This has been an incredibly interesting and rewarding journey. It started in Las Vegas, where I lived for a few years, writing and playing various venues and shows, and working on my own tunes as well. I’d spent a lot of years playing "'high n’ loud" trumpet, which is rewarding in it’s own way, but now I wanted to do something more "personal", and with the flugelhorn, and muted trumpet. With the help of my good friends there, who were so generous with their time and encouragement, I was able to get some tunes into “demo” form.
Then one evening I was over at Lynn and Richard Smith’s house in Los
Angeles enjoying the wonderful pasta dinner they’d cooked and we
listened to a few of the tunes I’d been working on. Somewhere during
the second bottle of wine, Richard said “this is good stuff (I assumed
he meant the music) and you should do an album.” And so the process
started in earnest.
Richard got with Dave Kochanski and they worked and re-worked four of
the tunes and then I recorded the flugelhorn and trumpet parts with Gil
Kaupp at UNLV studios in Las Vegas.
Gil is a fine recording engineer and an excellent trumpet player
himself, and so I got both his engineering prowess and trumpet
perspective.
Along the way, Richard introduced me to Steve Trovato, guitarist
extrordinaire , and a new dimension appeared. I still had more tunes to
do for the album and Steve helped immensely, not only with his great
playing, but also with cool ideas and approaches.
Then Steve introduced me to Per Kjeller (the Great Swede) and his
studio and things took another turn. Not only is Per a fine Pro Tools
engineer, but he’s also a very musical guy. His contributions went far
beyond “knob turning”. And the drum parts he programmed on some of the
tunes (see CREDITS) are some of the most musical ever.
When the tunes were all recorded, I took them to Dick McIlvery,
mix-master, for his special blending of all we’d done. And when that
was done, he sent me to Scott Sedillo, who works at the legendary
Bernie Grundman studios, for his great mastering chops.
And still, the journey continues..............and you know
what?..........
"Never in my life have I enjoyed more, and felt such a close personal relationship with, MUSIC than today."
