. It’s all the way to Kansas by now.”
Entertainers need to be aware of what's happening all around them. The great entertainers are aware of all the best that's around them.
The best education, the best food and of coarse the best music. The kind of music that comes from your soul- or maybe even deeper.
Jimmy Smith laying on his B-3 or Willie Bobo playing congas in in Spanish Harlem. Monk Montgomery extending a hand while Big Black played the African room.
My guest today is a great entertainer. He is a comic, a purveyor of Social Issues and a doctor. Hid education @ Amherst helped galvanize the classic childrens program the Electric Company and also prompted the little Bill series that my daughter is holding as she sits next to me. From the streets of Philadelphia to the house that Jello built my guest never wavered in his love of music and the musicians.
He danced to it. He sang to it. He played keyboards, he played the drums like Max Roach.... my guest was Badfoot Brown.
Today we see a weakening of the nuclear family and a culture that seems to use people and love things. it's far different from the community that had a major influence on this entertainers life.
Bill Cosby its an honor to have you on the Jake Feinberg Show
Intimacy, Humanity, Accessibility and Music. At this point my greatest journalistic accomplishment. Keep Your Lovelight On, JF
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1921, Candido "officially" moved to New York in 1952 and is the first musician to bring the bongo into a North America musical setting. Today he continues to dazzle audiences all over the world and will be inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in Tulsa, Oklahoma next week.
On a breezy monsoon driven afternoon in the Old Pueblo I spend some time talking to "Black." I have been courting him in recent months because of his candor and ability to tell the stories of African Americans who kept rhythm alive stateside. Brew a few pots for this one.
Cheif Bey, Danny Ray, Georgia, Dizzy Gillespie, Coons, Jass, David Axelrod, Message To Our Ancestors, Paul Butterfield
The Jake Feinberg Show
Charlie Parker, Joe Sample, Tom Scott, Court and Spark, The Baked Potato, Frank Rosolino, Small Town in Iowa, South Side of Chicago, Stan Kenton,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Gratitude is attitude from this modern day bandleader. Trying to create within the confines of no road map and societal dysfunction. The truth reveals itself.....
Very often the sweetest moments in music history occur through a confluence of self expression. You have to have something to say. And it has to be a message that is sustained and built through other human beings. The late sixties and early seventies was one of those sweet moments in music history. You had a generation of African Americans coning of age on the left coast who were raised in households that taught them to be proud of their heritage. Some of these individuals came from the gulf coast and brought with them a soul rooted in gospel and blues. They were given opportunities to play with John Lee Hooker, BB King and Fred McDowell. Southern California was a melting pot of music at this time and my guest was right in the middle of it. He saw the progress made by his own people in civil rights. He saw his own heroes murdered by haters and fear mongers. Yet my guest and his brethren chose to respond with messages and music. The Sanctified Sound on full display with my guest today legendary keyboardist, singer, producer and collaborated Stu Gardner - welcome to the JFS.
wow!!! what a treat that was! i have known Toshiko since she was at Schillinger House in Boston in the mid-’50s but i still learned a lot from this interview! it was fabulous! thank you so much, Jake!
Valerie Bishop
Inspiring discussion about finding a consistent yogic state during Covid, how a musician must be adaptable during this time and still connect with people through music.
Listening to your interview and your statement regarding them as THE world music group. Yes, they were the first (and I was there in the 70s in Marin County).
Please listen to Ancient Future and their album
“Planet Passion” and you will hear the new sound of east meets west.
Peace
Jeffrey Buchanan
Joe Pass, Hermosa Beach, John Guerin, Strawberry Wine, Mannekind, Gary Barone
The Jake Feinberg Show
Yaakov Levy
great to hear oscar interviewed.
i met him when i was at la city college around 81. he played a set w/harold land. i loved his playing. afterwards i asked him something about what do you practice to play like that..he said “play whatever you want”. and the way he said it, and looked at me, made a wonderful impression about individuality in music…. i used to wear a big kippah and one time he encouraged me to keep wearing it… in other words, what i felt from what he said was: continue to be yourself and affirm/express your cultural heritage.
i haven’t talked to him in awhile..it would be good to speak with him.
first time i saw him was when i saw gerald wilsons band at the ‘pilgrimage theatre’ probably around 76. i remembered his solo.
i was in high school at the time.
oscar, skipper, carl burnett, keman, higgins were all always very supportive and fortunately i got to play with them (not oscar, yet)… over the years.
thanks for doing these interviews
My guest today was rooted in his gospel upbringing.
Yet in a different period in our history when church music overlapped with soul and rnb my guest was in the right place with the right sound.
Originally discovered by Elvin Bishop my guest generated interest in the bay area as a Hammond B-3 specialist that could enhance the sound in country, acid rock, swing, jazz vocals.
Still it was the gospel organ that drew John Kahn to my guest. The Jerry Garcia Band was at a point musically where they had burned through a bevy of keyboardists and were looking for a sound that could bridge Roots Music with Motown and boogie woogie.
The swirling organ, the female vocals, the reggae pulsed rhythms. It was love in the afternoon for many years to come for all JGB fans. Melvin Seals welcome to the JFS.
From time to time on my Transcendental Journey Towards Re-creation I do interviews that seem to get tucked away in the archives. This is one of the them, its actually an appendage to an earlier interview I did with Mike.
http://www.jakefeinbergshow.com/2011/09/jfs-se-the-mike-clark-interview-part-i/
Mike is in a great mood on this one as he travels from the Magic Bag in Detroit to his next show in the Midwest. We talk about playing with Jerry Garcia, Charlie Brown Soundtracks, Gee-Go-Goo and the band known as the Headhunters.
One from the Vaults!
Billy Cobham, Gene Perla, Ray Barretto, Spiritual Experience, Jeff Beck, Moog, Prague,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Charles Mingus, Ripping out Piano Strings, Evolution, Tribalism, Xanadu, Pat Martino, Don Patterson, From This Moment On!
The Jake Feinberg Show
Mind Expanding. A great history lesson. Tommy is a great example of someone in the “music biz” that has woderful taste in music. We seem to have lost that in music today.
Mike
Many Westerners are unfamiliar with the history and importance of the diaspora or the disambiguation of African Slaves to the Americans. Some went state side where they were saddled with slavery and abusive treatment. Another cross-section wound up in Cuba and the surrounding Caribbean islands. They created an enclave of traditional dance rhythms based off of the Cleve and what would be dubbed Afro-Cuban Rhythms.
My guest today is a product of the Bahamas where he was a professional jockey and drummer during his teenage years.He came to the united states and tried his hand in acting including the James Bond classic Thunderball. It was during this time that he met Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and his musical career took off. He became the in demand studio percussionist for Berry Gordy and Motown, you will also find him playing with Billy Preston, Charles Kynard, Dennis Coffey, the aforementioned mentioned Cannonball, Seals and Crofts and Neil Diamond. He was able to take the conga drum and fit into gypsy folk, rock, symphonic soul, disco and jazz. Even today I am digging through a record bin and I pull out a Bellamy Brothers record and I there's My man King Errisson on percussion. Welcome to the JFS.....
Gifted pianist and composer talks about the eternal search for the musical creation and peace.
I sit here today in BBS totally humbled. Humbled by the fact that my searching for authenticity has led me to an iconic figure.
I really am awed by the fact that my guest was submerged in one of the greatest regional music scenes in our countries history. The Bay Area - the intermeshing of the ethnic fabric that is/should be this country. This is something I have covered relentlessly on this program but to hear someone speak of it so eloquently is a treat.
Sonic Wizardry was abound with the likes of Herbie Hancock, George Duke and my guest. A cat who went from a Rhodes to a Moog back to the isotopic fender with Bobby Hutchersons vibes providing the Sun for the World.
He has become a change agent, knowing that by activating your true nature will lead to unforeseen highs of enlightenment. He knows that if the water sits things don't grow, you have to turn the water because its easy going downstream but harder heading up.
My guest is a transcending spirit who like Sonship will be forever creating. Be it with Michael Shrieve or Harold Land or Hadley Caliman.
The re-release of Worlds Around The Sun again affirms my beliefs in art advocacy, having the creative ability in conjunction with others of like mind to push the boundaries of mortality. Beginning to fuse the line with immortal but being humbled time and again when they flub a note in the late set at the Keystone Korner or can't keep their ego in check and realizing they have been on this path and they have put their dreams into action and they reinforce that dreams do come true.
Those Southern Knights.....
Stix Hooper, Wilton Felder, Wayne Henderson, Texas Southern University, Chicago Blues, Hugh Masekela, Harold Land, Bobby Hutcherson, Practicing
The Jake Feinberg Show
Chico Hamilton, Charles Kynard, Norman Whitfield, Motown, Oscar Brashear,
The Jake Feinberg Show
From Horace to Max.....
Enjoy,
Eric Dolphy, Pete La Roca, Kenny Clarke, Medina, Joe Fields, Origins of Jazz, Napolean, Haiti, Max Roach, Horace Silver
The Jake Feinberg Show
Welcome to a special edition of the JFS. my guest today was part of the Band called the Jazz Crusaders. Unlike most bands that form through connections, serendipity and recommendations my guest today joined forces with guys in his neighborhood in Houston. He knew Joe Sample when he was six years old. He went to his mama's house for meals and Joe did the same. Around the same time he linked up with Wilton Felder and Stix Hooper. This group had southern roots, loyalty was paramount, evolution was assumed, and being yourself was an afterthought. My guest was a key component to the group as a prolific song writer, trombone player and a onstage spokesman. The Freedom Sound on full display today with Wayne Henderson, welcome to the JFS!
Sonship "Woody Theus"
His spirit superseded his own being. An individual steeped in scripture and creative energy. The two worked hand and hand. He would allow the light of his god to shine through him when he played.
He was a audacious performer, what with the knee high boots, multi-colored drum kit and masked marvel eye wear. He was not shy about his outward appearance and felt it was a necessary part of his transcendent spirit.
Sonship didn't party or chase woman like his cadre. He was apt to meditate and gain strength through self-reflection. This is the great spirit forging music with religion. The ability to ask his god objectively about the volume of his drums and whether he should turn them down because another great warrior told him to do that. "I'll have to prey on it and let you know," he would say. He was not one to feign ignorance or display passive aggressive tendencies. He played from his guts with a swing more roll than rock. He did not adjust the volume on his drums.
Sonship came of age when the likes of Harold Land, Charles Lloyd, Woody Shaw and others who had made names for themselves and were trying to open up opportunities for a younger generation of musicians who would further push music forward. The problem occurred when the industry yielded to loud FM caliber music that forced jazz to get louder and play in less intimate settings. The new generation of Faddis, Theus and Nash did not have the leadership to bridge the gap. The record companies shrank as did people's attention spans. Mental music became obsolete and the quintet and quartet became more of a liability when you could hire one guy to spin records.
Sonships true greatness for this journalist lies in the fact that his spirit is inside me. His unique personality and perspective has galvanized my own consciousness shift. Be yourself, be passionate about what you do, believe in your own god and live in the moment. Everyday I look at Finger Rock and thank Sonship for the journey that I am on. Not a journey he put me on but one that he continues to strike with the delicate balance of nature and nurture.
He is now a cosmic dweller but his presence is inside myself. I hope that through this article it will help others galvanize their own passions and be unafraid to express them without any hang ups. Be yourself, be accountable and prey on it.
82 year old Gabe Baltazar is the product of a Japanese mother and a Filipino father. He is also a jazz hero of the Hawaiian islands. As an American he served his country in war and after that wound up in Sunny LA where he gigged with Paul Togawa, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Charlie Mariano among others. After Lenny Neihaus left he wound up as the exclusive alto-sax man for the Stan Kenton Big Band starting in 1960. His career unfolded in many prolific ways with Dizzy and Moody and Oliver Nelson. He has kept his mind and spirit young and we are thankful for that.
For the Birds!
JF
Two-Headed Freep, The Playboy Club, CTI, Hubert Laws, Slugs, Pat Martino, Tyrone Brow
The Jake Feinberg Show
In relationships you have a first love and chances are you move on and marry someone for reasons other than true love. Once you are married you can't go back to your first love. Returning to your first love is possible in art. A multi-instrumentalist might return to the tenor saxophone after years of playing other wind instruments. A sculpture might return to the paint brush. My guest today is returning to his first true love- singing. After a storied career in Hollywood that spans 30 + playing characters such as the villain in goonies, and one of the greatest Bond villains of all time Franz Sanchez he is returning to his original craft. And he is not taking it lightly as evidenced by his latest CD Davi does Sinatra which is a conglomeration of sensual romantic ballads and up tempo toe-rappers that would make ole' blue eyes proud.
Robert Davi welcome to the JFS
In my continual search and discovery of all-time great musicians certain songs and albums have helped guide me towards these legends. Through these albums I have been able to put together configurations that made up these sessions. Some of the players have left us but many still remain active and playing. Such is the case with my guest today who played on more then a few albums that put me on this path towards affirmation. He has played w/ Charles Kynard, Phil Upchurch, James Jammerson, Stix Hooper, Joe Sample, Wilton Felder, Chuck Rainey, And Paul Humphrey to name a few. He is well-regarded for his blues licks but he also came of age during the time in music where there was a fusing of soul, rock, and jazz which made for a rollicking, grooving and experimental scene. Arthur Adams welcome to the JFS.
Magical creative talks about the evolution of drums and rhythm in all musical genres....
Exonerate the Flea....
Tribe, Tales of the Exonerated Flea, Kirk Lightsey, Max Roach, William Patterson College, Puppets
The Jake Feinberg Show
Gifted and prophetic life coach and healer talks about her upbringing and aligning herself with source as much as possible to bring about positive change in her world.
Englewood Cliffs, Happy Music, Mongo Santamaria, Donald Byrd, Fonce and Larry Mizell, Quincy Jones,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Cut Session, Steve Gadd, Joe Farrell, The Village Vanguard, Joe Chambers, Warren Smith, Con-Fusion Rock
The Jake Feinberg Show
Hi Jake,
It’s great irony that your interview with Eddie Henderson was
posted on my page on Facebook, I’m not sure by whom, but I
was glad because Eddie is a contemporary of mine. Though I
am so busy with little time to pay attention to social media I kept the posting there and today, 02-13-14, several weeks later, I came across to that again and clicked on it.
From the beginning of the interview I knew that I was going to
listen to it ‘til the end, don’t matter what else I had to do, and I did. Very interesting! I was right, interviewers like you are not around anymore, and someone like Eddie Henderson is hard to find. That inspired me to say that I know I am a proper subject for your program. Though I believe you know who I am, I’m sure you don’t know some aspects of my life that are relevant in similar ways to Eddie’s.
Here you are,
Let me know.
NOTE- YOU CAN FIND ME EVERYWHERE:
YOUTUBE, IMDB, MY SPACE, LINKEDIN,ALL ABOUT JAZ, FACEBOOK, GIANNINI GUITARS, ETC.
Mayuto Correa
My guest today is expanding the musical boundaries of the Jake Feinberg Show. He grew up studying classical music however the times were so progressive that he wound up deep in roots music playing with Bill Monroe the father of bluegrass.
Before the likes of Jean Luc Ponty he was the pioneer of incorporating the electric violin in jazz/rock settings.
This led to the formation of his folk rock conglomeration Seatrain and was followed by collaborations with old follies like Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in the Great American Music Band.
His prowess and authenticity as well as a constant yearning to improve and expand his sound has led to a vibrant career as an author, band leader, educator and producer of music well after the Turn of the Century. One of the original Kentucky Colonels Richard Greene welcome to the Jake Feinberg Show.
Bill Monroe, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Seatrain, Scottie Stoneman, New Acoustic, Old Acoustic, Turn of the Century
AACM, Roscoe Mitchell, Bird, NEA, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sun Ra, Absence of the Black Media, Jackson, MI,
One of the soul cats!
