Blue Note Blog
Watts Riots +1
To me Henry Franklin is so great. We played together with the Afro-Blues Quintet + One on numerous occasions. Bill Henderson was on piano. We played @ a place down on MLK Blvd called Memory Lane. It was exhilarating for me because we were playing to a crowd who really understood the music and loved it. I felt like it was the really big time. Then the Watts Riots happened. I lived in Altadena at the time and my lifelong friend Jack Foulkes (who was the horn player in the AFBQ) lived in Pasadena. Jack had a beautiful little Porsche. He...
read moreOn Time @ That Time
In Lucky Week #3The JFS heard from the most gifted percussionist in all the land, Ms. Bobbye Hall. She grew up in Detroit listening to Sunday Sermons from CL Franklin and played cungas on Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues before she had a drivers license. She was raised by MoTown (George Bohanon) and the original funk brothers and then saw her career explode when Bill Cosby asked her to open for him in Vegas. Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Creative Source, Lynard Skynard (Tuesdays Gone) Bill Withers, Smokey....
read moreJFS #161 Dead Air 4-20-14
* Live radio broadcast from 91.3 FM, KXCI, Tucson, AZ. Listen to an excerpt of Dead Air: Dead Air To become a member of the Jake Feinberg Show and gain instant access to the full interview...
read moreTurn, Turn, Turn…
As I turn 36 years old it is apparent that I have found my voice. This was a relatively slow growing process that continues and will for years to come. Finding my voice has put me in some unscrupulous positions along the way And I can say with certainty that I played a role in getting into those positions. Now Im rolling, going across America highlighting the jazz, blues, soul and country musicians who played and learned under Monk, Mingus, Sam Cooke, Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters. The names stretch from Mike Longo to Mike...
read moreThe Last Jazzers
How do you create a time capsule? The short answer is - you can't. But for Romantics like me there is a way. Except that "way" hibernated for a long time. My appreciation for configurations, role players, and unsung heroes stemmed from my love of sports. When I was a kid I would cut out boxscores from west coast basketball games and tape them into a scrap book. I was obsessed with statistics, minutes played, offensive rebounds and the personnel. How they fit together to make a "team." Sure there were the stars but it was the...
read moreReally The Blues … by Amos Garrett
"David Clayton Thomas is an incredible life story. He was a golden gloves fighter and a pretty big boy maybe a light heavyweight. He was abused by his father very badly. He used to beat him with a 2x4 when David was bad. Well once David got to be about 16 all of sudden he was like 180 lbs and had been studying boxing getting really good. One day his father said, "David, you've been bad go down to the basement." So David goes down stairs and his father comes down and David just wasted him. His father had him charged with assault. His...
read moreBig Youth
Grow up big youth. You never get old or young again. You can only live in the moment with brackets and gold plated teeth with a smile from ear to ear. Gimme Some More Big Youth so I can be young again and dream the dream of breathing without thinking while still holding a dialogue with those who carry the stories of our ancestors. Gimme some great Big Youth with a Heartbeat and a weeping Willie tree over in the Villa of Some R Vill where we can work it out and Time Alone Will...
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