E. Doctor Smith's Blog

Over the last few decades, there have been a few notable jazz-rock duos featuring piano/synthesizer and drums; Weather Report's Joe Zawinul and Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu's "Orient Express"; Drummer Bill Bruford's duets with Patrick Moraz, and later Michiel Bortslap, (Bruford would also record and perform simultaneously with six pianists in Colin Riley's Piano Circus!); Happy the Man and Camel's Kit Watkins and Coco Roussel; Marco Benevento and Joe Russo, to name but a few. Following in their footsteps comes "Mehliana", featuring keyboardist Brad Mehldau; a fabulous player well known by fans of guitarist Pat Metheny, and drummer Mark Guiliana, who like Russo and drumming legend David Van Tiegham before them, hails from NYC's cauldron of forward thinking percussionists. Mehldau comes to the SF Jazz Center for four nights of music, each one unique; a sold out piano solo show on Thursday, a duet with Kevin Hays on Friday, with Guiliana on...

One of the most moving concerts I ever attended, was on the Saturday following the tragic events of 9-11. Living in DC at the time, and still in a state of shock, we traveled to Henlopen State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to see Richie Havens. Rather than cancel, Havens had decided to perform and before the show began, he passionately recounted watching the events unfold from his NJ home, directly across the river from Manhattan. As we were all still trying to make sense of it all, Richie's music was suddenly a moving, and reaffirming measure of the power that music, and Havens himself, have to heal. Havens' website stated, "Beloved folk icon Richie Havens died Monday morning in his home from a sudden heart attack. He was 72. Havens first became part of musical history during his impromptu opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Best known for his distinctive intense, rhythmic guitar style and soulful covers of pop and folk songs, Havens toured and recorded...

Bassist, trumpeter, and composer Les July, has released his latest CD,"The Adventures of LJ Horn:, which is "dedicated to the continuation of the music Miles Davis was making in his latter years, where his trumpet was featured in different genres of music." According to July, "22 years is a long time NOT to play an instrument". but that is exactly how long it had been before July decided to return to the instrument he started playing when he was 5 years old. Getting braces at 13 made the trumpet a very difficult instrument to play so July switched to the bass and the guitar. Eventually he began making a living as a bassist, and started working with artists of all genres from Nile Rodgers to k.d. Lang to Dr. Dre to Slash. In 1991, July was close to auditioning for Miles Davis. Unfortunately, Miles died before that ever happened and that is the main reason this record came to exist. A few years ago, Vince Wilburn, Miles nephew & drummer, invited July to a cer...

Yesterday, the music world lost another great keyboardist, Donald Blackman. My earliest recollections of Blackman came during his tours with jazz drummer, Lenny White.  In 1978, I saw Blackman during White's legendary "Astral Pirates" tour, at the now-defunct, Cellar Door, in Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown. Blackman was simply amazing; a soulful singer; a fabulous organist and killer keyboardist; he clearly had a soulful style that was all his own; not an easy task in those days, especially in an era that included electric keyboard wizards like Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, George Duke and Herbie Hancock. Two years later, my friends and I waited outside another, now-gone D.C. club, the Bayou; this time to see Lenny White's "Streamline" tour. As fate would have it, there was also a sudden snow storm that night. As the line grew and the snow fell, the upstairs window opened and out popped Lenny and then Blackman who said. "Why don't ya'll come insi...

Last year, I had the good fortune to have the talented Nora Maki fill in as the keyboardist in my Unidentified Flying Quartet . Nora was great and as it turned out, was eager to venture into the world of the piano and drum "duos" with me. Nora came from a classical and straight ahead background, but was quite familiar with the electric worlds of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and more recently, Hiromi. Together, we looked at the great Joe Zawinul and Trilok Gurtu duo; the Bill Bruford duos with Patrick Moraz and later, Michiel Bosrtlap; finally, and most recently, the Marco Benevento and Joe Russo Duo. Each had a style all it's own, a character and an unmistakable identity. My last musical outings were ironically, also borne from duos; first with 7 string bassist Edo Castro was amazing with his loops, Ebow and bass synth; and earlier, with my long-time keyboardist Seth Elgart, sadly an inconvenient three thousand miles away in NYC with his collection of every synthesizer kn...