AACM, Roscoe Mitchell, Bird, NEA, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sun Ra, Absence of the Black Media, Jackson, MI,
Missionaries, Japan, Psych Folk, Candido, Big Pink, Fear Itself, Cassius Kahn The Jake Feinberg Show
Brains on Fire!
Brains on Fire, Reggie Workman, Fugue II, Joe Farrell, Refugee Camp, Poland, Hungary
The Jake Feinberg Show
BILL COBHAM
One of the all time greats! I wish that I could have experienced his performances more.
Jimmy Smith, Hampton Hawes, Black American Music, Judo Samba, High in the Sky, Muffin Man
The Jake Feinberg Show
Ed Neumeister is a gifted trombone player. He has played in symphonies and big band orchestras. He also had a chance to play with Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Merl Saunders and Ron Stallings who made up the gut-bucket of San Francisco. He also played strip-clubs with Mark Levine in the Tenderloin late seventies. What a career that will never stop.
Enjoy and Share,
JF
Reconstruction, Fast Tone, John Kahn, Jerry Garcia, Ron Stallings, Strip-Clubs, Mark Levine, The Tenderloin
The Jake Feinberg Show
Tyrone Brown a distinguished double bassist and part of the Funkiest Band You've Never Heard of!
Philadelphia, Earle Theatre, Catalyst, Eddie Green, Sherman Ferguson, Pat Martino
The Jake Feinberg Show
The trend setter, the one who is most authentic. Trying to play from her guts and her soul the way her mentors did. She was part of the sterile universe of the fifties growing up watching bands with striped shirts and acts. Not real people channeling themselves but an act. She pushed back against the act by creating change. She went to Appalachia to find Doc Watson, going to Find That Tennessee Mountain Home with Jim Keltner. This woman was not from the south but her mentors were Like the Reverend Gary David and Mississippi John Hurt were and because they were so authentic in their musical presentation that it rubbed off on my guest. To seek and discover for yourself has always been my guests motto. Don't listen to critics or admirers. Dust off those rusty tunes that haven't been played for 40 years and play them with everything you got. My guest has played many songs over the last 40 years but their as authentic and fresh because she seeks new beauty within and outside. Plant a seed, watch it grow, if it's not perfect or you flub a note that okay because it's the gateway to further creation. My guest has sustained because she has continually adapted to the changing terrain of what was once was a record industry, she maintains relationships with musicians she may not have worked with in many years along with opening doors to younger generations of artists who get to learn from a trendsetter. My show is and has been dedicated to bassist John Kahn. I never knew John or got to see him play but I have done my best to connect with those who did and today I get to communicate with someone who knew him more than most. Someone who recognized his genius and enjoyed spending time with him on and off the bandstand. That is special and what's also special is that I have come full circle with another iconic band. I interviewed All the Crusaders, I interviewed Dizzy band from the seventies, I interviewed all of the Jerry Hahn brotherhood and now with my guest Today I have connected with every jug bandmate from Jim Kweskin's group. That's special and what's also special is that out of my 400 guests I can count on my hands the number of woman I have interviewed. I need their input to shift the weight of perspective, to demystify the past and promote the present, to continually produce original songs and share the gifts that she received from her mentors. Time to send your camel to bed, Maria Muldaur welcome to the JFS
I got to play with Gene once quite recently in Philadelphia. It was
a great experience…..that Steve Grossman band from the 70’s wow!
I will check out his interview later today….
Ron Thomas
It's still the 50s vs. the 60s today in America. Those who are seekers vs. those who play by some imaginary set of rules conjured up by man's view of god and his beliefs about mysticism and magic. It's that thin layer just above consciousness when you leave the physical world and the perceptions and the worry and the prophets on the burning shore. What's funny now is that those who who pushed back in the 60s now seem more like their opponents in the fifties as they refuse to hand the baton off to younger street cats making love in a more interconnected, more image enhanced more digitized society. I want to live in America I do and my show exists because of non conformists like my guest who preferred to surround himself with a heterogenous mix of people you might find in a hotel on Mars while the Doors of Perception churn with tons of steel known as the Keystone Pipeline which will be buried underneath the wolves by the Silver Stream in the hallowed land that my guest pioneered hundreds if not thousands of times. My guest grew up in Wyoming and was inculcated with how it was is and will be. The game was over the fix was in until my guest went off to Wesleyan where he sought his own new found truths about existentialism and the multi-dimensional self. He tripped out with Timothy Leary and was back drinking Champagne from his Cowboy boot when boarding school Yay hoo Bob Weir reentered my guests life. It was at that point my guest turned his years of experiential learning into legacy. While Bobby worked on the melody my guest wrote poetry that wove it's way inside and out of the fabric of our culture. Gone astray you say everyday by the bay because voices tell me so...... My guest has always been on the edge of impulse. Creating terminology that encapsulates the insatiable web world. A world that his daughters are fully a part with new media and social media and communist media and The Electronic Frontier Foundation. His experience in The world of the Dead kept him in the moment of now because there is a fear down here we can't forget. It's got different names like perception and rumination and orthodoxy and ego all the things that my guest left in the tree tops to go looking for his kite. He is cagey, hard to corral, irascible and somewhat of a street scholar preferring experience over information. In 1999 he was ranked one of the top 25 most influential people in business even though he's not in financial services. In Jehovah's favorite choir he worked closely with a real choir boy named Brent Mydland helping him get stuff out of his system. Maybe you know how it feels, but maybe to you it don't seem so real. My guest has spent much of this century traveling to the origins of man in Africa. Mother Africa where he can bring his Bright blue ball to elucidate and inspire legions of young people who may not have every gadget or material good but the desire to seek, to evolve, to grow, see completion and change their world by being themselves..... The stratosphere is his church in conjunction with the soul which is what my show is about and is something my guest did not believe in until he tragically lost his soul mate Elizabeth Horner. Not a domestic partner, or someone who would make a good wife or husband but a soulmate. He docs emotionally and immediately either your in or your out and I'm all in. That wasn't always the case but all that Lightning will be my lightning too... Always inspiring, John Perry Barlow welcome to the JFS.
Inventive and inspiring drummer talks about the underground New York scene that he came up in prior to the formation of Medeski, Martin & Wood
Master guitarist talks about his humble upbringing in Pittsburg. Being humbled by Pat Martino and some wise words he received from Elvin Jones.
Many of us have gifts and if we begin to access our true nature those gifts become accentuated.
How did you do that? Did it matter? does it now? If you don't put yourself out there then those gifts can not be acted on and your true nature will remain unrefined.
My guest has been putting himself out there his whole life. Northern Exposure in swampy jersey Bars or the Bitter End with Terry Silverlight or at Berklee School of Music.
He's stayed in a few splendid hotels in his day shredding on his axe as he kissed away the electric and brought in the acoustic guitar to play flamenco and jazz and blues and a Friday night in San Francisco that remains a standard bearer in interweaving guitars sharing learning and loving.
He understood early on in his career about the spiritual qualities of music playing with Lenny White and Stanley Clarke. Leaving his physical body and operating on a frequency equivalent to the zone. It feels so good that you don't want to leave it.
He's got his hang ups and his problems but gets on the road to play and get stuff out if his system the way any Romantic Warrior or Elegant Gypsy might do. He has learned to trust himself and actualized his true nature by putting himself out there....
Al Dimeola welcome to the JFS
All the records we ("The Section") made including 'Tapestry' and James Taylor; we were all in the room together. Everyone's in the same room playing at the same time. From playing on 'Tapestry' and Sweet Baby James that lit us all up. "I was taught to play in the studio by some very astute fellows. Namely Peter Asher, Lou Adler and Carole (King). They always brought me back to the song; what's best for the song? Don't play over the melody, play something that's going to help. This was before you could amplify an acoustic guitar so James is playing to the mic. We're all walking on egg shells. Keep it down to a level where James' (Taylor) guitar and vocal can be heard. We were all sitting down close to each other. Peter Asher made the template for that music when he produced "Sweet Baby James." That's how we learned to play together. That record and the next one, 'Mudslide Slim.' That's where Russ, Lee and I learned to play that music."
"We got into the studios from that. Peter Asher was the first producer to put the names of the accompanists on the albums. This is why the wrecking crew is not well known because they played on many records but they weren't listed.” “These records came along and we were kind of the next generation of the wrecking crew. Because Peter and Lou (Adler) were putting the names of the musicians on the albums we got recognition. We started getting a lot of calls, especially Russ (Kunkel) and Lee (Sklar).” “That sounds like an obvious thing but it isn't. Very, very few records are made like that anymore. They're mostly made peace meal, one part at a time. When I was producing a lot of records in the eighties and nineties I would put all the guys in the room. I produced a 'Spin Doctors' album where they were all in the room together. I never really got into doing one part at a time.” “As far as analog to digital I think that's overrated. If Tom Dowd had ProTools, working on all those early Aretha records, he would have absolutely loved it.”
“The analog sound that you're (JFS) talking about comes to the signal, not where it ends up. Really good engineers know how to mic stuff. They know how to mic a drum kit and mic a room that has four or five guys in it. At that point the difference between recording to tape or ProTools is minuscule. More is made out of it then is there. It's about the chain - the mic's and preamps that you use. Again, it very much has to do with guys in a room. You don't have guys in a room together you're not going to get that sound. It's what happens when everyone plays together." “All my favorite guitar players growing up were like that too. Steve Cropper, Curtis Mayfield, Cornell Dupree, David T. Walker - all those guys knew how to set up a song. Everybody else was listening to lead guitar and I was listening to these guys. To me, Steve Croppers playing on those Stax/Volt Records is the essence of how you play a song. You have to serve the song.” “I have a huge ego, but when I have to find the right part for a song that upstages my ego. When I was playing with James (Taylor) and Carol (King) I was jamming all the time, everyday. I was able to play solos, turn up and play louder.” “When you hear a song like 'You've Got A Friend,' forget your ego. That's a great song, all I try to do is find some way to help tell the story.” “Musicians never want it to end. They don't want to be part of a moment that only lasts a few years and goes away.” “Musicians are all about love and the musicians I know (and I know a lot of them) absolutely love each other. They love playing together, they glow, and I do too. It a profound situation to play music with other people. It creates a bond, especially when you've been playing and listening since you were ten. It was a lifetime thing with all of us.”
My wife and I just spent probably the most enjoyable weekends we've had at The Mission Inn in Riverside, California, for our 17th. The highlight was Henry Franklin on bass in the Presidential Lounge both Friday and Saturday night, with two different pianists: Jimmy Dykes and Gary Matsumoto. Both nights featured jazz standards and classics--and a few of their own compositions.
Skip's solos display originality and technique while staying within an arm's reach of the melody and original rhythm. I never have the feeling that he's just winging it or noodling around in the outback somewhere. His bass produced a whole lot of sustain when he wanted it, such that his stopped notes rang just like his open strings, which I do not notice in all bassists. And this was only his back-up bass since his primary bass was at the luthiers. (Both have his characteristic lion's head scroll, though.)
Cha Cha Cha, Mambo, Watching My Sisters Dance, Mambo @ the M, Laredo, TX, Marlon Brando
The Jake Feinberg Show
Eloquent guitarist from Malta talks about his musical life
Johnny Smith, Brooklyn, The Playboy Club, Larry Willis, Dick Berk
The Jake Feinberg Show
My guest today is an old friend of the show. A spiritual sage of sorts who gave my archival tribute immediate gravitas with his appearance back in early April. At the time he told me "Jake, I am really excited about what's about to unfold." At the time I accepted the compliment but did not take it seriously. Now sitting here on the precipice of a new year, after over 100 interviews, using several of these interviews to help complete a book on Cal Tjader a tribute concert to Gene Russell, and finding a family I never knew existed I now know what he was referring too. My guest hasn't had a bad year himself. A recently published autobiography came out this year about my guest and his storied existence entitled the hear and now. Im quoting one review; "Who but Pat Martino could write a memoir that effortlessly moves from discussions of Zen and expanded consciousness to street descriptions of Harlem in the mid-60's.
Welcome back Pat...
GEORGE MARSH
Dave Brubeck helped shape my musical life. He was incredibly honest and fearless in his musical directions. A mixture of classical and jazz in his improvisations mixed with odd time signatures and a joyful and playful approach towards experimenting. His music was never boring and always accessible. Too hip to try to be hip. He taught me how to be myself by always being himself in his music. If you can find it, check out Stardust, recorded back in the 50’s on Fantasy Records.
Michael Howell's album, "In the Silence" was instrumental in the Jake Feinberg Show going from a fantasy to a reality. When I chose to go in the direction of jazz this was one of the albums that propelled me to track down the unsung heroes of the early 1970's. Bassist Henry Franklin gave instant credibility (by playing!) to the show that I promoted in South Central. Since than I have interviewed Ndugu and today I got my crack at Michael. It was well worth the wait.
Ebony King,
JF
Ebony King, Jack's on Sutter, Flip Nunez, Glen Howell, Henry Franklin, Ndugu, Orrin Keepnews, The Call, In the Silence, Bahaina, Dizzy
The Jake Feinberg Show
“Stay With Us”
By Miroslav Vitous
At Lenny's On The Turnpike I played with Cannonball Adderley. He wanted me to come on tour with his band. It was not possible because I did not have a green card so I couldn't travel. Coming from a communist country if I left the United States I would not be allowed to reenter. I had previously played with Cannonball in Vienna in 1966.
At that time I met Walter Booker who turned into a very good friend. When I had a bass - which I sold to him - I asked him, "can I stay with you in New York?"
He said, "c'mon over stay with us." I took a bus with my bass, suitcase and twenty dollars in my pocket and went to New York. I wouldn't do that today but I did it then. It was destiny.
Walter was a very social musician and he always had a lot of musicians at his house. I met Mickey Roker over there; all the horn players all the drummers. I started to sub for Walter on gigs he could not make.
He had a piano and a set of drums so he used to host jam sessions all the time. I was playing jam sessions with @chickcorea and Jack DeJohnette. That jam session was how I got to play on Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.
What I am is a natural communicator who has been able to blend my interpersonal skills with technology and new media to give a platform to jazz and those who learned from the original masters of the music. What I am is a listener and facilitator who has developed an unmatched comradery with the musicians. (See Audio Clip 1) My enthusiasm, natural curiosity, and love for the artistry and the music have endeared me to the musicians. Musicians I have worked and communicated with feel my passion and dedication and see me as a major collaborator, advocate, and cheerleader for jazz’s bright future. What I am is a broadcaster, husband and father of two young girls. I want to be a bridge for future generations understanding of how and why real music can and should be sustained. It continues today with Stanley Clarke. Welcome back to The JFS.
My guest today is a Romantic Warrior from the city of brotherly love he roams the streets with his upright bass aware of the sounds of Philadelphia. Northern Soul, Folk Blues and Jazz. He turns the corner to the earl Theatre where Wilbur Ware and James Garrison and Reggie Workman held it down for Sonny Rollins John Coltrane and Jimmy a Health. My guest marinated in this Philly Groove which taught him to stand out, develop your own individual sound and be yourself. A modern man he became, helping to create A genre of music with The Band RTF which came to epitomize improvisational melodic invention played at turbulent rates in different tonalities and modalities. Some people call this fusion. My guest has won awards and played with some of the most well recognized artists in the world. He has gone through different chapters of his life, finding his own spirituality and blending that with respect and gratitude which is hard work when the ego is at play. He has seen the scene change from late night jam sessions and organ clubs which sustained the black community interest to today's modern game of music which is world travel to places like Japan and Europe where audiences still pay to participate in the universal language of music. Stanley Clarke welcome to the JFS
Lucky In Love
By Paul Winter
Regardless of whether your leading a group or a solo performer in a duo or simply pursuing your dream. Having the good luck that you find something you love to do so much that you will jump through any hoop imaginable to do it. That's the key.
