New Jersey Stage Issue 59 | Page 41

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 INDEX NEXT ARTICLE 41