Ray's Way

It took a long time from start to completion of my debut CD Ray's Way. The first of three sessions was back in 2003 with Mike and Ned. We recorded Oscar Pettiford's "Blues in the closet" and "Wing and a prayer".

I starting getting busy with KJ Denhert and other projects as a sideman and the tapes or hard drive collected a little dust for a while until I got some more time to devote to another session in 2007.

I loved how Ned played and how we hooked up and wanted to use Ned again but unfortunately by this time Ned had developed a degenerative condition of the muscles in his right arm and was not playing his bass anymore. I think he sold his upright to Rufus Reid and bought more gear upgrading his studio. I recommended Ned to KJ Denhert when she was looking for a place to record "Girl like me"and she ended up working with Ned engineering and producing the project.

Ned did a great job on KJ's "Girl like me" CD and that's one of my favorite CD's of hers.
 

 I needed to get another bassist so I asked Mike what bassist he likes playing with and he said "Hey man Francois Moutin is the cat".

I asked long time friend saxophonist Dave Binney to join the session as well.

We recorded two tunes that day "Bait tone blues" and "You never know" for the record.

 "The last session"

I met Joe Locke in Italy at the Perugia Jazz Festival one summer.

We had an instant rapport and when I heard him play I knew I wanted his vibes on the record with an electric sounding guitar to keep it in the contemporary feel.

I mentioned that I was in the process of finishing up my CD and asked him if he was interested in being a part of it.  Joe expressed interest in being a part of it and so it was.

I asked friend Adam Nussbaum if he thought that Abercrombie would be into it and after listening to the tracks said"Yea man call him he'll be into it". 
"More soon"