You don't do that reading from a book of how to get ahead in the world. It's something biologically driven and your possessed. It's falling in love.....you can apply it to romance, to work of any kind to taking care of children. Any worthwhile path to devote your life to. If you have a sense of adventure and explore to some degree you'll have a better chance of stumbling into something that you love. I don't know there's any formula for it other than just being open to life. If you are lucky enough to be lucky in love however it might manifest is the greatest reward for your sense of adventure.
I would like to think that love is part of our nature. You read the history of human behavior from the last two millennia it's really staggering to think how destructive and horrible our species has been to each other to the planet to other creatures. All along though it seems to be that the deeds we read about are the dramatic ones. In many cases done by men. You have to think all along there have been women, wives, grandmothers who had been tending the home fires and bringing up the children who felt this universal love that is most manifested in our feeling about kids.
In my most optimistic moment I would like to think that it really is part of our nature to want to be connected to others and to bond with others. For me I became a parent quite late and I have two daughters now. Kids are the real meaning in life. They show us what it's like to be a purely innocent and honest in the moment being. The feeling you have toward them, to me, is what life is about.
“Finding Your Mate”
By Steve Swallow
“Love is irrational - the electric bass grabbed me by the neck and there it was. It’s been a long learning process to get the electric bass to respond under my hands in a way that integrates it within the jazz rhythm section with a drummer who’s playing “ding, dic a ding” on the cymbal instead of “boom, boom, Chak.” Its definitely a life’s work, I had no choice but to take on. I didn’t want to change the idiom. I was thoroughly devoted to playing jazz music, but with this strange instrument in my hand. I’ve had to learn techniques that allow the electric bass to function well in the context of the jazz rhythm section. I’ve also had to seek out guys who make instruments, and to try and accommodate my needs. The fender bass is a remarkable instrument. It’s astonishing how much Leo Fender got right in the early fifties when the fender precision and the fender jazz bass first came on to the market. They’re remarkably efficient machines. They play low notes with extraordinary efficiency, that’s more that can be said of the acoustic bass. The acoustic bass is full of the kind of personality that makes It difficult to play with a major scale over two octaves with each note shaped exactly like its predecessor and the one that follows. The electric bass can do that, the acoustic bass can’t do that.
On the other hand every acoustic bass has a singular personality. Part of what’s the wonderful journey of an acoustic bass player is finding your instrument, finding in effect your mate.
There are of course differences between one Fender precision and another, but essentially you can buy a sound. You can go to the music store and buy a fender precision and sound a little bit like Duck Dunn or Rocco Prestia.”
“Wander Away”
By Steve Swallow
“Sonny Clark was around when I first came to New York. His touch on the piano would just melt your heart in an instant, he was a magnificent player and absolutely incapable of ordering his life to the extent that you could say, “Sonny, I’ve got a gig for you, you have to be at Birdland Tuesday at 9pm.”
It was absurd that he would make that, but he showed at the session places and the loft places that were open for playing at any time in those days. He would sit down and play brilliantly for a couple of hours and wander away.
In the early 1960’s W. Eugene Smith’s loft was a focal point for jam sessions. This was a building where Hal Overton, the composer had a floor, and rehearsals for The Thelonious Monk Town Hall Band took place. There were sessions going on all day and all night in that loft, and several others that were up and down 6th Avenue. Ronnie Free, the drummer, was a Denison at one time, he was the nominal renter of the loft that was ground zero for sessions and where I played with Sonny Clark on several occasions. It was the flower district, where wholesale flower companies had their shops. At seven o’clock in the morning the trucks would arrive from the country side and dump off tons and tons of fresh flowers. This wonderful scent would rise up to the lofts. We’d be, at that point, just about finishing up for the night. Life began around five o’clock (AM) when this part of Manhattan would fall silent, when the businesses who were there would close up, and the people would go home.
All of a sudden another New York would rise up. It was those of us who stayed up all night learning how to play music. It was a wonderful enchanted environment in the Chelsea neighborhood
"You had to be a jack of all trades....I had the reputation for being a good drummer." Growing up in Cincinnati Jimmy Madison could look across the river and see "King Records," the recording home of James Brown. When he befriended David Mathews in his teens it began a musical collaboration with Brown. Jimmy played with "the funkiest man alive" in the late sixties and early seventies. As I was going through my record collection I was astounded at the diversity of albums I have that Jimmy Madison played drums/percussion on. Ellen McIlwaine (Psych Folk), O'Donel Levy (Funk Jazz), Mark Murphy (Vocal Jazz), Joe Farrell (Jazz/Rock), Blue Mitchell, Tim Buckley Tom Paxton, James Brown. Grodeck Whipperjenny,
This interview is an absolute gem! This man is such an underrated musician and I don’t doubt that Jeff Porcaro was influenced by Ed, especially with the one-handed 16th feel. (Maybe Ed got turned onto that by James Gadson?) The musical lineage of these studio greats is off the scale in terms of achievement, they are forgotten heroes but in no way irrelevant today. These guys have left time capsules in their work that demands revisiting and given the respect and recognition it deserves. I feel so lucky to have grown up as a kid in the 70’s with so much of Ed Greene’s grooves helping cultivate my own sense of rhythm. Yes, this interview is a gem, thanks for sharing it with us.
An opportunity to talk to an ethnic group of students about what they need to do in order to carve out their place in Western Society. This was one of the better "trips" I have had recently on this Roller Coaster ride called life. Thanks to JC and all the dirt farmers out there.
Frequent Flyer Miles, White Like Me, Summertime, Joe Beck, Song For Wounded Knee, Agnewistic,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Mike Clark is best known for his work with Herbie Hancock on the Headhunters. He and Paul Jackson roomed together in Oakland and turned into one of the most formidable rhythm sections in the world. Still, Mike is from the Art Blakey school of jazz and he loves to swing. So much so that continues to hold it down with the likes of Mike Wolff, Scott Hamilton and plays at clubs in Detroit like "The Magic Bag." Still Mike's formative years were in the Bay Area and during the early seventies so we are in the process of doing a 3-part interview on that time period, the music and what it meant.
Actual Proof
I have long sought after Chester Thompson. The guy moved from Ok. City to San Francisco to live the gypsy life. After night gigs at "Jack's on Sutter" and the Fillmore District he was back in a San Francisco bank singing "Your Still A Young Man," which he late busted out with East Bay Funk outfit Tower of Power. He lived among the people and saw how Bill Graham would weave these tremendous multi-racial concerts (Malo, Black Jazz, Jefferson Airplane). You had Chicano, Blacks and Whites all showing up to the same gig. It was a positive Sly and the Family Stone attitude. Hunting and still Open.......
"The struggle was actually the Jewel"....
Enjoy this Treasure and thank you Chester,
New Jersey native Barry Miles starting playing drums at age 3. He quickly transitioned over to the piano and was playing with Woody Herman in the late 60s. To put it in perspective his dad served as his agent when he was 13. By the early seventies he had already cut two massive albums with Pat Martino, John Abercrombie and his brother Terry Silverlight (who was 14 at that time). He also played a sick big band session with Eric Kloss and Gene Perla on Jersey Public Television! He is also considered a pioneer of fusion music. One classic story occurs when Barry talks about a radio station from Rochester, New York that stretched all the way across the northeast.They played jazz all night long and that station had a profound impact on Donald Fagan's "Nightfly" album. This interview was taped using Nak 700s left of center. Kind of like a puzzle,
I left Tucson I did some great interviews with some Sennheiser 441s and an IPhone. One of these was with Ernie Watts who is one of the most legendary saxophonist's of our lifetime. He played with Oliver Nelson, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Henderson, Buddy Rich, Frank Zappa and Steely Dan. His move to Los Angeles coincided with Motown's move from Detroit to Southern California so he played a ton of Rn B sessions (The Mack) and on Hollywood soundtracks.
This interview is great because Ernie, in very elegant prose, talks at length about Coltrane's influence on him as a young boy, his musical experiences in Africa and how the music business has changed. (BTW, if you wanted to rent an apartment back in the early seventies and you were a musician in order to qualify you had to put musician/composer)
Daughter of Neal Cassady talks candidly about her dad, what is what like to live with him and how he always wanted to please mom. A true Merry Prankster
I sat down with Ndugu prior to my departure to LA. It was one of those conversations where I felt like as long as I set screens, boxed out and was in the right place Ndugu would get me the ball. His intellect is undeniable and his passion for creation and getting acknowledged for creativity is paramount. We talked about leadership, mentoring, collaboration, teamwork and "music as a meal." The back half of the interview really picks up - probably because I got my sea-legs.
Music is Life, Enjoy it,
Summer tour 2011 was similar to the '84 GD. At times erratic with work coming in prolific streaks followed by sustained periods of hibernation. Still the periods of hibernation sowed the seeds of dreams which were than executed and made believable.
My first guest upon returning to the Monsoon Laden desert was Lew Tabackin. Lew T grew up in the underprivileged side of Philadelphia. When in high school during a small band competition Lew was trying to sound like Trane while others were copying the sounds of west coast be-bop. He made his way to New York and became accustom to playing in front of many of his brothers who would sit and make comments about his playing within earshot. This is a story of trial by fire although the competition was good.
Lew played on both coasts and spent sometime in Los Angeles playing with the great Billy Higgins. They made an album together in 1978 called "Black and Tan Fantasy." It was on a small label originally issued under Lew's wife, the great pianist Toshiko AKiyoshi. Last month I saw their grandson make his debut on trumpet at Gil Goldstein's July 4th spectacular. Rebirth and Regeneration.
I was joined by the legendary drummer Dick Berk. We had a ball.
He was Billie Holiday's last drummer and his stories about how she took care of him when he was a seventeen hear old on the road are really stunning. Dick was also the drummer on the song "Manuel Deeghit" which we cranked really loud. Long live Cal Tjader......and
1/2 a mile from Tucson by the Morning Light
"Don't Categorize"
By Duke Ellington
by Nat Hentoff
My oldest friend in music, Charles Mingus, never used the word jazz. He said, I play "Mingus music." Duke Ellington who I got to know when I was quite young and was my mentor never used the word "jazz." He didn't like terminology.
He gave me a lesson when I was very young. He said, "don't categorize the music. Dont use terms like "cutting edge jazz and "old time jazz". You go to each musician and you open yourself to what that particular player is telling you in his music.
I used to know John Coltrane very well. He had the sense that his music and everything he was doing was a world music. He was in a world consciousness. He would listen for hours, not just Indian music he was listening to African Tribal Music way back which was recorded.
It all becomes part of the will to be yourself collectively and individually.
What I do on Linear Notes and have always done - where does the music come from? From the musician and himself, his life, what he wanted to say in the music. You talk to these people as if you were at a bar. So my linear notes like my books on music are what musicians tell me. So I'm not a critic, Im a reporter.
Max Roach:
I was privileged to be the A&R man for Max Roach's "Freedom Now Suites." That's just when the Freedom Rides were going down south. We were all in the studio and afterwards as soon as the record was released we were banned in South Africa so we figured we'd done something.
Duke Ellington used to say to me, "Im writing about my people in these songs." If you listen to the blues singers carefully, they were singing about what society was like @ that time as well as their own blues.
Jazz is an awakening form and what I call "the spirit of this country."
Iconic youngest Heath brother talks about his older brothers Jimmy and Percy and growing up playing with his elders like Lester Young and Shirley Scott
This is an historic landmark in the first quarter of Jake Feinberg's radio career.
79 year old Mickey Roker appeared on my show in a pre-recorded interview that will air 7/2/11.
He is one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time. He played with Duke Pearson on all those classic Blue Note Sessions, he was Dizzy's personal drummer throughout the seventies as well as the Pablo sessions. He funked out with Reuben Wilson and Mike Longo and up until it closed was the house drummer at "Ortlieb's" in the old city (Ben Franklin Bridge).
As Yaju and I drove to Phoenix listening to the interview I couldn't help but smile as I asked Mickey questions and he would harken back to the bible or his days working on the railroad. Mickey was in a great mood as he had just gotten back from Italy.
Microtonal Blues Band, Spirit of 1976, Frank Sinatra, 700 percussive instruments,
The Jake Feinberg Show
Pony Poindexter, Miles Davis, Jon Hendricks and the Blues, Stripping of the Arts
The Jake Feinberg Show
Master saxophonist talks about his musical roots in Dallas and becoming fully ensconced in the fertile Bay Area jazz scene.
Explosive Hammond B-3 organist talks about playing the officers clubs in England with John McLaughlin.
How far is it to the end of the Universe? Maybe you'll get their by the Marakesh Express or swung into Oblivion.
The Universe is mind expanding and so is pure jazz which mixes all musics in an improvisational fire storm that incorporates European Classical and The only art form this country has ever had- African Swing Music.
My guest today is one of the heaviest keyboardists of all time. He took all the influences of soul music, rhythm and blues, James Brown modal chromatic chordal configurations of sound on album after album after album.
You'll know when you get their when you no longer have to figure out why you were put on this earth. When that purpose becomes evident then you follow that path like my guest did like a steam locomotive coming down the track.
Laying on his Hammond B-3 playing great jazz tunes and uptempo positive karma rhythms with cats from London where the Trinity and gigs with John McLaughlin.
Being a leader coming up with a melody, swinging the band seeking to expand universal consciousness one ear drum at a time.
Whenever Your Ready Brian Auger welcome to the Jake Feinberg Show...
Spiritual jazz guitarist talks about his guru Sri Chimnoy and learning to make a cheap Indian meal for the disciples and going on tour with Mahavishnu Orchestra
Coming to America:
"I came here at the invitation of Tony Williams. Who even today, nobody plays like Tony. The closest drummer to Tony today is Cindy Blackman.
I'm over there in Europe. Lets not equate the European Jazz scene with the American Jazz Scene. Today there's a lot more balance between the two continents but in the sixties it was America. You have no idea, since I was fifteen all I dreamt about was going to New York, New York NEW YORK! Not only New York but Harlem! That was the heart of jazz, that's where jazz was born and that was my music.
First of all when I arrived in America I nearly kissed the ground. Tony met me at the airport and he was playing with Miles that night up in Harlem so the first day I'm in Harlem and I meet Miles and the next day I saw him again and he invited me to play on "In a Silent Way." How lucky can you get! It's like your dream coming true- literally.
I was really struggling to survive but Miles helped more then anyone. He put money in my pocket, he'd say, "make sure you eat. Get by and pay your rent."
Working with Tony in those days playing clubs we were making $20 a night. But I was welcome from an artistic music point of view.
Jazz has always been marginal. Miles made money, Coltrane made money they were the big jazz stars, not fortunes like the pop people never the less good earnings, records.
Surrender-
"No one ever said it was easy, man. To be a free spirit in the true sense of the word you have to surrender to just what happens around you. You cannot fight what is, the effort of trying to fight what is is a waste of time. The only thing we can change in my opinion is ourselves. The power of dedication, the power of perseverance are all related to how much you love what you do. How much you care about what you do and how much attention you give to that.
In a way what's outside is what it is. We cannot control what is going on outside. We have to surrender to life as its dealt us. You know what Im saying.
You don't know how many different jobs I had do you? Driving Trucks, selling instruments, repairing instruments, selling cameras, selling Caviar to a London Hotel. Any number of driving jobs I've had. This is the life of a jazz musician. I never drive a taxi though. I had a lot of jobs just to keep body and soul together.i don't regret it for a second. Whatever happens to us it's part of what should happen to us. If something happens to you, it sounds hard but you have to welcome it at some point. I've had a lot of rough things happen to me but people don't want to know what life was like before I became a public figure. They don't really care to tell you the truth. It's all about whether it makes you or whether it breaks you."
People talk about the British Invasion as "The Beatles..." That the Beatles encouraged original song writing and individuality. They also are given credit for introducing Indian Music and polyrhythms to our humble land.
