Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Albums I am playing on.....

I was searching the Google alerts, which I have a couple come to me regular-like on the email front, and I saw a blog that devoted itself to long out-of-print Jazz Fusion albums (yes kids, there was vinyl before all of the 1s and 0s...)
There was a post that contained a couple of albums I played on, so I got to thinking that I could start a farm of sorts, with the images of albums that are still available, some that aren't, and generally just things that contain my drumming/singing output.

Well, here goes something.... :)

In the early 80's, I played with a guy out of Eugene, OR, keyboardist/composer Dan Siegel, who was on the ground floor of what is now the radio format called Smooth Jazz. He still is going and is playing great music and enhancing other musicians and their endeavours with his expertise.

My output with him consisted of the following albums.....






this is an album that Dan Siegel produced and it contained many great fusion stars of the time, and I got in on a cut of the puzzle!!











I spent 13 years with Jazz keyboardist Tom Grant, over two tours of duty, along with being on 6 of his albums....

TG also is one of the first players in the genre of what is called Smooth Jazz.
He did his share of Mainstream, Fusion, Rock and Roll, amongst other styles.

My output with Tom included these albums...










































































Out of the Tom Grant connection came my association with his guitarist at that time, Dan Balmer, whom I subsequently
recorded 6 albums with and continue to play music with him to this day.























































A recording session in the best spirit of how they used to do it....
One or two takes of a song, then move on.
Jan Celt's Flying Heart label cranked out this session in a two day period, featuring some great Portland musicians (the house band included myself, Randy Monroe, Janice Scroggins, Albert Reda) and performers (Lily Wilde, Mel Soloman, Chris Newman, Rich Halley, Johnnie Ward and others), all concerned doing it "live and off the floor" with little, or no rehearsal.


A very exciting experience, and one I hope you will search out to enjoy.





Eddie Parente's "Touraco" is one of those albums where we caught "lightning in a jar", so to speak. All of the players, arrangers, engineers were on the same page to produce one of the most listenable volumes of jazz in a long while. All being helmed by one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to play ponticello for you : )





Composer, pianist, and lover of counterpoint, Gordon Lee continues to make challenging music for all to consume. I have made a big band album, and a trio album for him, and continue to search the fruits of this association to this day.



Local singer-songwriter Jack McMahon had me in on his session for the "Better Late" album, back in the 80's
This album also featured local stalwarts Denny Bixby, Tod Carver, Tom Grant, Glen Holstrom and others. The news from Jack is this album being re-released in Japan, due to some persistence from some fans over there. I still haven't gotten my copy of the new release, but I do have vinyl.



I have an album in my head, and already have the cover for it....here goes something!!!!

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