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.
Spirit of 66's
owner, Francis, says that the inspiration for the name came from
the song 'Route 66' and the fact that he just likes the 60's.
This is one of those little clubs that seems like it's not going
to be much, until you look at the performance schedule.
Francis books something like 200 shows per year into this great
little venue, packing as many as 300 people into the room.
I have no idea what 'sold out' means in numbers there, but we
were definitely sold out! The audience was fantastic - as
enthusiastic as it gets, singing along, but listening quietly
when it was time for that. Another one of those shows
where nobody wants it to end. (But when we run out of
music, that's all folks!)
