The first jazz album I've done in a while, and my
first real "playing" album. I pushed the racks of synths aside and revisited my first love, the Hammond
Organ. Most of the CD is in the classic organ trio format and
features great performances by guitarists
Joe Beck and
Mike DeMicco,
and drummer
Danny
Gottlieb. My brother Tony is
sitting in on bass, playing lead on a beautiful Jimmy Giuffre ballad. The album has a few originals and several
of my jazz arrangements of classic pieces - Erik Satie's
"1st Gymnopedie", Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues", Ralph Towner's "Icarus"
& the Beachboys’
"Sail On Sailor."
The cover photo was taken by photographer
Sally Anderson-Bruce.
It was supposed to be used for a CD cover but was rejected. I've been using it as my PR image shot for years and finally
got to use
it on a CD cover as I had hoped to. Thanks Sally.
I kept a log of the
making of the CD - now
moved to it's own section.
The "Live Club" outside of Milano.
Big place, and a great audience.
Way up there is the entrance to
backstage! That's Jesse at the top of the stairs.
5/5 Treviso, Italy at Sonny Boy
W
5/6 Reggio Emelia, Italy at Tunnel
Tunnel is a
relatively new club. Pretty good size and comfortable to
play in. On the downside, the room is all metal and stone,
so the sound thrashes around quite a bit. I'm guessing
they'll address that. They have a very cool live video
screen during the show. Looking for something different to
do, I went for that a lot.
Italian vocalist Simona Bencini came up and joined us for our
final a capella version of "Don't Give Up". It was a nice
change having her voice on top. I couldn't get a photo of
the moment, but here's Simona backstage with Tony.
