http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkBYyy2zHUs

In these tough economic times, Krasdale is the store-brand you should choose!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGHh3-jiZTg

I recorded "Wet Wool in Rain," at Kenneth Bentley down the street from my house. He was nice enough to record me in exchange for carpentry work. I hung a door in his studio. It was my first serious attempt at recording my new originals. "New Orleans East," was recorded in the dead of winter, last january, at Jason Ewald's home studio. He did the drum programming, which sounds great and the rhythm guitar part. We did it all in one long day. In april I took a trip to Austin, Texas, where I checked out South by Southwest and performed with CJ Vinson. Adam Ahrens, a friend for some fifteen years, invited me down to record and we did a lot of it. "Bad Kids" and "The Roofer" were from this session. "Egypt Land" was a surprise; I haven't even finished writing it when I arrived and by the time I left we had a great version of it on tape. Adam contributes a lot of guitar work to these sessions. The drums and bass come from Austin guys, Eric Przygocki and Bobby Trimble, respectively. The sessions went so well, that we tried it again in August. "Twenty Three Dollars and Twenty Three Cents," and "Losin' Hold," come from the August Session. So now I almost got an album's worth here. I 'd still like add something with a little more saxophone on it, which I'll probably do here in New York with my regular band. Hope you enjoy this stuff, comments are always appreciated.

I've gotten really behind on my music listening the last few years. I guess I hear too much music in the coarse of my gigs and rehearsals and the like. I kept hearing references to bands I was unfamiliar with and finally decided to dedicate a few days to listening. When I discovered Limewire a couple of years ago I had an itch for folk-rock and country and I went about downloading Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and Creedence. I discovered Derek and the Dominoes, who I'd never checked out and I went and listened to all the bands my dad had songs of in his ring binder at home: Kingston Trio, Hoyt Axton, Peter, Paul and Mary...Never found Dave Von Ronk with Limewire and I never found less popular songs by anyone. You won't get a great selection of Professor Longhair on Limewire.

One thing I did not listen to during that listening marathon was modern jazz. I haven't been able to listen to that for years. I just spent too much time with it in college and it felt like work. In addition, I had been neglecting a whole side of my tastes for years and I couldn't go forward with out putting it back in the mix. I needed to listen to Dylan and all that country and folk music and classic rock.

We never listened to rock music in my house. The first thing I remember listening to was Bob Marley. It's one of those flash light memories.I asked dad to put on some rock music and he agrees and strings up a reel to reel of Bob Marley. It was probably Buffalo Soldier. My mother had a reel to reel mix with David Bowie, "changes" and Allen Tousaint, "Workin' in a Coal Mine," that got played a lot. Dad did pretty good with the early eighties, Talking Heads, Third World, Tom Tom Club, Pointer Sisters, and my favorite, The Specials. He had some other tastes that were pretty intense for a kid, all of which grew on me over time, but made me feel a little queasy at first: Phillip Glass, Ravi Shankar too some getting used to. Now I'll rent a movie just for the Glass soundtrack. What he insisted I appreciate was his white import cassette of John Coltrane playing, "My Favorite Things," and I never resented that even though we put that on almost every Sunday over coffee and crosswords from the New York Times.

When my parents separated I gained full access to the record collection for a variety of reasons, less supervision, more and simply having the records and the player right in the living room. the TV was not part of dad's routine. One night dad put on, "Champion Jack Dupree and King Curtis - Live at Montreaux" and I was exhilarated. I started leaping around the apartment in fledgling attempts at dancing and I kept making the record skip after that I played it all the time and I kept hunting through his collection for more like that. I came up with another record pairing a tenor player with a pianist/singer also live at Montreaux Jazz Fest in Switzerland, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, The Swiss Movement." Other favorites included Usef Lateef, Pharaoh Sanders, and Rashaan Roland Kirk. Then I read a Guitar Player article on Jimi Hendrix, which mentioned his Albert King influence. My dad had one record by each, "Jimi Hendrix in the West," and "Albert King - Live Wire Blues Power." I was unprepared for Albert King, after three or four notes I began to cry for joy, I leaned over and cranked the volume dial all the way up, hunkered on the floor and wept for joy.

