I’m not really sure what to say here. Some great musicians, some terrible ones, one anti-music Warrant-Officer-In-Charge and a second-in-command with some jazz sensibility but not much authority. Example: We practiced Stravinsky’s Berceuse and Finale from the Firebird exactly twice before performing it (the piece contains many complicated counter-rhythms and odd meters which virtually nobody in the band was comfortable with, and the performance was, predictably a disaster. Meanwhile, we spent two months(!) preparing a piece entitled Parade of the Cliches, which our fearless (and clueless) leader agonized over, making sure every corny line, from Shave-and-a-Haircut to the theme from The Andy Griffith Show was absolutely clear and “perfect.”

This was a show band (cocktail drums, piano, sax, singer, tap dancer(!) and electric bass) who needed an electric bass player in 1963. I had never seen an electric bass except on the Ed Sullivan Show, but I knew the notes from playing a tiny bit of guitar, and their music was all root-five two-beat or simple walking lines, so I got the gig. We bought the only electric bass and amp in Biloxi Mississippi and headed East…

When the show band split up, I drove to Miami and decided to sell my bass (after all, I am primarily a keyboardist…) Dropped into Ace Music, Miami’s premiere music store, and told the kid behind the counter that I wanted to sell my bass. “You play that thing?” “Yeah, I didn’t steal it…” As it happened, his band needed a bass player, and I started playing with a group that had no name other than that of the bandleader, Jamaican dread-locked guitarist, Bobby Waters, who occasionally used the Island Hoppers name when asked. Here I met baritone saxophonist Bob Dingwald, who introduced me to raga and the music of Ravi Shankar, and pulled me through several moves and changes in my life (all the way from Miami to Hartford…)

Bob got the two of us a gig with Sam and Dave, who had just changed from a trio to a duo and were going on a tour of North Florida to release their new song, “Got A Thang Goin On.” (At least that was how we were told it was spelled and pronounced, the record company apparently corrected the grammar.) We played several showrooms. The band was killing, the singing powerful and moving – but this was 1963 and North Florida was not comfortable with mixed-race bands. Sam and Dave regrouped, went back out and became the masters of soul you know, Bob and I soldiered on, pushing da funk…

I was also doing pick-up work as I could – l actually played a week at a “dime-a-dance” club featuring women in their sixties hustling men in their eighties. But I landed a gig at the Double-Decker, an upscale circular bar sporting two levels, with the piano, bass and drums in the center on a pedestal.

The back room was the showroom, and only open weekends. There was this B3 just – sitting there, so on my breaks, I’d go back and re-acquaint myself with it. Just in time for…

Next, Bob got us a gig at one of the hottest of Miami’s black night clubs. The front room featured a magnificent pianist, Noel Cruz (if memory serves). Wonderful, short, heavyset, a Buddha sitting at the piano playing truths. World-famous pianists would drop by to listen (I once got in a gentle argument with some patron about the use of major sevenths in jazz – who I later found out to be Tommy Flanagan. My apologies, Mr. F, I was really young and dumb. At least I’m no longer so young…) Meanwhile, the 9-piece show band burned in the back, as I played my first gig on organ, getting the dancers going and playing behind second-line acts like Chuck Jackson.

(I’ve left out a large part of getting to Hartford,all that matters is the couple months I spent in the organ bars in D.C., learning to play bass lines.
In Hartford, I landed a gig with this great soul band the Nite Riders. One of their hits we played nightly was Chicken Backs. The club was called the Rock-a-Bye Club (Thank you, Ray Steiner, for reminding me…) Melvin played drums (but told me he used to play bari sax,) Doc Starkes on bass, and occasionally, Howard Hill on guitar. A great gig, and a great time in my life.

This was my true school of organ jazz. Spider was a Lionel Hampton alumnus, and his drummer, “Tombstone” was a rock-solid rhythm machine that taught me how to NOT play organ bass. To complete (or at least augment) my education, Jimmy McGriff would come sit in whenever he was in town…
We played Hartford, New Haven, Springfield and Boston, and were in rotation with some heavy players – Johnny “Hammond” Smith, Brother Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff were the competition. We backed Etta Jones (“Don’t Go To Strangers”) and traveling dance troupes as part of our time at Springfield’s Famous Door, and were regulars in Boston’s infamous “combat zone”, playing the Big M and a lounge known only as “Candy’s Place,” a semi-exclusive room behind the workingman’s bar on the corner of Mass Ave. and Boylston St.

When I joined Danny, we started by playing Club Les Gals, a 24-hour, 7-day strip club in Baltimore, but wound up in a local organ room playing some very fun jazz and soul. Shirley Scott’s brother on sax; a great audience and great music! This is where I wrote Big Greasy Elephant known at the time as Ye Olde Eleven.