But what about those who don't sing on McLemore Ave or croon like James Taylor but rather play melodic invention. The fusing of all genres of music before there was any idiomatic labeling.
These types of artists are mercurial - sometimes misunderstood like Miles Davis who hired my guest because he wanted him to be himself. Play what he felt because Miles knew he had to give creative freedom to his sidemen in order to get the Bitches Brew.
Or like the Lawerence of Newark Larry Young or Tony Williams or Ted Dunbar.
My guest grew into himself because he gave himself up to Sri Chimnoy with love, surrender and devotion to his craft, the god inside him and an inner mounting flame of angst that pushes him to the brink.
Let go of yourself, lose yourself and come back to find yourself.
Harness the ego, defend originality, and Breathe.
What's my guests philosophy? From my desert view it seems to be experimentation being able to see dreams envision them and then seize them. Keep pushing the boundaries of mortality in music.
He does this by surrounding himself with others who have a lot to convey. He is not afraid of the discussion, even if Jean Luc Ponty goes off for 15 min, my guest lets artists get stuff off their chest, mind.....he is not interested in stifling others. He learned this practicing Meditation and playing music with Brian Auger, Jack Bruce and Dave Holland. Fellow British invaders themselves.
Like his kids and mine he has learned to share, take turns and devote your prowess to opening minds through melodic invention. Even if its time out of mind.
His playing is prolific, he is deeply spiritual and instead of the spoken word he can reflect this spirituality through his music and all the cats he has collaborated with.
Cats from here cats from there cats from everywhere found there unique voice through playing with others. All day, @ Baggies or in some small loft on the lower west side of Manhattan not even aware that the sun has come and gone eating a couple of sandwiches with Billy Cobham.
Perpetual evolution through sequencing of ideas. Staying in the moment as the flame burns higher and higher and you learn to stop trying to control things. You surrender to your true nature, the spirit inside you which is transcendent and appreciated by legions of musicians and music fans.
Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, Happy Memorial Day and welcome to the JFS.
My guest today is a lover, leader and life giver of music. The decisions that he makes correlate to art and relationships because you must have intimate relationships with cats to make real music.
Cats like Dino Danelli who came up playing swing music with the likes of Lionel Hampton. My guest was part of The Rascals. A rock quarter that produced jukebox hits that the ladies could bob their heads too. The group was deeper then their pop hits. The messages within their music spoke of justice for all, seeing black musicians and Latin musicians being treated poorly, demanding integration at their concerts, knowing their limitations and winding up in some Orgy following a late set @ the Port Chester Theatre.
After the calliopes have left the circus you are left with your own island of real. Not the kind of island you see on TV. Commercials rather one where the animals walk freely amongst the bush and a swirling Hammond organ drum bands are burning there way from Las Vegas to Bearsville.
My guest has collaborated with the most visceral musicians on the planet. Play from your guts, leave it out in a dream with Steve Cropper or Chuck Rainey, Alice Coltrane and Buzzy Fieton. My guest understood the value of the accompanist and the session cats in order for the rascals to play world music.
I thought Blue Eyed Soul came from Boz Scaggs but in fact it was this group that fostered the name. A dainty polite way to say that these cats were most influenced by race records, African Roots Music and The Shea Stadium Scoreboard. They were not interested in competing with the British Invaders original material but rather leaned on their own experiences which are rooted in rhythm and blues and northern soul with a blend of symphonic
My guest adapted to changing times in both personnel and within the industry knowing the cats who could help the group sound full. He also took on the burgeoning use of technology using the moog and Arp to create cosmic waves of consciousness within the ears of the listener.
My guest channeled his intensity through meditation which most likely saved him from the webs of stardom. He knows its easy to kick a rock down 26 flights of stairs then to walk a boulder up from the bottom. To look yourself in the mirror and detest what you see but instead of wallowing in self pity you find little creases and crevices and family and soul to improve yourself and make that mirror become a Peaceful World.
efore interconnection and the mass marketing of music you had regional music. Music that was created in the real time with definitive characteristics of certain parts of the country and its rhythms. Some had urban feels like The Chicago Shuffle and the beat of Dixieland or the fact that a tuba played the baseline. My guest today is responsible for creating a piece of regional American Music. One of the slow cooked south with a B-3 jamming in a crowded bar with Levon Helm and Mac Rebennack and Howard Johnson, Stephen Stills, Willie Nelson and Bill Withers. Back to records my guest made with the iconic rhythm section of Steve Cropper Donald Duck Dunn and Al Jackson Jr. A gymnasium of finger poppin' soul jazz that has mesmerized audiences for years. The marinating of Al Green, Otis Redding, and James Brown all passing through and playing with the baddest cats in town in the black neighborhoods back when venues were accessible. The love and what you chose to do with that love are a testament to the music and the musician. He can't solve everybody's problems....he busy cutting LA Jazz Song or playing flute with Rita Coolidge or showing up at the MIM in Phoenix. Booker T. Jones welcome to the JFS...
My guest today is from New Orleans, LA. A territory the United States acquired from the French in the Louisiana Purchase because the French had lost control of the African Slaves who came to Congo Square to communicate through the drum. The drum could talk in a universal language of spirit mind and body. And in that order. This is the Bayou culture. A mighty coo-de-fi-yo hoodoo approach to singing and songwriting built from tales of the Walcott Medicine Show mixed with Snake Poison and transformational characters. The chanting, the voodoo all very misunderstood and therefore feared by western man. Build the body of the car and strip it of its soul. If it don't look pretty then there must be nothing there. My guest today came into music when individuality was king. He comes from the land of gumbo in the garb of the indigenous. His smokey gulf coast honky tonk toe tapping style started in the southeast before being catapulted west and let Hollywood be thy name. However sunny California proved to be a gateway towards meeting more individuals seeking warm sound, solidarity and a way to keep the sun, roots and herbs inside the music. Guys like Levon Helm and Maria Muldaur, Van Morrison and Paul Butterfield, Soony and Cher and Frank Zappa. Before that it was Bobby Charles and Allan Toussaint and The Meters and professor Longhair and on and on and on....still hot as ever striding on the acoustic with a Hammond behind him and brass sections in the right place. Playing to houses big and small, carrying the traditions of regional swamp music Malcolm John Michael Crow Rebenack welcome to the JFS..
Loop Garoo, Levon Helm, Grandmother Earth, Bobby Charles, I Must Be In A Good Place Now, Muddy Waters, Black Keys
In the context of the live music experience it is imperative that your focus remains on listening and improvising off your bandmates.
It's beyond the music, it's a focus that should be able to take those with small musical pallets and take them on a ride with their own sailin shoes through a journey of music of the Americas.
By that I mean Congo Square, Dixieland, Bayou Funk, Jam Based, roadhouse blues and melodic invention. Keeping the pocket with slanting rhythms and slide work around the guitar of Lowell George, the organ of Stu Gardner and the congas of Sam Clayton, the plaintiff wailing of Bonnie Raitt or just taking his time with Billy Kreutzman.
My guest today has made the most of experiential learning on the bandstand. Little Feat is a band that has seen many different iterations but always maintained the essence of a live musical extravaganza. Not many American Roots contingents can speak to this.....maybe Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and The Band. Maybe Jerry Garcia the aforementioned BK and the Grateful Dead, or Leroy Vinegar Gerald Wilson and the big bands of Burbank and Shelly's Mannehole where Art Blakey's high hat work was hypnotic and pulsating similar to the sack of magic mushrooms that audience members would indulge prior to a Allen Toussaint laden Feat show @ Ebbots Field.
My guest today has been all around this world performing at a prodigious clip in the live music setting. He came of age when you could see Ravi Shankar jam with Elvin Jones and Milt Jackson ringing the vibes in an acoustic non amplified beer tavern. He saw his heroes up close, be it Mongo's Afro blue or the Crusaders talking Tough.
When he had learned his instrument he was able to speak in musical tounges, still in small clubs that might have Commander Cody on MT, Freddie Hubbard on WTH and a weekend of Dixie Chickens. This diversification is unique to my guests brotherhood. Influences of Ellington, Dizzy, John Lee Hooker, Bill Monroe and all the blind dobro players who played on Market Street in Chicago or in Queens, NY or a professor with long hair in Nawleans.
My guest has taken all that he has heard and seen and melded into his music and his ability to entertain. He continues to have something to say.
Like Lionel Hampton or Frank Zappa my guest would often put the crowd at ease with off the cuff remarks about being a canary in a coal mine or a riverboat gambler.....keeping things loose and creating space within the music.
He knows that if he doesn't stay active he might have dirt thrown on him.
Still Willin to put it all out there, Paul Barrere welcome to the JFS.
I've interviewed a number if guitarists on my program. Cats like Kenny Burrell who were making up the rules with Donald Byrd and Elvin Jones in Detroit. Locked in a pocket of communal musical connection the same way my guest can hit flurries of notes that have you flying and showing you the way. Regional Music in the Americas was rampant in Appalchia, Chicago Blues, Gulf Coast, and the North Bay SoCa Latin funk escapade. It was also rampant in New Orleans where my guest hails from. He came of age with his musical brothers Art, George and Zigaboo playing music that felt good be it swamp funk or ballads it was emotive. With the feel of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast Rhythms. There were pockets of players from Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie Richard Tee in New York To Joe Sample and Wilton Felder who came from the wards in Houston. Pockets of soul intermeshing with Gospel and Wild Magnolias in A Cabbage Alley of pimps, dancers, lights, jazz, blues you can use for enlightenment. My guest today is in the same master guitar class as Kenny Burrell Grant Green, Pat Martino and Melvin Sparks. If he had chose to go to New York he would have wound up being a jazzer with a recognizable name like the those above but the love was odd metered and melodic be it in the right place at the wrong time @ Sea-Saint records. My guest has a funk style like David T. Walker and Phil Upchurch but he is part of a family whose sum is always greater than its parts. He got the memo about being a decent human being and not standing in the middle of the road with some Wild Tchoupitoulis. Just back from Japan Leo Nocentelli welcome to the JFS
With my back against the wall I pulled out a 1984 dicta phone and a 2011 iphone and recorded a legendary interview with George Duke. The recording came out extremely well and please note the sequence in part II where I can clearly be heard heading over to the record player to drop the needle on "Black Messiah." We didn't always talk the "King's English" but the camaraderie was instant and shown through. This is one for the books. George, I can't thank you enough.
Black Messiah, Cannonball, Things Movin' Fast, Frank Zappa, Jean-Luc Ponty The Jake Feinberg Show
Why was the book written was to set the record straight? This is important because at one time post Jim Morrison there was a a harmony between Manzarek, Kreiger and my guest....like a spear they blazed through and became a band of melodic invention with studio cats like Ray Neopolitan Charles Lloyd, Bobbye Porter Hall and all the other ships with sails. Who do you think scouted this talent? Who do think was inside the Hollywood studios banging on vibes with Emil Richards or brought Harvey Brooks on a brief tour when Manzerek couldn't handle the bass lines ....my guest.
This unison was channeled in a metaphysical sense from Maharisi Maresh Yogi who helped youthful rebels like my guest elevate to transcendental consciousness.
He visited the states often, held seminars, was connected to his students in the most intimate fashion this with the spawning of legal LSD created by our government and lackadaisical music executives allowed for humanity to grow and the music to be full of all those spices. It operated in a free space, unencumbered by modern day pole testing and barrier laden music.
The book was written to show that people are corruptible, even people seemed saintly can become tainted with greed and lose the balance of craft, survival and soul. The maddening attempt to justify using the name The Doors to make millions of dollars so you can buy that 5th Lamborghini, the Mitt Romney La Cholla beach house even though Manzarek and Kreiger would have been kicked to the curb before the gig got started except for one Jim Morrison who created the poet warrior with an emphasis on art and not on the trolls whose double breasted suits reak of uniformity, elimination of humanity and authenticity. Team over the one.
You can do it all, you could before and it will be done again but not without insurgents like my guest providing a lineage parading through college towns touring his new book and old wisdom. How to advocate for yourself, how to swing the band and how to look a bottom line corporation in the face and say thanks but no thanks to your millions of dollars because my soul and Atma will be better off for it. Standing for principles can be like sticking your head in the sand.....but when someone stands up for the values of a long lost brother honoring the same principles infused in him by that brother there is only one way to describe it. The anti-greed gene....
He doesn't apologize for these personality traits. Some where embedded in his soul by others he learned along the way with Francisco Aquabellella, Shelly Manne, Keith Rucker and Michael Stull.......
What to make of Jim Morrison I just don't know. He passed before I started this program. So i cant talk to him. As a journalist and a historian instead of watching movies or reading biographies I prefer to do primary source excavation with those still visiting this planet.
John Densmore a high honor to welcome you to the JFS.....
Swing Your Ass Off, Bill Goodwin, Buddy Rich, RIOT, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gilespie
The Jake Feinberg Show
Stud drummer talks about defying the hands of time and still being able to pass along the timeless rhythmic knowledge he has gathered along the way.
Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Cymbals, I'm A Player, CFSD, Subbing, Ted Dunbar, Richard Davis
When I began to interview my heroes in jazz I started my search in the time period I loved most, the early 1970s. The guys I have pursued; Martino, Ndugu, Upchurch and Maupin are individuals who were already established but hit their groove in the early seventies. They had their role models, Lloyd Price, Hampton Hawes, Eric Gale and Horace Silver but mat this point there was a clear passing of the torch. It was time for a youth movement. And this youth movement coincided with a cross current of musical blending, Afro awareness and a belief that they were all in it together.I give a lengthy intro because my guest deserves it. He has received multiple musical degrees from the Berkeley school of music and the New England Conservatory and wound up honing his chops in the studio doing everything from jingles to Christian rock. His comfortability and ease paved the way for him to become one of "the" session drummers from the early seventies working with Patrice Rushen, herbie Hancock, johnny Hammond smith, Donald Byrd, Carole King, Seals and Crofts and Earth Wind and Fire. He made his own albums on Arista and also is an underrated composer which I look forward to talking about with him. He is someone who has left a serious legacy and his affect will have a positive impact on future generations of percussionists. Harvey Mason welcome.....
A major portion of my show has been devoted to rhythm sections for Dizzy Gillespie Miles Davis and Jerry Garcia.
I've interviewed Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie and Kenneth Spider Rice who held down MoTown along with Ed Greene and those Crusaders like Wilton Felder and Joe Sample.
I feel like I had been doing a reasonably good job but recently "the rhythm section," a named given to them by James Taylor has been in my frontal lobe.
My guest today is the bassist with the rhythm section. He brought his sense of elasticity to the group locking the groove no matter how much glad bashing is going on around him.
He has contributed to thousands of albums over the coarse of his career from bluegrass with Byron Burline to heroine rock with James Taylor or cowboy country tunes with Leon Russell and Willis Allan Ramsey.
When Kunkel, Doerge, Kortchmar and my guest got together they could cook like no other section. Fitting right inside some Spanish Swing or White Man Gospel or funky blues. They came up during a time in the record industry when musicians were recognized for their craft. So much so that they gave cats like my guest identities for their prowess.
My guest knows his instrument but he has feeling. The feeling of love that exists when everyone is listening and playing off of each other. This was the brotherhood my guest came from. Learning experientially, getting the charts 20 minutes before the session and playing their tales off. He is in the same master bass discussion as Monk Montgomery, Wolfgang Meltz and James Jamerson.
Music and the musicians are unquantifiable. The value they bring to the session or the gig or the jam and the impact they can have on people one human at a time.
Leland Sklar welcome to the JFS
Magical drummer talks about his musical upbringing, playing himself, and how adversity has made him stronger and more resilient.
Part of the Neville Brothers Cyril talks about growing up in the pressure cooker of New Orleans, his time spent with brother Aaron at Catch A Rising Star and the rhythm of the drum.
