E. Doctor Smith's Blog

Last weekend at San Jose's Jazz Festival, I saw the amazing bassists, Marcus Miller and the legendary Abraham Laboriel take the stage. This Saturday night, during Berkeley's Downtown Jazz Festival at the Capoiera Arts Cafe, I will see another one of those extraordinary bass players, the phenomenal Kai Eckhardt and his new "Area 61" ensemble. Eckhardt is widely considered to be one of the most influential electric bassists alive today, and is best known for his work with the John Mc Laughlin Trio, Indian percussion sensation Trilok Gurtu, and the band Garaj Mahal. Unbelievably, Eckhardt's musical career spans almost 3 decades. Eckhardt has performed an average of 100 shows a year internationally since he graduated Berklee College of Music in 1987. Highlights include engagements with: Billy Cobham, Stanley Clarke, Wayne Shorter, Patrice Rushen, Dewey Redman and Donald Byrd. Locally Eckhardt was a member of San Franciscos's Alphabet Soup, appeared wit...

This weekend, I'll be among the thousands of fans at the 2006 San Jose Jazz Festival, which opened last night on Santana Row, and runs through August 20th. The Festival promises to pay respect to the genre’s deep roots in New Orleans with a full line-up of superstars, including the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Sonny Landreth, and more. Some of my personal favorites, reknown bassist Marcus Miller, and drummer Will Kennedy of the Yellowjackets fame, will also appear. The Festival will take place on nine stages, each dedicated to a flavor of jazz: Blues, Latin, Salsa, Big Band, Youth and Straight Ahead. “The Jazz Festival is our biggest fundraiser of the year, which helps serve more than 8,000 school children through our music and education programs,” said Geoff Roach, executive director of the San Jose Jazz Society. “So many jazz fans live in the Bay Area and nostalgia for New Orleans is particularly strong this year, given the turmoil experienced in the region. We want ...

My first trip to London was in 1977, during the Queen's "Silver Jubilee". During that visit, I was able to catch many of my favorite European musicians of the day, Genesis, Gong, Jean Luc Ponty, and the incredible drummer Bill Bruford. In those days, the BBC also produced the critically acclaimed "Rock Goes to College" series, at Oxford's Polytechnic Institute. Now, some 30 years later, comes the release of one of the best of those concerts, a Special Edition copy of the brand-new Winterfold Records DVD, "Bruford : Rock Goes To College." This classic 42 minute all-regions concert DVD was filmed at Oxford Polytechnic March 7th 1979. The band only made two appearances in its short life, both on national UK TV shows, with this being the second of the two. It was a groundbreaking electric rock group four of whose members- Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Berlin, Annette Peacock and Bill Bruford- already possessed or went on to develop, individual voi...