Before and during Secret
Sound, you have been a jazz gui-
tarist. Do you still play solo jazz?
I feel like I’m always playing jazz!
I’ve had a regular Sunday gig in
Red Bank at Siam Garden playing
solo guitar where I play standards
and original jazz music I’ve written.
That gig has maintained a close
connection for me to the music of
Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, Miles
and Wayne Shorter, who is from
Newark originally.
Secret Sound was the first real
band I was in actually! Before re-
leasing my jazz album, ‘Tolerance,’
I worked with organist Radam
Schwartz and was a member of
the house band at the Tuesday
Jazz Jam at Crossroads in Gar-
wood. I learned more playing
every week with much older mu-
sicians, especially drummer Don
Williams, who played with every
major jazz organist from Jimmy
Smith to Jimmy McGriff. He and
Radam passively and actively
taught me the feeling of the music
and the swing groove became just
a part of my psyche.
Watch Secret Sound perform “Half Ton Man”
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 59
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