Hi Folks... yup it's pretty obvious that this website is all about the aggrandizing of one individual, namely, myself! But don't let that fool you... I'm really not some kind of egocentric, self-centered type, I don't go around spouting stuff about how great I am, that's the purpose of this website -- to share some things with the world. Mainly the musical accomplishments, which have been many, but not as well known as I would have liked them to have been. Therefore, I will toot my own horn on this website, I hope it doesn't offend anyone.
During my 20s and 30s I had a singular obsession, which was to become successful in the music business. And I have been, in many ways. As I've written about before, I had a song I wrote recorded by a major jazz artist on a big record label. I was a desired quantity in studio sessions in and around Detroit, and I did arrangements for several popular tunes on the radio. I worked almost every night as a bass player in some prestigious venues in and around Detroit.
I have rubbed elbows with so many famous people, most of them before they were famous. I knew Madonna in Ann Arbor, and worked with and around her not only at the University where I worked as an accompanyist for her dance classes, but also in a sports bar called Dooley's in Ann Arbor where I was a pizza cook and she was a waitress. I also worked closely on gigs and in the studio with her and her partner Stephen Bray, who wrote several of her hit songs and was a part of the Breakfast Club and recently was hired by Oprah Winfrey to compose the Broadway musical version of The Color Purple. In fact, Steve was born one day after me! (Hey Steve wassup) I also worked locally in bands with Anita Baker at the same time she was the up-and-coming new vocalist in the popular Detroit group Chapter 8. I also was in a jazz fusion group with Luis Resto, who went on to become Eminem's producer. The list goes on... I worked with Shaun Murphy who is Eric Clapton's backup vocalist... I'll never forget my time with veteran saxophonist and recording artist Norma Jean Bell, which included the bonus of working with vocalists Belita Woods and Treaty Womack of the popular band Brainstorm. I worked with some of the cats from Parliament-Funkadelic, including David Lee Chong (Spradley) who wrote Atomic Dog for George Clinton, and Larry Fratangelo who played percussion on One Nation Under a Groove.
I moved from Detroit to Miami in 1982 with a lovely Thai woman, we basically eloped (without getting married). Struggling to stay working in Detroit during the oil crisis in the early eighties, I had gotten word that gigs in South Florida paid -- can you believe it -- $100 per night! (That hasn't changed much over the years). Life in South Florida proved very difficult for a Detroit dude and an Oriental girl kind of right off the boat. So I took her back to her family in Michigan, loaded up the truck, and returned to South Florida on my own. I scuffled around for a while, really lived in survival mode for a year or so, got a lovely latina girlfiend (I eventually married her but the marriage didn't take, sadly.) I tried the real estate biz -- supposedly I am the only person in history ever to get 99% on the state R.E. exam here in Florida. Big Whoop...
Being a real estate agent turned out not to be my bag. Things went a lot better when I stuck to music. I ultimately stumbled upon a gig which changed my life -- the Z-Nix band at Monty Trainer's. Mario Smith, Bob Conde, Larry Hirt, they were the dudes. I had been working as a bass player but just then I'd realised that I'd get more gigs as a keyboard player, and that was what they needed after that New Year's day of 1987 when their previous keyboardist had gotten so drunk that he'd pulled his pants down and mooned the manager of Monty's right onstage. So the word was, get a new keyboard player, or lose the gig. Somehow Mario had gotten my number, and I was able to convince him that I played keyboards, even though my chops were really bad because I'd been playing only bass for years. But they gave me a chance, and they thought I sucked, but they were really shocked after about a month when I turned into one of their all-time favorite keyboardists to work with. Yup, I practiced a lot, but it really was no big deal since I've played piano, with lessons, since I was about three years old. Nowadays they call me "the Doctor" because of my maniacally progressive keyboard stylings.
Anyway, what I had stumbled into was much more than a gig, it was a whole culture, and that culture just opened its arms and welcomed me in, and I'll never stop being thankful for that. I'm talking about Larry, Rob, Mario, Gabriel Vales (who I'd already met during the survival mode days), Jimi and Marty Ruccolo, Dennis Sierra, Ernie Garza, Captain Harry, Joe Collado, Donnetta, Frank Tav, all y'all. Thanks so much for being there. I know I haven't mentioned everyone, I hope to eventually. I really wanted to put so many other names on my CD, there just wasn't room on the liner notes without spending a whole bunch more money. So on the CD I just mentioned people who directly influenced the music and that album.
