Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Darrow Fletcher Recordings and Video

What a show! Darrow is a truly unique and inspiring talent. He had so many great tricks up his sleeve for directing the band...he knew the little things like when to choke the guitar strings, how long to make the bass notes last, which voicing to play on the piano, etc, etc All those little things add up in an arrangement. He said he learned a lot from Ray Charles who was his executive producer when Darrow was only 25. He also had a story about Ray when he first signed Darrow to his label...Ray asked him what he wanted as a signing bonus and Darrow asked for a motorcycle to get around LA. Ray agreed and got him the bike, but insisted on doing a test drive first! Everyone watched in horror as Ray took the bike across the parking lot, but somehow Ray had a 6th sense and drove the bike with perfect balance avoiding every obstacle. Apparently Ray *loved* to drive, which gave his manager a heart attack every time (maybe that's why he liked it?).
But of course the highlight was grooving with Darrow and the band on stage...
Some recordings of the show can be found here.


Sunday, January 17, 2010

Darrow Fletcher Dig Deeper Jan 23rd!

It's been way too long of a vacation, but Dig Deeper is back. We'll be playing with Darrow Fletcher on Jan 23 at Southpaw. I'm having a blast learning the stuff and can't wait to play it!