This program has been dedicated to the unsung. Those who lie below the surface waiting for the phone to ring and the calendar to fill up.
It's these unsung folks that made careers for the pop stars that most people are familiar with.
It's a quarter past 10 and my guest is disassembling his kit for the 4th time that day. He had a commercial in the morning, a game show in the afternoon, a bluegrass record date and then playing jazz for free in Larry Gales coffee house with the Afro Blues Quintet.....
My guest today is one of the most versatile drummers in the world. He adapted to the changing musical landscape using his first love of jazz to swing into the melting pot of the psychedelic era. He's been knocking on Heavens Door with Bob Dylan, female soul groups with Wilton Felder or burning gypsy music with Gabor Szabo. He was a Constant Pulse with John Klemmer and lives in the Material World with the late George Harrison while Ringo looks at the North Star peppering the high hat in the vaunted studio scene of LA. Soundtracks, Gospel, Funk, Folk, World, the Traveling Wilbury's, Booker T Jones and John Lennon.
His impact on music is unquantifiable. How many albums did he swing the band on like Mickey Roker or Elvin Jones. He is the same master drumming discussion as Bernard Purdie, Earl Palmer, Bill Lavorgna and Hal Blaine.
I believe that my guests heart is full of love. He tries to fit into each musical setting as an accompanist just like Emil Richards and Victor Feldman, Henry Franklin and Hal Gordon. He's not interested in showing off his monster chops because often times it's the space within the music that helps it transcend to a spiritual language of the cosmos, dripping with the poetry of Levon Helm, Leon Russell and Elvis Presley all the while helping average people wash away the dust of everyday life.
Jim Keltner welcome to the JFS.
Brilliant inventive guitarist talks about expanding his sonic pallet and collaborating with the late great Walter Becker
A further discussion about creating in the moment authentic song and dance, being hunted as a model and learning to love herself and trust in authentic musical collaboration.
Along the way on this bus to never never land The spirits have helped bring me closer to my native seed. The ability at @ 32 years old to begin to harness my passion for music with my broadcasting prowess.
This is not to say that the journey has not been winding, laborious and full of lessons. Still, there are moments when you realize what your doing is painting a picture of Americana.
Mexico is the country south of the United States. And it's in the biggest of cities, Mexico, that my guest started his life.
He was around the Cunga as the city itself was thriving amongst the mix of Afro Cuban, Bossa and Native Rhythms.
Upon returning to the states as a kid my guest wound up living one block away from Bob Weir. While they never played music as kids it was an initial connection that would be amplified later on.
Before Kingfish, the British Gigs and Partying with Brent Mydland my guest had to stand out. He had to get up at an all black club, the kind that this host fantasies about, and play his harmonica.
The blues leaders of the Day in the South Bay were the liked if Clifford Coulter, Johnny Carswell and Mel Brown.
One day in San Diego I walked into a record shop and noticed this Mel Brown LP and when I looked at the personnel there was my guest on Impulse late sixties and at that point the intersection had occurred.
Taking chances has been my guests whole life. Putting your best intentions forward willing to see a spark of creativity and also succumbing to the Harmony of the Underworld.
Jazz/Rock drummer talks about fusing jazz aesthetics into the prog rock band Chicago. Deeply ensconced and always paying homage to his jazz mentors
Sound seeking guitar player talks about trying to be himself on the bandstand while creating spiritual music and collaborating with like minded cats
Gifted pianist talks about her formative trips to India discovering transcendental meditation and south Indian classical music.
One of the Neville brothers, Charles was the tenor man and unique spirit who played the chitlin circuit and RnB before going to New York and playing spiritual jazz. Amazing cat and sorely missed
Sublime pianist and singer talks about learning on the bandstand and jamming on shuffles with his dad Charles Neville....
Heroic double bass player and funk pilot discusses time displacement, his musical relationship with Herbie Hancock and the Buddha nature of living in Japan
Singer songwriter talks about how Chris Robinson has saved him a couple of times in his career. A sorely missed soul brother gone to soon. RIP....
What's happening in today's world is that everything is happening so quickly that the minute a good idea comes along it doesn't have a chance to drop root because we have already moved on to the next idea and then another idea and then another idea
You find people clamoring to sink into one and before they are really able to experience it and understand it and enjoy it they are thrown into another little pond. So I can see people narrowing their viewpoint. They are saying, "hey let me get used to this one before I move onto the next.
It's the rapidly changing nature of our cultural journey. The world has gotten smaller quite rapidly much faster then it needed to. To much is out there and too much is being thrown at everybody and they don't know how to react to it. You find people who enjoy rap fighting with people doing hip hop. "Hey rap is where it's at, no hip hops the best" when in fact both have similar ingredients.
With someone like Ali Akbar Kahn you have to say he made the ultimate sacrifice. He was @ the height of his professional career as a performer in the 60s. He was accepted as one of the greatest musicians of our time.
He said, "well if I have to pass on this knowledge I'm going to have to drop anchor and stay somewhere. Have students come to me and be available day in and day out. If that means I have to sacrifice my professional career as a musician then that's what's going to happen. So that's what he did. When you went to his class you felt like you were in a Temple, a place of worship. A place where the whole world was blocked out by something so Reverent and so strong that no negative energy could pierce it. There you were in that world learning from him with no distractions at all.
The one thing about him was that he was so spiritually at peace with himself. The idea of the material world, having great success and accolades did not matter. What mattered was preserving, nurturing and passing on the knowledge that he grew up with and the wondrous nature of it."
That kind of sacrifice is something only spiritual gods and sages are capable off."
Legendary Capricorn Studios session player and producer talks about his life on and off the bandstand.
Iconic singer songwriter and bandleader talks about living in a freezing barn in order to play music, the conception of CATS and his love of Mel Brown. (RIP)
Pegasus archetype talks about the being humbled, slowing down when connecting to source and being a shining light for her people.
Versatile organist/pianist speaks of making authentic music with his peers and elders in the age of digitization.
Singer songwriter talks about his organic musical conception and how that evolved into authentic musical relationships and the band known as Beachwood Sparks.
Legendary pianist talks about playing the prison circuits, the evils of racism and his love of music.
Iconic string bass player talks about learning to keep time with Elvin and living a musical life.
My guest today relentlessly pursues individual sound. He knows the spirit inside him sings from an island shore in the middle of the world, a cotton field in New Madrid Missouri or at Smalls Paradise in Harlem where Jimmy Smith would groove that organ like a wailer.
My guest today is a conductor of major symphony orchestras in the US and Canada so he has roots in the classical idiom but when performing he likes to swing the band like Tony Williams except unlike polyrhythms my guest uses his voice polyphonic ally performing the main melody and accompanying parts of the song. He blends this with the soul of Bill Withers, Save Me Jesus in Grandmas hands with Gil Scott Heron and Leon Thomas.
Every time my guest performs he carries with him the burning spear of electricity. Being able to project with confidence and clairvoyance be it the Pink Panther or The PBS series This is Your Brain on Music or coming over the top of a Gil Goldstein accordion solo.
My guests individuality has led to 10 Grammy awards, invitations to play all over the world spreading his message of spirituality not religiosity and the conjoining of faith with the incandescent vocal as libs, beats, cuica's, and spoken word that make music the magic that it is.
Bobby McFerrin, welcome to the JFS
West Coast vibraphonist breaks down his life on the musical roller coaster of life. We Live In Brooklyn, baby.....
Legendary studio and live drummer talks about playing with Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia.
Heavy hang with one of the greatest double bass players in the world who walked away from music and found new avenues
Iconic session and live bass player talks about his musical life on and off the bandstand.
Incredible reggae drummer talks about his experiences playing authentic regional music with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh
Devoted psychologist and healer talks about adaptation of mind body and spirit in the new age.
A frank discussion of the human condition in thinking and spirit mind. A tribute to Baba Ramdass RamRAm
Where have I known you before. The shadow of doubt that creeps into everyone's psyche as they journey through life. Some check out early, some stay late some exercise the power of the drum to create melodic invention and a style of communication that is a talk with the spirits sight unseen or heard. The essence of real music is shared creative communication. Striving to make everyone sound better doing your part to enhance to group sound. In this day in age the current brotherhood focuses more on the individual as opposed to the group. Look at me and my technique. The monsters chops not realizing that the more intellectual you get the more the music suffers. My guest today has kept his sanity and clairvoyance by swinging the band. The same way Gene Krupa and Joe Morello and Philly Joe Jones and Willie Bobo did. He is a master of holding it down, even when Mel Martin or Joe Henderson begin to take off he prevents them from fully connecting with eternity. For he understands that music is a communal event and its essence should marinate within all. He's a master of all trades, from country grass to Dixie Swing, modal black classical music to Afro Cuban salsa. From Red Clay to Return to Forever to AZTECA to black stone Legacy my guest is a fearless performer who like Louis Hayes knows if he doesn't bring it - then there's no urgency -and if there's No urgency then there's no pulse. No worries says my guest. He still has a lot to say under a Havana moon or a blizzard in Brooklyn. Never old and in the way Lenny White welcome to the JFS
Iconic blues harp player and singer talks about getting his musical start in Chicago under the tutelage of his black compadres. A curious seeker and authentic creative not to be overlooked in the lexicon of American roots music.
Fiercely independent minded rhythm maker talks about the rise and fall that is the pendulum of a musicians life.
Shamanistic healer talks about her continued journey from trauma she experienced as a young girl and how she practices somatic healing and mindful meditation with others who are looking to move past their habitual nature.
High above the seas lies The Geeta land. One that thrives on epiphanies, and work ethic and woodshedding like Sonship Woody Theus. It is a land found by some but only then do you become an innovator a continual seeker continual expansion of sound and mind, polyrhythms and with Ron mcclure's acoustic bass lockin the groove of my guests quartet. My guest is part of Geeta Land which started in Memphis right in the middle of racial strife which he never understood because he came from the same school of leadership as Harold Maburn, Frank Strozier and Booker Little. In essence my guests is one of the forefathers of blending all musics. He has constantly worked on a balance between survival and spiritualism performing music from another world, a moon man with big imprints on younger cats like Blackbyrd McKnight and Sunship Woody Theus who strive to survive playing street music in a general downturn within urban metropolis' which fostered Flowers @ Monterey. My guest headlined shows @ The Fillmore or Avalon Ballroom sharing bills with psychedelic honky tonk bar bands and Malo which featured Hadley Caliman. The natural inclination of the mind is to move towards a place of greater happiness. In this hosts mind enlightenment comes from how you react to adversity. Having both feet on the ground with Wolfgang Meltz and all the studio cats and still performing @ The MIM with Zakir Hussain. Charles Lloyd, welcome to the JFS
Devout musical wizard talks about his life in music, being saved and finding purity and spiritual strength in the age of digitization.
Angel priestess talks about breaking free of her dogmatic upbringing and serving humanity and her family with heart fire and love.
Cosmic yogi articulates her philosophies and practical application relating to overcoming adversity, love and the lineage of her yogic practices.
Spiritual guide and surfing yogi talks about accessing her multi-dimensional self in different settings and always trying to be a conduit for healing and community building.
Race music was even before my time. There were songs being cut by black artists but they were not able to get them played. They were played locally in the black clubs and the black neighborhoods. Then certain white artists would come along and they would re-cut them. Someone like Elvis Presley for example and they would be huge hits. That was the kind of seperation that was going on at that time when there was an obvious race situation going on and the music just reflected that. If the record companies did sign a black artist the monies were so trivial to the point where they could never get the exposure their white counterparts got. Take a guy like Pat Boone, he did a lot of that, covered a lot. You can’t necessarily blame Pat Boone or the white artist. It was the companies that were running it and crafting it in that way because they were making money.
Under the tutelage of Hal Overton Steve propelled himself into Miles Davis' Live Evil band. The Stone Alliance with Don Alias and Gene Perla provided the proper balance of pulse, dynamics, tension and funk.
Underrated artist and brilliant singer talks about being an immigrant at a different time in America.
Troubadour singer and songwriter talks about overcoming adversity losing his girlfriend in a car accident, the saliency of poems and songs still matter and his relationship with Jerry Garcia
Cosmic discussion revolving around bringing attitude and sonic expansion to the bandstand in all musics' the intersection of Punk/Rock with the Grateful Dead in 1984 and his life as an individual player and musician. Walks to the beat of his own drummer....
Cosmic musician and spiritualist talks about learning to receive love and trust in her divine nature without getting hit by cars.
Titanic drummer and human being talks about his musical life and staying mentally strong in the age of COVID
Multi-dimensional yogi talks about overcoming depression and suicide through meditation, nature and living life by her own rules as opposed to the ones society says you should live by.
Dynamic and explosive jazz and funk drummer talks about his days playing clubs in Detroit and road doggin' with King Curtis and Harry Belafonte.
Musical freak of nature joins me to discuss his life on the bandstand and beyond. RIP Gary Barone.
Dynamic drummer talks about his days on the bandstand with Isaac Hayes and being a Blues Brother
When the foundations of the world are crumbling you must align in mind, body and spirit. The forever journey with singer Lauren Barth
Spiritual musician talks about being grateful for the transcendent powers she has been blessed with to touch people's hearts through song and dance. *Photo by Zita Marias
Legendary Tuba player and multi-reed session talks about his life in music. RIP Levon Helm...
Yogic warrior and healer talks about overcoming adversity in her childhood and how that shaped her modalities of healing in the 21st Century.
Self-taught bassist talks about the esoteric parts of playing spiritual music with musical brother Alex Circiello in the band known as GSOL.
Unheralded singer talks about joining Pacific Range, her willingness to push herself out of her comfort zone and staying inspired in the age of COVID.
Yogic stalwart talks about his path towards enlightenment and recognizing that we as people have no "free will." A conversation about getting out of your own way and finding that small smile at the end of a long day.
Cosmic New England Cowboy talks about his latest album, how he found his own voice and his collaboration with the late grate Neal Casal.
Renowned electric bassist talks about his musical life with Gabor Szabo, Jim Keltner and the rest of humanity.....
Studio shark and award winning sax player talks about playing with George Duke, the sonic difference between small and large venues and leading a life of authentic music.
Legendary bassist and sound inventor talks about his psychedelic existence in a square world.
Cosmic pianist talks about her musical influences, her need to stretch out and how COVID has challenged her adaptability as a musical healer.
Son of the legendary San Francisco organ grinder talks about being exposed to genius and creativity in the Bay Area.
Legendary drummer talks about the late great Farrell Morris, asking for signs on his musical journey and finding the groove with Al Stewart.
Epic hang with a young cat looking to impact hearts and minds on and off the bandstand.
Dynamic musician talks about playing music in the age of COVID, overcoming his own anxiety on and off the bandstand and the resilience of humanity in the midst of crisis.
Hammond B-3 organist talks about sitting in front of Chester Thompson's Leslie Speaker, his affinity for gospel music and the soul element of music.
Decorated litigator and mother talks about overcoming adversity, her renewed commitment to gratitude and an appreciation for life's most precious gifts.
Spiritual guide and teacher talks about the evolution of his soul in the western world.
Iconic bop drummer talks about his renewed interest in practicing during COVID, his time spent with Don Friedman and Scotty LaFaro and playing in the Broadway Pit.
Mind blowing guitarist talks about channeling the spirit in his music to help heal himself and others.
Spiritual priestess talks about how her concept of the god within us has changed and evolved since childhood. A future reverend of mind body and spirit with the ability to access her multi-dimensional self.
Iconic double bassist talks about his musical life and career past, present and future.
Legendary producer talks about his musical relationships with Harold Land, Cannonball and Gerald Wiggins, how omnivorous reading led to his genius concept albums and his father’s fight for workers rights
Legendary trumpeter talks about his musical upbringings in Cleveland, his concept of improvisation and playing with Shelly Manne
A continual discussion on music composition, musician development and adapting to the new climate.
