Month: <span>February 2005</span>

I went to a jam session on Friday here in Dallas, and I thought I’d share a couple of tunes with you that were recorded there…

First is I’ll Play The Blues For You, by Albert King. It’s not the best take I’ve done, but respectable, and includes a short bass solo by yours truly. The other players are Jimmy Jewell on guitar and Bart Angle on drums. This is one of the two groups of guys I’ve been playing with semi-regularly of late. We’re calling ourselves Trouble in Texas.

The other song is a Jonny Lang tune, Cherry Red Wine, played by myself, Kenny Strauther on drums, and two other guys on guitar, harp and vocals, whose names I unfortunately don’t know. The song itself is a slow minor blues, which I always have lots of fun with. I think it was the best of the ten or eleven songs I played.

In case you’re interested in recording details, I tracked in stereo using two Oktava large diaphragm condenser mic’s, to my PowerBook G4 running Tracktion (from Mackie). For pre-amps and microphone power, I used a Spirit Folio mixer — a hand-me-down (or maybe hand-me-across) from my brother, and which I’ve had kicking around forever and a day. Sooner or later I need to get a portable USB-powered portable pre-amp, but for the moment I’ll have to live with the extra setup time. There’s not much to the mix, since it’s only two channels — I used a tiny bit of reverb to recreate the sense of the space in the room, and some light multi-band compression to even out the sound. Very little tweaking overall.

Maybe I’ll have more music for you later in the weekend, depending on how rehearsal goes with the other band.

Cindy and I went to see Jill Scott tonight at the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie. Man — what a great show. Not only is she an amazingly talented and spirited singer, but her band is one of the tightest around.

Jill’s lyrics are at times funny and uplifting, and at others, brooding and self-conscious. She’s also a story teller as much as a singer, connecting songs together, and pointing out her message of unity, hope and love, rather than just playing her set and looking to impress us with her ability.

I was also especially impressed with the arrangements and the rhythm section’s performance. Tight, tight, tight. Rhythmically and harmonically complex without being over-thought or showy.

Hats off to you all.

(And thanks to Cindy for turning me on to more great music.)