Hazel (feat. Snowy White)

#101 in The Need To Know Badass Blues Instrumentals Series, brings it back to the Blues with, Hazel, featuring Pink Floyd and Roger Waters sideman, Snowy White, on the electric guitar. Originally from the Isle of Wight, then cutting his teeth in Stockholm, Snowy arrived on the London scene in 1970. He quickly became one of London's a-list session players. which lead to the meeting and life long friendship with Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green (RIP). (Snowy appears on Green's 1979 album, In The Skies). In 1977, Snowy was tapped as second guitarist to David Gilmour for Pink Floyd's Animals' tour. Immediately after the Animals tour, Snowy replaced Gary Moore in Thin Lizzy, co-writing and playing on their Chinatown and Renegade albums. In 1982 Roger Waters invited Snowy back out on the road for The Wall tour and that became a career-spanning gig, ending only when Snowy retired from touring in 2019. This track, in my mind at least, is a sort of tip of the hat to Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and Snowy, being a master English Blues guitarist and friend of Greens, completely nails it. Enjoy!

The backing band on this track is Oakland Born/Nashville residing, Derrek Phillips, (Robben Ford, Charlie Hunter) on drums, and myself on rhythm guitar and bass. The track was recorded at NTA, San Bruno, CA, The Phamily Room, Nashville TN & Snowy's Place in the UK. Mixing and Mastering duties performed by the Grand Wizard of Greaseland, Christoffer "Kid" Andersen.

Samsara (feat. Gary Bartz)

This is a pretty serious milestone for Brian and me. It is the 100th release in The Need To Know Badass Blues Instrumentals Series. Making it even more special is the artist that we've chosen to feature on this track, Samsara. Those of you that know me well, know that one of my top ten, maybe even top 5 records is Miles Davis' Live Evil. The sax player on that record is Gary Bartz. On a crazy whim, I took a shot and reached out to Gary via Facebook, and much to my surprise he not only got back to me but he agreed to play on a track! I can not express how excited and grateful I am about this. I was raving about Gary's harmonic sense to a good buddy of mine and he sarcastically reminded me, "ah yeah, he played with MILES!!!" 

Okay, a little bit about Gary...Born in Baltimore, schooled at Julliard, played with Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and was a member of Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop AND Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers all BEFORE he played with Miles. There is no resting on his laurels though, Gary has made at least 30 albums as a leader and even more as a sideman with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Kenny Burrell, Woody Shaw, Phyllis Hyman, Norman Connors, Jackie McLean and a whole Wikipedia page more. In 2015, Gary was presented with the BNY Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award, which was presented at a special ceremony at The Kennedy Center. Gary continues to tour the world performing, recording, and teaching. He is a Professor of Jazz Saxophone at Oberlin College. Gary lives in Oakland and I'm in SF, so in a post-plague world, it shouldn't be too hard to make some more music together. Dreams have already come true. Enjoy!

The backing band on this track is Oakland Born/Nashville residing, funky AF, Derrek Phillips, (Gloria Gaynor, Robben Ford, Charlie Hunter) on drums, and myself on rhythm guitar and bass. The track was recorded at NTA, San Bruno, CA, The Phamily Room, Nashville TN & Gary's House, Oakland CA. Prodigiously mixed and mastered by the Grammy-winning and extremely good-humored, Matt Winegar (Primus, Fantastic Negrito).