As A Sideman

DANA HALL’S ‘BLACK FIRE’ –Dana Hall-drums, Ben Waltzer on piano, Geof Bradfield-saxes and myself on bass.
This group features the music of Andrew Hill. Every Monday at 5:00.

DANA HALL’S ‘SPRING’–Dana on drums, Geof Bradfield on saxes, John Wojciechowski on saxes, myself on bass. The debut record is in the can and will be out soon.

JEFF BAKER ‘PHRASES’ –Jeff is a wonderful singer living and teaching in Portland that wrote a body of songs for this group consisting of Darrell Grant on piano, Brian Blade on drums, Geof Bradfield on sax, Steve Wilson on sax, Jeff Parker on guitar, Marquis Hill on trumpet and myself on bass. We just wrapped up some prelimanry preparation with Darrell and Brian in Portland and should be recording before the end of the year. Stay tuned- this should be a very cool recording.

DAN BRUCE BETA COLLECTIVE—Dan is a wonderful guitarist and composer. We have several performances in the coming months and we’ll be recording Dan’s new music for a cd. The band includes: Dan on guitar, Rob Clearfield on keys, Jon Deitemeyer on drums, Chris Madson on sax, Russ Johnson on trumpet and myself on bass.

GEOF BRADFIELD’S “OUR ROOTS” — Geof is one of my primary collaborators and an amazing composer, saxophonist and band leader. His latest project, ‘Our Roots’ features Geof on sax and writing/arranging, Joel Adams on trombone, Marquis Hill on trumpet and myself on bass. The group just released it’s debut cd and the original concept was born out of a concert that we did in Chicago re-imagining the record:  These Are My Roots: Clifford Jordan plays Leadbelly. Inspired by Jordan’s concept, Geof dug deep into the rich material that Leadbelly left behind in addition to Sun House, Blind Willie Johnson and The Georgia Sea Island Singers. Geof wrote and arranged new material for this configuration of musicians. We have several performances coming up in addition to a follow-up cd to Our Roots cd that will be made possible by a grant from Chamber Music America.

SCOTT HESSE TRIO– This group is led by guitarist Scott Hesse and features Makaya McCraven on drums and myself on bass. This group released its debut cd last year on the Origin label.

CHICAGO YESTET–This is a 13 piece group led by trombonist Joel Adams and features some of Chicago’s finest musicians. Joel does all the writing and arranging for the group and is about to record a third cd.

DARRELL GRANT’S ‘THE TERRITORY’–This is a project led by Portland pianist Darrell Grant and features Brian Blade, Steve Wilson, Joe Loche on vibes, myself on bass and others. Darrell wrote a beautiful suite of music about the history of the Pacific Northwestern Territory. We reordered a performance of a show at Reed College that was released as cd.

DAVE HAWKINS and Clark Sommers–Dave is a singer/songwriter that plays guitar and sings. He is strongly steeped in Americana-Roots with his writing and singing but has his own sound. We released our first record about a year ago. New dates are coming soon.