Singer songwriter and seeker talks about the development of his musical acumen, getting out of his own way on the bandstand and his most recent album The Reservoir.
Singer songwriter talks about accessing her multi-dimensional self on the bandstand, how to under-rehearse a band and the lineage of her family musical tree.
Legendary Capricorn Studio drummer talks about his jazz sensibilities and working out grooves with Gregg Allman.....
Poet and spiritualist talks about engaging in dialogue with her elders and peers in small town America and why she wants to build her legacy in her hometown to build a bridge for future generations understanding of evolution and love....
A double-bassist and bandstand tested musician talks about following the muse, stretching out and improvising and the spiritual healing of music.
Prominent modern day drummer talks about being raised by his musical elders like Jackie McLean and Jaimoe, returning to America roots music and the magic of playing with Phil Lesh
A continual discussion of leadership, love, life and lineage and the god within us all.
Unique and ubiquitous pianist talks about musical composition and improvisation and his time in New York burning with the CATS!
Multi-instrumentalist talks of learning to improvise by ear, the value of communal music and expanding consciousness to the spirit mind.
Prolific guitarist talks about developing her own individual sound, dealing with the up and down emotions of a musicians life and recognizing that if she gets out of her own way she is a conduit for spiritual music.
Guitarist and band leader talks about his "aversion" to the Grateful Dead and how he learned to appreciate, recognize and contribute to their legacy as part of the iconic American song book.
Cosmic musician and spiritualist talks about her journey as a musician and becoming a live performer. A frank discussion about cultural bias and the growing pains of real social progress.
Cosmic composer and pianist talks about learning the jazz vernacular, dealing with the loss of his younger brother and the road less taken in melodic improvisation.
Monster Hammond B-3 organist talks about his upbringing in Atlanta, playing fearless uncompromising music and the origination of Black Jazz Records.
Acclaimed percussionist and band leader talks about his father immigrating from Mexico to the states, his relationship with late brother Coke, Benny Velarde, Carlos Santana and his incredible family tree of rhythm
Unique and seminal drummer talks of his upbringing in Hartford, learning to swing with Toshiko Akiyoshi and how Shelly Manne got him into the studios. RIP Papa Joe Porcaro
Modern day bandleader talks about learning what “not” to do when leading a group, the deep group listening that needs to take place to cultivate trust and how to perform live music responsibly in the age of COVID
Oh the wind and rain sweeping across plains and swamps and bogs of Alabama. Head up north young man cause the Windy City is calling your name, not St. Louis but Chicago. The home of Ovation Records.....the home of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, Ramsey Lewis Nick Gravenites and Bobby Christian. The blending of music that was occurring in every urban bastion in this country at a certain time in our countries history is astounding. It's astounding because of the plethora of work opportunities that musicians had. TV programs and game shows in the morning with a studio session in the afternoon follow that up with night gigs at beer taverns in the south side boogie down where the good folk would waking up to go to prey and the musicians were heading home for rest as the sun came up. Walk me out in the cold rain and snow and let me introduce you to my guest. A bassist who is from the same generation as Senator Eugene Wright, Bob Cranshaw and Richard Davis and John Heard. A bassist who became so obsessed with music that he was gigging by the time he got his drivers license and had become technically proficient in multiple instruments. But it was the bass, the upright bass that locked the groove in Basie's big band and Ramsey's band and on his own records for Black Jazz. You see for this host, that record label, founded by Dick Schory, with a left coast assist from Gene Russell helped elevate the status of unheralded Players who played Afro-Jazz. The kind of spiritual tribunal that represented links in the chain to Coltrane and Mingus and Monk. My guest is one of the most heavily sampled bassists of all time. He rejects labels, he prefers to woodshed and continue his cosmic conversation in the universal language of jazz. Cleveland Eaton, welcome to the JFS
Country music comes from the heart of the south in our country. It speaks to the prairies and bogs and swamps and hoe downs that keep communities alive and full of life. Popular country music of today is represented by Cowboys who might look handsome and play the role but aren't really cowboys. The mavericks full of brass and spur and cattle end arounds came from Appalachia and the bluegrass Pickers and fiddlers like Red Allen, Tex Logan and Bill Monroe. Entertainers who would wear suits on stage on a sweltering hot Alabama day because they knew that's what the farmers wore to Church on Sundays. My guest today hails from Wilmington, NC which was bubbling with its own regional music clustered inside the black mountains where there might have been a shady grove to cool off rosin up your bow and do some fiddlin and singing. My guest today is a multi instrumentalist who plays the mandolin, fiddle, guitar and bass. What is fascinating to this host is the idea that my guest was a prolific session player for the likes of Al Kooper, Gary Scruggs, Ringo Starr, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. His showmanship and songwriting soon led to a career as a leader with Te John and Joel "Taz" Digregorio. Back then he was talking Armageddon all the while willing to wake up and try again tomorrow. His albums have been played under a full moon in South Carolina and in the Whispering Pines of upstate New York where as a camper the images of Chicken in Bread Pans and Fire on The Mountain permeated the minds of so many kids who dream of painting a masterpiece. 1/2 a mile from Tucson by the morning light Charlie Daniels welcome to the JFS.
Legendary trombonist talks about the musical brotherhood of Detroit, how to play honest music and how he got into the studio scene in LA
Divine musician talks about oscillating between performing and booking musicians, the disconnect between the value of musicians and societies view of their worth and her relationship with the late great Neal Casal.
Documentary director and editor talks about what she learned in and out of academia, her artistic approach to developing a compelling film, and marinating in a sea of love with Baba Ram Dass
Cosmic musician and meditator talks about trusting in the unknown realm, his concept of race and systemic bias and the road ahead for yogis and letting go of facades.
Psychological guru and healer talks about the intangibles of healthy intimacy, how to cultivate reciprocity in union, and the foibles of birth control in a Catholic world
Iconic 20the Century Songwriter talks about getting his union card, the art of strong song writing, and his relationship with Stan Getz.
Multi-Instrumentalist and pro drummer talks of creating sonic expansion in the studio and on the bandstand, the foibles of the road, and his musical and personal relationships with John Ginty, Neal Casal and Jeff Hill.
Unsung musical hero talks of his days writing music for New York rock acts, his journey in and out of Mexico and his relationship with Allan Toussaint.
Divine writer and advocate talks off having uncomfortable discussions with Americans several generations removed about the real history of this country and what we can do in the short term to resolve the wounds of enslavement and bigotry
Divine yogi talks about effective strategies for guided meditation in the age of COVID, growing up in a musical family, being schooled in India and taking things one day at a time.
When I tell my friends that I'm interviewing Jack DeJohnette everyone has their own image. For drummers they might Identify with technique and musicality, for avid fans it might conjure associations with Miles Davis, Joe Henderson and the ECM label. For this host Jack DeJohnette represents a titan of humanity who was one of the leaders of a revolution in music and sociology. He was talented enough to play with major figures and emotionally connected to the individual and the music. This was coupled by the institutions of music who embodied the true essence of art. What I admire most about Jack is his ability to come in to a session of lesser known but equally talented cats and make everyone feel comfortable and swing the band. This combination enhanced countless sessions and made for a more accessible and tolerant atmosphere. In summation: don't resent those who are not as strong but enhance the social paradigm by sharing your genius. Jack DeJohnette welcome to the JFS.
Ben Benay, Don Poncher, Gary Barone, Jock Ellis, John Rubinstein, Tim McIntire, Wolfgang Melz
Epic tune by unheralded studio sharks Ben Benay, Wolfgang Meltz, Gary Barone & Don Poncher on Artist 1 records.
Cosmic discussion about the seeds of new life in a yearning civilization as well as the long arc of history and how that portends to evolution and growth through struggle and determination. Riding the love wave....
Great discussion about overcoming the fear of death and the willingness to not just survive but thrive in a natural environment.
Cosmic vibraphonist talks about growing up amongst humanity in the Bronx, traveling as a musician in the south with Buddy Rich and his psychedelic experiences at Bradley’s
Iconic bassist talks about learning to play in odd times with his brother Kofi, recognizing Bob Weir’s prowess for keeping the one in the Grateful Dead and living and surviving in America as a person of color
Avant-garde therapist and healer discusses her approach to certain clients and the tantric ideals of a healthy sexual relationship
Diverse musician and producer talks about weening himself off of Clapton and Hendrix and diving into the milieu of American music. A frank discussion of a musicians sanctity in the age of Covid
Mystical psychic healer talks about finding her spiritual path and owning her true nature.
Hammond B-3 master talks of his days playing for Carol Doda in North Beach (SF), forming Common Ground, and getting high with Neal Cassady
Inspiring coach and healer talks about growing up in Iowa and how the cultural bias towards people of color was not something that she wanted to carry with her. A deep dive into the education of one nation under Kayla....
Divine messenger talks of using her abilities to educate the youth about the long game. Grow like a redwood so the foundation is strong and like a tree equal rights can be for all.
One of the greatest drummers in music history talks about his concept of race and skin color, playing with Dizzy, Rahsaan
& Freddie and how new musical vocabulary will come about.
Divine fiddler talks of breaking from the Mormon Church, her love of analog recording equipment playing gypsy street music and being vulnerable and open to unconditional love.
Psycho-Spiritual healer talks of her goth confirmation, her experience with a shaman(s) and her desire to connect with like minded peer healers from around the world
Divine healer talks about her upbringing and learning to survive on an unpredictable household. A marine veteran who is learning to balance her divine masculine & feminine and infusing that into her mindful teachings she uses with her clients.
Soulful organist talks about his musical influences and how he blended those experiences into the Santana band.
Saxophonist born and raised in Brooklyn talks about his career and musical relationships with Reuben Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Eric Gale & Paul Butterfield. Blue Break Beats
Multi-dimensional synth pioneer talks about working with Joe Henderson, how musicians were compensated for their work at one time, and the dissolution of the current bias economic system that has brought our country to the brink.
Divine teacher and healer talks about coming up from the roots and how she has learned to fuse mind and body to access her multi-dimensional self through psychedelics, movement and divine elemental inclusion.
East Indian healer talks about being inspired by her mom’s social work and the efforts she is making to further those contributions to a more just and humane society in the timeless land of India
Multi-instrumental wizard talks about holding guerrilla concerts San Francisco, the song writers who’s lyrics hold saliency in today’s musical paradigm and finding inspiration during COVID
Mercurial musician who goes to the beat of his own drum - an authentic creative who is still on the eternal search for divine source and sound.
Divine healer talks about overcoming a brutal upbringing and childhood and manifesting that strength to heal people all over the world. A deep dive dive into the multi-dimensional aspects of man/woman.
Spiritual scholar and healer who embodies acknowledgment, resolution, pursuance and mantra. She follows her own path of grace and devotion. No one like her....
Heart trailblazer talks about the inner kingdom that is available to all of us in this time of external uncertainty. Follow your hearts and only love can conquer hatred.
Multi-Dimensional Life Coach talks about her own healing journey and how that trip propelled her to help others grow constitutionally in all forms. An unfettered conduit to the divine.
Holistic spiritual guide talks of integrating the kingdom within and expressing her truth to humanity.
Rock queen talks about her rhythmic relationship with her drummer, her intentions when playing music and where she still needs to grow as a performer.
Musician who is learning to adapt to the realities of COVID by going deep into his song bag to inspire. A frank discussion about the spiritual qualities of music and how fatherhood has changed his point of view on the bandstand.
Divine spirit and native dancer talks about her journey towards a deeper love, the injustices done to people of color and how she effects positive change in her world.
Psycho-Spiritual Therapist talks of progressive healing therapies through her channel to the divine. Part street scholar part academic - this fusion remains pure and heart centered.
Artistic grio tells about growing up in the ghetto and being raised by her Grandma and how those experiences shaped her creative point of view and access to the divine. A deep dive into the original sin of this country that still haunts us today.
Transcendent drummer talks about the ancient healing vibrations of rhythm, the tangibles that relate to bandstand creation and not accepting the status quo.
Seasoned musician talks about her patronage to her musical elders, how to create the vibe for spiritual music and her belief in the sustainability of the music and the musicians in the age of COVID
Ubiquitous musician talks about his upcoming drive- in concert in Morristown, his ability to dig the click and his long and winding relationship with late brother Neal Casal.
Psycho-spiritual healer talks about her time working in the music industry and how she found her purpose as a therapist and life coach in Los Angeles.
Yogic practitioner talks about her belief in humanity and that nothing should be taken for granted. How to advocate, how to love yourself and stay on the righteous path.
Divine yogi and healer talks of overcoming the roadblocks that have ultimately led her to a paradise of wisdom and god. The kingdom within...
Tantric yogi and organic body sculptor discusses her connection to the divine, getting out of her own way and learning to love herself.
New York drummer - who grew up in a bastion of bebop & blues - talks about his heroes, mentors and peers in his musical life.
Journalist, writer and music aficionado talks about her affinity for going off the grid, letting the body dance and her connection to Neal Casal
Divine psycho-spiritualist talks about the different modalities of healing, why she changed her name and learning to love herself.
Master trumpeter talks about desegregating Virginia Beach with the Slide Hampton Big Band, Racism in America and the legacy of Jimmy Cobb
Yogic healer talks about looking into the mirror of life and letting go of materialism and taking the path of least resistance by accessing her true nature as a yoga motivator
Burning guitar player talks about how he developed his own musical style and tone, his gigs in NYC and the lifelong friends he’s made on his journey.
Save something for the children, so says my guest, maybe a song for Wounded Knee or the fundamental respect of basic human rights and the historical significance of the indigenous people. Let the Dove Fly Free so says my guest. On the wings of a dove which carries the melodic fiddle of Papa John Creach or riding the tiger with Jimmy Hendrix in a smokey lounge with a Hammond Organ swirling the liquid fusion of musical styles that brought my guest and his long lost bass to the States. He is one of the most unheralded multi instrumentalists to come out of the melting pot that was San Francisco. Every picture tells a story and the one painted by my guest is a blanket of Ansley Dunbar fills, blues piano with Steamhammer, original scores for Documentary and a little late night Moonalice @ The Sail Inn. It reaches beyond the music with my guest who has made it his mission to fight for human rights causes and remember the leaders who fought for their own people. He shares this attitude with Peter Rowan and Grace Slick, David Nelson and Babatunde Olatunji.......save the whales, save the streams, save the drinking water for my kids and yours and do it through music.....strong music from Jon Hiseman, John McLaughlin and Dave Holland.
Pete Sears, welcome to the JFS
Intrepid dancer talks about “the Ballet life,” the rhythms of sex and dancing and how she has learned to love herself unconditionally
The drum chair and he who sits in it. Self taught developing your own style through craft and putting yourself in different musical settings. My guest today is from the same musical generation as John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, Tony Williams and Papa Joe Jones. He saw the continent of Asia early on cutting albums with Toshiko Akiyoshi, back in the states with Howard McGhee, Dorothy Ashby, Donald Byrd and Mongo Santamaria. We idolize the great drummers who have left us but my guest is one of the titans still putting in time on planet earth. Holding it down while Eric Alexander and Harold Maburn blow over the top. He's been smokin at the half note with Wynton Kelly or cooking up good vibes with Johnny Lytle. My guest hails from Washington DC but found himself on the cusp of the birth of cool, not smooth, cool. The kind of cool that makes you take notice and listen because of the use of cymbals or the brushes that give the song the feel of real people coalescing around a groove. Jimmy Cobb welcome to the JFS
New Orleans native talks about his musical upbringing, how he learned to improvise and playing with The Neville Brothers
Sublime pianist and writer talks about his musical influences and the harmolodic vibes of Portland Oregon.
Divine healer and comforting spirit talks about relationships past and present and how to cultivate a healthy sexual relationship with true intimacy.
Decorated poet and orator talks about her documentary Peace Piece and the immersive effects it can have on humanity.