Remember record clubs. There was an episode of "Leave it to Beaver," where the Beave got himself in a real bind with one. The way they worked, for the uninitiated, was that you picked out ten records, for 1 cent, and, in doing so, obligated yourself to buy several more - I forget how many. Unfortunately, I chose to receive my trove on cassette tape, so there all worthless now. The other downside was that all the records came for their monthly catalogues, which were limited, I you ended up with a lot of "Best ofs" and "Greatest Hits." Nevertheless, I educated myself on Chicago Blues Players such as, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker as well as classic albums by the likes of Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, more Coltrane and samples of Charlie Christian, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins.

Music School at The Univ. of New Orleans probably warrants its own blog, but my favorite CDs of that period, things that I studied and transcribed included Dexter Gordon live in Amsterdam with Lionel Hampton, Joe Henderson's "Page One," Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins, "Ben Webster meets Oscar Peterson," Lester Young and The Teddy Wilson trio, and Miles Davis "Round Midnight." By now you see that some patterns emerge. I'll point out that Miles Davis is there the whole time and I have a fascination with collaboration. I also like roots music a lot, but I'm not afraid to give something new a chance and a few listens if it's less than catchy. I've skipped the pop stuff way too much along the way, and I have an aversion to trends that I try to get over.

So here I am trying out Pandora: Internet Radio that starts with one artist and finds you similar music. It's perfect for me today. I'm listening to contemporary rock bands, Weezer, Wilco, Dave Matthews (I told I avoid the trends), Morphine, The Strokes. I treated myself to a Tom Waits playlist that included Dylan and Cash, I gave a Mark Turner another chance and I'm glad I did. Type in one of the names on my list and tell me what you think of them.

I was born on the lower east side, of Madison, Wisconsin that is. A town where the hippies won, and colorful murals and rusting VW Microbuses dotted the streets. There were railroads running right down the middle of the street in front of my house, and I liked to walk along them with my dad, past the culvert factory and the power plant, where you could see a giant scoop come down and pick up coal to feed the fires inside. I liked to pick up a piece of coal as we walked or a railroad nail. Dad had a reel-to-reel tape player with bootlegs of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Fela Kuti and he had plenty of records too: Miles Davis, Albert King, Pharoah Sanders, Dylan. Williamson street, at the top of the hill, was the home of the Willy Street Parade each fall. The bubble blowing car was a mainstay of the parade and the best costume was always the butterfy man with giant wings. Everyone was in costume and in the parade though and the streets were lined with bands and drum circles and karate demonstrations.

From this bohemian enclave, I ventured out. I saved up money, worked at a fast food restaurant and took myself to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival when I was seventeen. After that it was all over. I moved there as soon as I could. Earned a degree in Music as the University of New Orleans, where Ellis Marsalis held court, and headed out on the road with a jam band called, Idletime. It was grassroots. We made our own flyers and slept on couches across the country, eatin' sandwiches in the van and booking gigs ourselves. Before the dot-com bubbles burst, and the towers fell, and we ran way behind on bills, I saw the whole country. California, Colorado, and every town with a stage in The South. New Orleans was running out of steam, but I wanted to take another look before I moved on. I got a job doing renovations and repairs in a section eight complex, where I made lots of friends, heard lots of stories and had lots of tools and even a pick-up truck. I found my way back to Frenchmen Street and started sittin' in with everybody, especially old time jazz musicians. Picked up gigs with Blake Amos, and Tondrae, and Warren Battiste and put together my own jazz band do originals and my favorite standards.

New York was calling. Nikki was already up there dancing with The Dance Theatre of Harlem and everybody was moving on. Blake was up there too and my old buddy Moses was living in Brooklyn. The City put me in my place fast. I found myself starving and playing on the subway platform for tips. Gradually, I got better and met more musicians and things started to happen, and I caught my breath, and then I began to reflect and to write.