Through one of Captain Harry's gigs, I ended up getting the house gig at Greenstreet's in Coral Gables, which is a jazz bar and restaurant. My act was called "Hitchcock Presents", and I played the acoustic piano and synthesizers, with Mario Smith on horns. This was right at the time of the first Gulf War. Ultimately that was when I met Jesse Jones Jr., as he was called in to sub for Mario one night, and the result was a lifelong friendship, as Jesse and I are just now finishing up a new album that I am producing on Jesse as artist. Not to forget that Jesse also played on every song on my recently released CD Funkmeister. He's a wonderful artist and I think you will really enjoy the new album we will be putting out shortly as well as my own.
As "Hitchcock Presents", I continued working my way up the gigging ladder here in Miami during the 1990s. I was called for lots of prestigious piano bar solo gigs, as well as many group functions in which I served as bandleader and front vocalist and M.C. In 1993 I landed the house gig at the Biltmore Hotel, a very fancy setup, and kept me working all the time; I also had a very positive experience when I was hired by international rock star Mike Hanopol to produce what turned out to be his comeback album, Buhay Amerika, which sold a lot of copies. Read about it here.
The state of the local musicians' economy is greatly influenced by the overall economic picture, and around that time, it got increasingly difficult to find gigs, especially gigs which I felt allowed me to express the level of hipness which I felt was required for me to enjoy doing music at all. I did continue to do some gigs, I went to Japan as a musical director of a show, I played club dates that I hated, but the truth was, it had become increasingly difficult to make the kind of money I needed to make to support the ridiculous amount credit card debt I had been suckered into by the economic situation. So I made a decision -- this was right when the world wide web had come into existence -- to become a software engineer. I went to school and studied hard. I ended up becoming a seasoned professional software programmer, I even worked at Microsoft on a contract job, my manager told me I was the highest paid contractor in the RedWest building of Microsoft out in Redmond Washington. I loved working at Microsoft! But the siren call of my home, and my wife whom I'd had to leave behind in Miami to take that contract, called me back, So I returned to Miami, and I was able to find plentiful contracts in the programming business, including a lucrative long-term relationship with Camper and Nicholsons, the world's oldest yacht brokerage and construction company, which lasted for 12 years.
Programming is something I still do to this day, and I consider myself somewhat of an expert in web technologies, which serves me well. But since the tech bubble burst and jobs are not as plentiful or lucrative as they had been during the rush to the web, so I'm really not working that gig much anymore. Over the years I've gotten back into the music business, but on my own terms, working when and with whom I choose. I'm very happy to be working with Ike and Val Woods RnB Revue right now, their band provides professional gigs plus a musical culture I can be very proud of being a part of.
And, ultimately the computer expertise has served me very well in my current capacity as sound recording engineer and producer in this modern age of digital music creation (not to mention online promotion at which I'm a whiz!) I've just finished my first CD of tunes I wrote over the course of the years of events I've described in this post. This Cd has served as more of a prototype for CDs that will follow. I think that, while it is very good, it will probably end up being viewed the way a lot of artists' first efforts are viewed. It certainly served as schooling, where I learned how to do things right, and how not to do things wrong. But, all in all, I think the music stands on its own. I know my next effort with Jesse Jones Jr. will knock your socks off. And my second CD is already in the planning stages, so stay tuned. Lord knows I have so much material I've written over the years that needs to be published, I will probably never stop putting out more CDs. And, I'm happy to be able to have opportunities to produce some of the other up and coming artists who contact me daily.
In other news, my long time friend Randy Jacobs, who was the guitar player in the Norma Jean Bell All-stars group, has had a bit of success I'l like to brag about -- his song "Walk the Dinosaur" which he had written for the RnB band Was Not Was, was adopted as the theme song for Disney's huge movie release, Ice Age Three: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Go ahead on Randy! Get down wit yer bad self.
Elisa Sintjago, the Dutch singer who performed on my CD, is on an Asian tour with a band called Oxygen. They're at the Park Hyatt in Beijing until January.
Mike Gould, photographer for my CD and longtime friend and fellow Martian has been invited by Make Magazine with his laser lightshow to showcase at PopTech in Maine in October. This guy is a genius with things that are "scientific and dangerous". Watch for Mike on upcoming releases.
Also, my CD is now available from CD Baby for physical orders. They haven't quite hooked up the digital sales yet, but when they do, the album will be available from ITunes and a bunch of other digital outlets including direct download from CD Baby. I'll keep you posted on that and other news... check back often.
My best to all. PEACE :: RESPECT
H. 9/26/09