When I decided to leave Baltimore and study sarod, I needed to supplement my income in order to make the move (and haul a Hammond from Baltimore to San Francisco.) I took a gig with a terrible band, name mercifully forgotten. Their style was the East Coast’s answer to Louis Prima and the Vegas Shuffle. After the first set at this gig, the club owner came rushing up to me, almost unintelligible in his praise – greatest organist he ever heard, I was even better than (at this point, I expect the usual – and incorrect – comparisons to Jimmy Smith) – better than Richie Varola! (Who?) The organist with – Andy Angelucci! Like I was supposed to know the name. OK, whatever…

So off I went to San Francisco, checked into a cheap hotel to figure out my next move. The third day in San Fran, I get a call – from Andy Angelucci! Richie Varola was leaving to join Sam Butera and The Witnesses and he wanted me to replace him. I said no thanks, I was here to study sarod, but how in hell did he know where I was? (Italian-owned hotel…)

I moved to San Francisco in 1968 to study sarod with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. This was undoubtedly the deepest, most meaningful course of study in my life. For the first time ever, I actually practiced at least four hours a day, usually more. But the demands of the music meant, to me, that I not play “Western” music while trying to assimilate a vastly different way of experiencing and playing. So I stopped playing keyboards and listening to American music entirely during this time. When I eventually came to the conclusion that I could not find a day gig I could stand, I reluctantly left the school and went back to the jazz and R&B I loved. But I still consider Hindustani Classical Raga the highest form of music that we, as a species, have evolved.

“Recovering” from raga, I met Bert and dove back into serious jazz. The next phase of my journey began here. Bert, until his passing in 2013, was a very accomplished saxophonist, capable of quoting long excerpts from Coltrane and Dolphy solos (or Sonny Rollins, etc.) and his love of the music helped drive me back to jazz.
I met Bert in Berkeley and hooked back up with him in Big Sur. We wound up sharing a cabin in the canyons and a band in the making.
Bert’s recent passing has left a huge void in the avant-garde jazz world, his contributions are well-noted. To appreciate this incredible talent, I refer you to the Bert Wilson Teaser wherein Bert explains and demonstrates his multi-phonics concepts.

Sonny was (and is) a major force in avant-garde jazz, an incredibly inventive and original musician. I met him at a jam session at Bert Wilson’s apartment, and within five minutes, he had explored the limits of my hearing and execution (just started playing on a C scale, as soon as I played a C chord, he jumped to F – I followed, he jumped again, to a more complex harmony, and this continued till I could no longer follow…)
Playing with Sonny consistently has proven to be the most challenging experience in my musical career (performing for Ali Akbar Khan was a cakewalk in comparison…)

Zitro (as in Zytron) introduced me to Nez, who subsequently invited me to play on a number of tracks, mostly synth bass. He called on the Zytron gang for several projects. Enormous fun, and like other masters, zero wasted time. “C’mon, guys, I’m getting bored,” and this time is the keeper…

The Zytron band was the culmination of my explorations of odd meters, classical raga, “outside” jazz and free improvisation. We all were listening heavily to Coltrane, Weather Report, electric Miles and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. We played party gigs in Big Sur where perhaps the only people that could dance to our songs – written in meters ranging from 5/4 to 22/8, including 8½/4 – boogied the night away.

This was the most intuitive band I ever played with. The band was put together by the bassist, Ed Williams, to perform music he had written for a play, “Us, the Rest of Us.” The play closed opening night, but the band, from the very first rehearsal, found enormous common ground that soon grew to a mature, signature sound. At one point, we pretty much owned the mid-peninsula jazz and fusion market, with everyone from hippies in VW buses to pre-dot-com moguls in their Mercedes XL’s showing up to party the night away…

Errol Knowles, the vocalist with the Courtial band, was a cousin of Victor Pontoja, Willie Bobo’s conguero. So when Willie heard the first Courtial record, he wanted the band for his next tour. Errol and I accepted the offer, and what followed was a raft of my favorite musical memories – playing with Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody and Sonny Stitt, being privileged to perform at major world music venues – Carnegie Hall, the Northsea Festival, Montreaux, etc. Never to be forgotten.

The Roger Eddy Band pretty much owned the adult (non-rock) club scene in Monterey in the 80’s. At the Fog Bank, where we played nights until 1:30, there would be lines waiting to get in at 1:00! Original material, great grooves and a fun band.

I put together this quartet for a gig at a local watering hole. Not much to say except we had a great time, the music was smooth and fun, and the diners dug it. The recording was done live on a quiet night.

Local big band, Bo wrote the arrangements – scaled-down versions of full big band for smaller groups. He pulled together some of the best players in the area, so the usual scenario was that the rehearsals would just suck, but the gigs would come off great…

The second bassist from the Zytron band, Steve Vasconcello, put together a band with some of the greatest fusion players – Ndugu Chancler, Jerry Goodman – and recorded a number of my tunes from the Zytron days.

The Lodge at Pebble Beach was the beginning of this “dynamic duo” that was quite popular on the hotel circuit.

I performed there for ten years Monday thru Thursday, 5-8PM. Solo piano with backing tracks, so the net result was a one-man trio. Covid shut us down.