Kirtan healer and yogic practitioner talks about her search for authenticity and truth in faith, motherhood and her own true nature.
Prolific dancer and circus performer talks about committing herself to a life of art amidst the conformist society in which we dwell. A testament to staying true to your soul.
Born In India this divine yogi talks of the inequality of mankind and how she has learned to serve and inspire amidst this transitional age.
Ongoing discussion with a divine yogi and DJ who leads with her heart by surrendering to the moment and being in the now. Ode to Richard Alpert....
As the lizards lie underneath my porch on the back patio I sit here sweating in 100 degree weather I think about my guest and his perception of nature, his perception of art and his perception of the human.
His perception of nature is one of beauty on inside and outside. He is one to extend a hand and help fellow musicians when they are struggling to find unison in Tempo and Time. Work together because its all in how you look at things. Could be peeling potatoes or playing the drums are you going to do something to your fullest no matter what the task?
My guest does not fight nature, he did at one time. Made mistakes, figured out how deep the hole was how to get out and how did he get there in the first place?
His perception of art helps him let go of control, sharing the stage, listening to George Duke or Rick Fiberachi or John Abercrombie.
His taste in musicianship allows for touring for the last 5 decades. Appreciated more in Europe and Asian but heck Jazz is a white term for a black music.
WorldFusion is now the goal of my guest. Get real people together for an extended period of time work things out and feel, feel what it's like to contribute to a higher concept.
Maybe you do it naturally maybe with Chemicals. that perception of the human. The human being is imperfect weather we allow ourselves to believe it or not. But the human existence is at the core of my guests heart. Put your deepest focus forward in anything you do. Always challenge yourself by putting yourself in diverse situations and know you will not be loved by all for these reason but for different reasons.
I am not a drummer but I am a journalist with an agenda to get out in front philosophically as it relates to wisdom, leadership and longevity.
...Oh and summer camps too like the one my guest is hosting this summer for able bodied men and woman who will have the accessibility to these master musicians.
My show is and has always been about leadership, love and life. Leadership from those spirits who have long since left this planet, and the lessons we can learn from them. love, for the commitment to musical excellence and letting the power off the orchestra feed off each other. The ability to fit inside any musical setting and crack a joke, play a role or drive consciousness to new heights with pulsating rhythms played for hours in front of sweaty college students who left with new found truths about the interconnectivity between the cosmos and humanity. Life because it springs eternal and the magic still exists because in that cycle those with big hearts share their experiences with those who dare to seek. To buck the norms of our material society in an effort to seek truth from people we would hear playing music in movie theaters, hockey halls, pizza parlors and army barracks. My guest today grew up in an age before interconnectivity. His art reflects selflessness, camaraderie and freedom of expression which are the same values I want to promote for my two young daughters and future generations of curious human beings. There has been no segregation in his music or the musicians. Be it Horace Silver, dreaming with the Brecker brothers, atmospheric sounds with Jan Hammer and Jeremy Steig, finding Snoopy with Leland Sklar and Tommy Bolin, developing the dynamic rhythm sections in the studio and out. Rick Laird, Al Johnson, Ray Barretto, Colin Walcott, Bobby Rodriguez. Then there's the unrelenting tours with George Duke and John Abercrombie, NAMM show jams with Steve Miller, Brazilian Swing with Astrud Gilberto, Grover Washington Jr, Bobby and the Midnights, Freddie Hubbard, John McLaughlin, Milt Jackson and Carlos Santana. His focus has always remained the same communicate without using his voice and be yourself. Woodshed for hours and leave it all on the stage. He is about to embark on a tour of the US and Canada to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Spectrum which is an album that still rattles my nervous system going back to the days when I first heard it in Lower Allston, MA. People Make the World Go Round. Billy Cobham welcome to the JFS.
Divine teacher who has learned to break down the walls of rigidity to provide guidance to her children and become a model for others looking to survive and thrive in the new parenting paradigm
Cosmic Yogi talks of her non-structured upbringing in Daytona and how that led to a direct connection to the divine.
Musical healer and medicine woman talks about surrendering to her body’s tumors and transcending to the heavens by singing and healing others in all contexts.
Fearless bass player talks about getting into the musical grooves of Manhattan and the unknown road ahead for creatives at large.
Master percussionist talks about the rhythms of life and the factors that go into creating spiritual music
Explosive unsung guitarist from the band Stoneground talks about his humble musical upbringing and finding a foothold in the San Francisco music scene.
King of the studio trumpeters talks about his musical brotherhood, meeting Steven Van Zandt and a message to our political leaders about prioritizing the future of music.
Inter-disciplinary healer talks about her experiences in life that have helped her find her individual voice and inspire others.
Iconic guitar player talks about his concept of rhythm, playing in The Loading Zone and Tower Of Power and the daunting times we live in....
Divine healer and spiritual priestess talks about her journey to American, recognizing and adhering to unconditional love and being a mother to all.
Divine singer songwriter talks about her musical journey and the ups and downs of psychedelic excursions.
Hammond B-3 monster talks about his humble beginnings in Buffalo and the difference between a soul drummer and jazz drummer.
Guitar slinger and entertainer talks about his different musical tributaries and his connection to drummer Bill Kreutzmann and The 7 Walkers
Legendary NOLA conguero talks about drumming on Lake Pontchartrain and his musical relationship with Professor Longhair
For my guest today it is playing free music with Marion Brown or in Detroit where the spirits of Elvin, Tommy Flanagan and Yusef Lateef breeze by with a word of wisdom.
Maybe it was with Rashan Roland Kirk back when Universities like Oberlin College could bring in a Cecil Taylor or Horace Tapscott for a year residency. Bands of younger musicians would form under their leadership.
Because there were places to play cats could get loose on the bandstand at Slugs with Charles Tolliver or Jimmy and Tootie Heath. Late shows with Woody Shaw and long before our mothers cried with Sonny Fortune.
The most spiritual music is created by my guest. He is patient and can also real off flurries of notes. He understands time and place. The opportunities that presented themselves to his generation. He was co-founder of The Strata East label which fused the language of swing and bebop with blues and soul. The music on this label had an urgency to it that spoke to the loss of lives- Dr. King, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and John Coltrane.
The seeming upward mobility of a musician cutting albums and touring. Reinventing themselves to sustain their legacy and more importantly the music. As we all know, it's a jazz life.
Stanley Cowell welcome to the JFS
The most recorded bass player in the lexicon of music talks about his career on and off the bandstand
Continuation of a discussion about the different musical components of the band GSOL and the evolution of language and meaning in song. Going Downtown.....
Spiritual healer and teacher talks about her connection to the divine while not abandoning her roots in the mountains of Colombia. A true angelic light being....
Transcendent bop guitarist talks about his musical upbringing under Richard Dorsey, Larry Bradford and Ed Kelly and charting an open road in an uncertain musical time.....
At times in life you feel adrift. Unable to harness the love and the passion that reins inside. When you begin to evolve in any art you start on that far away Oregon Hill with a Hawk flying overhead. Knowing that John Mclaughlins guitar might swoop up and under and around my guests bass lines. Slowly you build security in your own voice and sound so that your called upon to bluegrass country, to the Fillmore West, to Bearsville, to Europe, to a land of sunshine. My guest today is a master of all trades when it comes to music. A cat who burns creation and passion and urgency into an amalgamation of paradigms that provide a natural high. The live experience of playing three sets of music night after night after night with Miles Davis. My guest was also a prolific studio musician at a time when identities were created, linear notes were written, pictures were taken and barriers had not gone up. My guest Has played with Bonnie Raitt and Phil Wilson, Maria Muldaur, Nick Brignola, Roland Hannah and and with the perfect balance of mathematics and soul. Powerhouse Jazz or chasing Colin Walcott's dancing tables or hitting the Nashville Skyline with bluegrass fiddlers or counting off one, two free with Eric Kloss and Pat Martino. My guest remains a tour De force playing with George Cables, Jon Abercrombie Chick Corea or or at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ On October 4th for two sets of music with his band Prism. Bassist Dave Holland welcome to the JFS......
Maybe the first to blend his gospel roots with rnb and jazz. B-3 organ player who is uncompromising and brilliant.
Bass titan riffs on his family's tight knit Detroit roots and that racism is still alive and well in America.
For quite some time half a century ago only two schools in this country had jazz programs. One was N. Texas State and the other was the Berkeley School of Music in Boston.
My guest today is one of the earliest alumni's of a school that has produced the likes of Alan Broadbent, Ernie Watts, Gene Perla and Dick Berk and TOSHIKO Akiyoshi. When my guest went there it was a brotherhood of 300 men and woman who studied under the masters like Herb Pomeroy, Ray Santizzi, Alan Dawson and Jaki Byard and had opportunities to play live and get loose at venues like The Jazz Workshop, Lennie's on the Turnpike and Latin Salsa Dance Halls. In fact even if you didn't go to Berklee you could still sit in on lectures and jams.
My guest today is a guitar player who is prolific in melodic sequencing and ferocious output. He plays the electric guitar, mandolin and piano strumming his way to sublimation with Jack Dejohnette, Billy Cobham, Colin Walcott and George Marsh, Joe Beck, Tom Knific, Dave Holland Jan Hammer and Johnny Hammond Smith.
He plays music without regard to barriers. His generation makes music that feels good because they understand the balance between mathematics and soul. They also played live for weeks at a time at the same venue performing complex Gil Evans tunes developing their own sound and individuality that created their identities.
Still blazing new trails with his axe, JAbercrombie
There are and have been great musicians in every era of every century. They find a way to use the elements around them to be industrious. Maybe it's building your own instrument, have a shack or two to practice in and a drive and closure from spirituality.
I do not know what the music scene is like in Jerusalem. But the real question is what it must have been like when my guest was coming into his own with industrious self assured cats who were increasing music sonically and not letting barriers get in the way.
I don't think I've had a guest who best epitomizes the elasticity and camaraderie then the bassist I have today.
Going from Coast to Coast finding production and studio time with Teo Macero and Miles Davis John Simon and Seals and Crofts. Then heading to west Marin connecting with Michael Bloomfield who brought the Chicago Blues to the Bay Area waving electric flags while dropping bombs in front of mushroom addled youth and more.
My guest literally experienced the shift from acoustic to electric instrumentation. He was positively forthright paving the way for Bob Dylan to gain foothold in the new sonic world. Playing with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm maybe the Hawk Ronnie Hawkins. Seeing and experiencing the consciousness shift in both society and a music industry that treated my guest to a Soft Parade of gigs from White Lightning' to Bitches Brew. Playing the electric bass over under and around Dave Hollands acoustic.
I have met my guest several times at the 17th street market here in Tucson, AZ.
He had a band here and lived here for nearly two decades. I have a feeling that the mountains have him peace of mind but he's always been relaxed on the bandstand.
Today he has returned to the motherland to bring music to the Jewish People. Bedouin music I like to call it.
Live from Jerusalem Harvey Brooks welcome to the JFS
A frank discussion about racism and its modernization in our society today with a master musician.
Thanks Richard
Cosmic fiddler and singer from the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee talks about getting comfortable on the bandstand, letting her inspiration flow with her father and brothers and dealing with the balance of musical and spiritual authenticity in the age of COVID
Divine artist and healer talks of her bouts with physical trauma as a young girl, how she overcame it through “internal marriage counseling” and her longing to be a mother and child.
When I look back on this endeavor that I have undertaken this will be one of those interviews that I will look back on with great excitement. Airto needed to go to a wedding otherwise we might have kept going. It was a meandering set with the first forty minutes revolving around psychology, fear, doubt and getting lost in a communist country in Europe before a gig. Part II was an introduction to the Khahasiki and all the other percussion instruments that he made famous in jazz via vocal ad-libbing by Airto. Part III was open mike as we cranked Halloween '83 from Marin Vets. Such a good time.
Author and musician talks about his relationships with the members of the Grateful Dead and his own musical musings.....
The bravest man in the universe used to wake the morning and get his breakfast in bed but then realized its a lot more fun to cross 110th street with JJ Johnson and Stu Gardner. My guest is one of the most prolific musicians in our countries history. He came of age with his brothers who were raised to take care of themselves. Go down to the lake and sleep out at night. Croon some lyrics that a woman's got to have and play hot rhythms with country and western tunes with his pops singing vocals. The bravest man in the world has had to show this over and over again because bravery exists in the what have you done for me lately world that we dwell. Breezin' on blue tooths and cocaine addictions. The pacing that it takes for my guest to create. It's not a chop shop. How bout 9 years how bout 5 let it marinate like the hot licks of Gabor Szabo or the hippie laced Pearls of Janice Joplin. My guest learned under Wilson Pickett and carried the torch with Sly Stone. His gospel tinged inflections blended with his RnB sensibilities and choppy blues riffs. My guest learned on the bandstand be it the church circuits of the American Breadbasket or the Chitlin Circuit that produced the likes of Cannonball Adderley. That's the way I feel about cha, Bobby Womack welcome to the JFS
Mid-Western firebrand in a frank dialogue about playing with Bo Diddley, living in America and making dying kids last wishes come true.
Gifted musician and composer talks of his musical upbringings in obscure psych/folk outfits and writing music for film and television. The Far Cry.....
Genre-less guitarist talks about his career on and off the bandstand, how he sings for his supper and a look towards an uncertain future
Elastic and prolific studio and live drummer talks about his musical life in Woodstock, how the weather affects the tightness of the bass drum, and having faith in humanity.
Founder Of The Royal Potato Record Label talks about milestone moments in his career as a cultivator of artist development, how touring bands sing for their supper, and staying inspired during the age of COVID.
Expansive conversation with a gypsy guitarist and singer about the origins and cultivation of the band GSOL, the evolution of their songs and philosophies about rhythm and time.
Prolific musician and lawyer talks about his beautiful forty eight years marriage to Barbara Joy Langer. Rest In Peace
Legendary New Orleans bassist talks about his musical upbringing, playing with Lionel Hampton and how he developed his own individual voice on the string bass.
Dynamic yogi talks about her near death experience and how that has galvanized her yogic path.
Singer talks about her desire to come to New York and immerse herself in the multi-cultural mecca of art and music.
Another cosmic transmission with a woman who is cultivating her true nature and judgement through self respect and inner work.
Writer, Promoter and Publicist talks about pivotal moments in his career, developing strong relationships with musical giants and how to appreciate musics of different generations....
Burgeoning life coach and chef talks about healthy sexual relationships and how she has learned through life experience to better understand the container of unconditional love.
Musical avatar talks about his relationship with Bob Weir and a look back to integral moments in his youth as baritone horn player.
Beede is a disciple of William Allaudin Mathieu and a prolific modern dance composer and pianist. An artist dedicated to blues and avant garde classical stylings....
Iconic New Orleans bassist talks about playing upright bass on the bandstand, the legacy of Ellis Marsalis and the life of a musician in the age of COVID.
Legendary arch-bassist talks about living the jazz life and his desire to create seminal music.
Musical Priestess talks about creativity, accessing her multi-dimensional self in a Patriarchal hierarchy and finding her soul mate.
Divine body healer talks about her pathway towards truth. A profound journey within the multi-dimension self and a connection to John Perry Barlow.
Spiritual teacher and actress talks about perspective, balance and survival in the age of Covid.....
Healing angel talks about conflict and resolution, her voracious appetites for writing and finding peace with her mother.
Groundbreaking guitarist talks about his relationship with Joe Pesci and the open road of music.
Born and raised in New York Dina talks about her musical existence during the age of Covid-19 and how she has turned inward and contemplative to stay even amidst the epicenter of the virus.
One is walking down the lonely Canadian streets whistling in the wind trying to find some clarity. Drifting in academia, directionless and yet so talented. The other a mass of Peaceful Volcanism. Endless ideas endless creativity endless compassion. That's it for the Other One because when these two strangers met it forged a musical and personal relationship that lasts till this day. One of my guests needed a burst of love through waves of spontaneous variation of chord patterns and progressions learning from my other guest in Divine Radiance even in those somber Canadian Winters. They played almost everyday in a small classroom until the teacher had taught enough and needed to move on. He had more people to teach and love and reinvigorate. They gigged a bunch in Toronto as a trio channeling music of peace and for peace. The student continued on to become an established figure in the music industry. He was the leader of The Worlds Most Dangerous Band which incorporated his roots music of Buffalo Springfield, Bobby Womack, Oscar Peterson and The British Invaders . He played jingles and sit coms and made albums of his is own. His teacher continued on his own trip in a contiguous orbit making music of his own. Sometimes on the guitar sometimes on the drums with its rhythms built inside the teachers constitution. Elevating, getting higher higher higher with series and sequences of ideas and musical messages that have stayed true in his student to this day as they collaborate with The late great Rashied Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Ra-kalam Bob Moses Cheryl Hardwick and Don Pate. The teacher was once offered an opportunity in the world of entertainment from Phil Ramone and said no. On a silver platter with all the trimmings and the teacher said no. His music is of Divine Radiance, of the heart a language spoken by all peoples, races, creeds, genders and origins. It spoke to his student who has long since gravitated to the Land of a Letterman which allowed him to play with all the greatest musicians like Earl Scruggs, Donald Fagan Yoko Ono Lou Soloff and his teacher. This is why I do my show. Paul Shaffer and Tisziji Munoz welcome to the JFS
Important modern day guitarist talks about creating spiritual music, finding his own individual sound and surging in the age of Covid.
Painter and transformational witch goddess talks of the astral plane that she access’ on a near daily basis and her deep affinity for grandmother earth.
Ambitious yogi talks about when she surrendered to her life’s purpose of learning to lead others through yogic meditations
Painter, drummer and healer talks about tapping into her vast reservoir of shamanic practices to create inspirational content.
Who's to bless and who's to blame when it comes to the chronicling the frontiersman of music. Blessings go to Wayne Henderson and Herb Wong both of whom we lost recently as cats who played and wrote their asses off when it came to melodic invention.Much of the hoopla surrounding dance music in the 40 and 50 was being done in ballrooms. Duke Ellington and Count Basie leading crusades of young rabbits into urban theaters like Trenton where my guest is from.He learned under the tutelage of his father who was himself a big band leader just like The Skipper Henry Franklins father. Charles Anthony Williams had rehearsals at his house where his son could learn up close the strength of individual sound, knowing your role, knowing when to step outside that role, be a contributor an accompanist with Denny Zeitlin and The Crusaders, filling in for Ray Brown or showing up with Joe Farrell, Dakota Staton and Jon Lucien. His musical legacy is unquantifiable. Over the past 50+ years he has been expanding the musical palettes of both his comrades like Herbie Hancock and stretching the ears of active audiences from Dubai to Europe to The It Club. He has gone bop to be-bop, post bop to free music, soul funk to blues to driving gulf coast pocket magic. He is a mind reader...in that once he locks in - there is no time, everything around him is still there but with just a little light in contrast with the bombs my guest drops. He shows no signs of slowing down, more active than ever before. Buster Williams welcome to the JFS
Multi-dimensional Druze musician talks about leadership, love, overcoming adversity and the lineage of her family.
Angular multi-reed player mixing it up with the avatars of his time. Great partnerships with Miles Davis, Warne Marsh and Gary Foster
Legendary singer and B-3 organist riffs on the grandfathers of RnB in Marin County, his contributions to The Sons and overcoming in the face of adversity.
The drums tell stories when played by masters. The traditional chanting with the drum elicits the spiritual sanctuary of slaves aboard ships sailing from Mother Africa to the islands. The slaves communicated amongst themselves, staying in the moment, keeping spirits high, as high as they could be. The drum and its rhythms made their way through the steel bands of the Bahamas and Danny Ray playing Cungas @ some Pink Flamingo Hotel in Miami Beach to Armando Peraza and George Shearin or Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie. But what about the stories, the poems the clave beat in Congo Square or Wayne State when my guest attended school. When traditional earthy Afro-Centric Jazzers were exploring Free Music. Totally unencumbered by time- The total African American Experience....in the moment all the time everyday. My guest today is a creator. Forever creating his spirit transcends his own being. Some people wait a whole lifetime to figure this out. My guest started realizing his true nature back when Frank Strazzeri and Jimmy McGriff and Willis Jackson were blowing up Rochester at the social club his mom ran. At Wayne State the neighborhoods were communities, tribes with different factions but an understanding of the music. The power of the music and the sophistication of the music. It might have been the Jockey Club with Jimmy Smith and Donald Bailey. Or at the London House where Ed Thigpen held down the groove with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown. The music and the rhythms have always been suppressed in this country which is why my guest is no longer living here. He lives in France where music is an inherent part of the cultural fabric of the people. It's a multi-colored fabric that reaches all across the world and acknowledged the great black musicians, artists and entertainers. You want to make 5 trillion dollars and be obligated to give nothing back to the culture then the US is the place to be. If you want to be recognized and appreciated as an artist within a successful non communist system most African musicians moved to Europe. All of a sudden we as a country are having big discussions about race. My guest felt this, saw this, experienced this decades ago and bounced out. He dug the Midwest what with his unheralded Black Artists Group of St. Louie.....when Dizzy and Blakey and Elvin were still circuiting this globe searching for that magic triangle of sound. My guest left an imprint with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and The Arts Ensemble of Chicago which pleasured audiences here in the States and abroad what with their colorful attire, storytelling and sheer creative genius that told the story of their people. A story getting lost in the homogenization of the Americas. My guest believes his number one goal is to please the audience, educate those who's ears are open and play on in the memory of Roy Brooks and Tony Williams and Buddy Rich and Joe Jones and Art Blakey and.........well. Famoudou Don Moye welcome to the JFS
My guest today is a prolific lawyer in NYC, he also went to Camp Scatico at a time in our society when litigation was almost non existent. For better or for worse the nuclear family was in tact and the stress that comes with dividing up assets and property values, and long term care had not yet reached our everyday vernacular. The problem with love is it's other face and there were no participation awards being handed out and your bank account did not need to exceed six figures in order for your child to have a life changing experience. His generation of Scatico bathed in a sea of opportunity. A generation whose parents had done the heavy lifting following Pearl Harbor and WWII. This buoyancy pervaded my guests outlook on life. He made the Scatico Honors Society in his first year, 1956. And while we will burrow deeper into his stories career today the kin I am most familiar with are his two sons, Andrew and Daniel. I haven't seen them in awhile but the more things change the more they remain the same. Both of his kids were leaders, neither were perfect but they were authentic. You wouldn't find them in the Palace during rest hour, you'd find them playing counselor softball or waxing poetic with Dan Alcheck about some well laid plan to get over to girls side. His sons were my peers who rode the crest of the wave that was green and grey. One that took them from Scatico into "Ithaca is Gorges" to the greener pastures of commerce, law and "the ultimate challenge platform." My guest is still extremely productive. Today he could be golfing or at the beach but he chose to spend some time with this host to help channel the river of time known as Camp Scatico. Larry Fabian welcome to the JFS
"Hey Buddy, what's your name?" I'm Jake," I stammer. "Hey I'm Scou, nice to meet you. You know everybody gets a nickname at camp mines Scou or Scouie you'll get one too." Wracked with anxiety I made my way into that tour bus on Douglaston parkway eating Burger King with Perry Chudnoff. But the first cat I met at camp was my guest. We probably didn't say a word to each other the rest of the summer. But what he said to me spoke volumes. I don't know you, your much younger than me, I have nothing in common with you but I want you to feel comfortable because your about to go away to a sanctuary for eight weeks whether you know it or not. Treat everybody with respect hard to do and easier said but that is the resounding message of all my guests. Acceptance of someone you couldn't stand all summer, inclusion of all beings, good hangs with Greg Danford, philosophy with Doc Hamberg and some good old fashioned weight room shenanigans with The Deutsch Brothers. Weight room aside that's exactly what the JFS is all about. My guest was already dwelling in a spiritual place before he found Scatico. A native of Englewood Cliffs, NJ the home of Donald Byrd and Babatunde Lea, The Isley Brothers and the optometrist Rudy Van Gelder playing blue notes over a New York Sky line. But New Jersey has become a central theme of Scatico JFS what with the names Herzog, Holman, Maz Madorsky bus }•# 165 into Oradell, or the countless trips to Philly over the BF bridge. My guest did it all at camp especially when he put on his sailing shoes with Jeff Bernfeld and Lowell George, getting off on Chum Brothers Like Jimmy Ostrov or transitioning to the watering hole named Howie's. He's is a journalist who appreciates my vision because in order to get to where you need to go you need to have a vision. And like my guest I have had to chop my way out of thick dense wilderness for that vision to become clearer? Why, because I'm making this whole thing up and my guest is the same way. Make it up yourself, what do you have to say for yourself, know your strengths.
The late afternoon rays of sun descend on the New England Skyline. My guest breaths in the chilly New Hampshire air and knows things come easy for him. Probably too easy. Sports, Relationships, Recreation, you name it - my guest could pretty much do it all. Still he knew there had to be more to the summer experience than a buffet style activity menu, when my guest needed some direction. As he huddled up in those rustic bunks my guest began a dialogue with fellow campers Billy Goldner, Jordan Weiner and younger brother Johny. Not sure what transpired within their communications but somehow this quartet of mavericks found a lazy summer home in Elizaville called Scatico. My guest came in on the upper hill like Mike Madorsky and sought to loosen up an atmosphere that was already naturally channeling the Sons of Champlin and Legions of Mary and The Superstar Doc Hamburg. My guest has contributed a lot to the culture of Scatico. But I know that Scatico showed my guest where he was less evolved. Scatico helped my guest become a leader. Instead of shooting arrows in Bow NH, my guest was crushing softballs opposite field into the archery range or showing off his prowess in the weight room while going up against Scou in the Chicken Fights on the 4th day of the green grey war. Instead of having no mentors my guest had a bevy of different counselors who showed him how to harness his creativity and drive a live free or die mentality that really hit home with my counselors who caught the chest fever of my guests boom-box as Garth Hudson's swirling organ played underneath the much preferred Direct Zep dearth of prog Rock that my guest and his brothers ingested. What I'm coming to realize in these primary source interviews is that part of the unbridled freedoms that existed at Scatico clearly stemmed in part from the infusion of swagger and soul that my guest brought to camp. My guest has long since seen the sun rise and set in the Orient, in St. Petersburg...... Florida, and in Roslyn at my fathers place when all of Nassau county gathered for a night on the town. my guests star still shines brightest on Scatico....... My funny valentine, Danny Deutsch welcome to the JFS
Counselor and healer talks about her own battles with her psycho-semantic self and how it put her on a path to enable the clients that she works with to find a purpose driven existence
Authentic Singer/Songwriter talks about her musical journey and how raising a family has influenced her music and the ability to tour.
Divine singer and stage performer talks about her multi-ethnic upbringing and how she channels Billie Holiday in her own music.
Multi-Dimensional guitar player talks about how he blends all music into his repertoire and the subtle weaving of the American canon into his ethos as an artist
Folk singer and avant-garde rabbi talks about his early musical influences, his journey to the United States as a Polish Jew and surrendering to the path of rabbinical studies
Legendary manager of The Allman Brothers talks about cultivating his craft at American University in D.C.
Light worker in the prison industrial complex talks about giving back to the underprivileged, finding reciprocal healing with her clients and the unconditional love of her daughter
Ubiquitous pianist and percussionist talks about the transcendental power in music and her harmolodic journeys from the streets of Brooklyn to the indigenous wisdom of Kuwait.
A musical drummer talks about his approach to rhythm, losing himself in the creative process and establishing himself in the Brooklyn music scene
Cosmic Druze musician and closet scientist talks about the kind of musicians she gravitates to and the realities of a performing artist in the age of Covid.
Irreplaceable manager and musician talks about where he came from and his contributions to modern American music.
Daughter of Gil talks about her fathers contributions to American culture and how she chooses to inspire in these historic times of adversity
Cosmic musician and producer reconnects with The JFS after more than 25 years. The ties that bind.....
Cosmic keyboardist and singer talks about straddling the lines of authenticity in pop touring bands and her own music.
Former federal prosecutor (SDNY) turned legal analyst talks about his career in the courtroom and the recent impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Spiritual Musical Goddess talks about her journey on and off the bandstand. God is love
Legendary studio and live guitarist talks about reinventing yourself as a musician, serving the song and playing with The Section
Hypnotherapist and healer talks about the balance of giving and receiving love, how she heals through her work and compassion for all
Dietician & Life Coach talks about her journey with Lyme disease and how it has impacted her approach to life and how to bring about positive change.
Natural healer talks about trusting her own life force, overcoming adversity and her path to heal others
Guitarist who continues to cultivate her own sound and story in these unprecedented times.
Master session and live playing guitarist who was one of the original giants of the east coast recording scene
Founder of The Elemental Self talks about how to cultivate healthy sexual relationships.
Brilliant bop pianist who fused that language with the rhythms of New Orleans. The Marsalis name is iconic in melodic improvisation. A Treasure....
Russian Yogi talks about her path towards enlightenment and universal love while getting out of her own way.
Yogic practitioner and spiritualist delves into mind body connection, her mentors and ascension to a higher frequency.
Divine yogi talks about her journey to Barbados, her connection to her mother and sister and raising universal vibrations
Stone jazzer who has continued to expand her musical palette and persona in the modern music paradigm.....
Sonic healer talks about walking the insecure path of music and creation while learning to be more vulnerable to receiving love....
Divine spiritual mother talks about her faith in indigenous wisdom and how to expand universal consciousness.....
Divine bandleader tries to find her niche through songwriting, rhythm and being a leader.
Marconics cultivator talks about finding her purpose in this life. How she access’ her multi-dimensional self to inspire others and burn in the cosmos.
Divine healer and dancer talks about her journey in performing arts and yogic practices
Divine plant healer tells tales of her life and the role of plant medicine in the modern era.
A multi-dimensional pianist of Baha’i Faith. Grew up with Cannonball, was mentored by Oscar Peterson and played with Dizzy. Badass composer and arranger. Rest In Peace
Yoga practitioner and mother talks about breaking through the constraints of rigid thought patterns and perception while raising her daughter and looking to reconnect with her yogic gifts.....
Avatar and Prankster talks about his contributions to consciousness expansion, navigating the justice system and his relationships with Chuck & Ken Kesey. Required listening....
Psychic reliquary talks about accessing and harnessing the matrix, the visit from her light mother in Australia and authenticity through service...
Music producer and engineer discusses his love of music, collaborations and grooving in his world
Cosmic fiddle player talks about creating spiritual music on the bandstand, the rise and fall of Elephant Revival and her decision to start a family.
Discussion focused on entrepreneurial leadership, breaking rigid thought patterns and dwelling in the intergalactic
Legendary violin player talks about his career with The Flock, Mahavishnu Orchestra and beyond
Legendary leader of Parliament Funkadelic talks about LSD, The Brill Building and Magic Johnson
Legendary vocalist and percussionist talks about his playing career on and off the bandstand
Legendary studio bassist and tenor sax player for The Crusaders talks about his musical journey
Divine medicine woman discusses her healing practices and experiences with plant medicine and the birthing process
Multi-faceted bassist talks about his musical journeys from The Bop Shop in Chicago to The Chris Robinson Brotherhood & beyond
Ethereal keyboard genius riffing on his musical sensibilities and his latest album “Lost Dispatch.”
Brazen creative talks about authenticity, overcoming adversity and her new album - “If You Can’t Say Anything Nice.”
Legendary New Orleans drummer talks about his friendship with Earl Palmer and how he mentored Johnny Vidacovich. Great scholar of New Orleans music....