I have a bunch of stuff going on right now. As I mentioned in another article, the software biz has been kind of slow since a) the tech bubble burst and b) the economy crashed. I managed to program my way through the first, but the second kind of resulted in my ending up with much more time on my hands than I'd had in quite a while. Luckily it concided with a lot of really interesting musical things that came into my life right that time, the first thing being the release of my first CD FUNKMEISTER. The second was that I met Stevie Jackson, a wonderful drummer / vocalist who in turn connected me with the "legendary" Ike Woods and his wife Val, who together run a high energy R&B revue out of Miami here, and they were looking for a keyboard player, so I've joined forces with them, and it's been wonderful. This band really really smokes and I am proud to be a part of it. There are some live performances available with me & Ike and Val and Stevie in the video clip section of this website.

We also have with us an amazing bass player, Mr Jimmie Lee Moore, who was bassist and guitarist for James Brown (the Godfather of Soul) for twenty years. He is an amazing talent and has a story to tell. We've been setting up a new website for him over at www.stringpuller.com so you can check him out there, including videos featuring Jimmie live in concert with James Brown.

I'm also very pleased with a new album I've been working on for over a year. This will be my second release under my record label Funkatology Records. The artist is Jesse Jones Jr. who is a real gift to jazz lovers all over the world. He's loved everywhere, and his latest self-produced, main-stream jazz album called "The So Then Collection" did very well in jazz radio this year. I've worked with Jesse for twenty years now myself and I had this idea to produce him in a more funk-dance type of setting, and that idea has come to fruition in this new record. I'm contemplating a January release for this new album, tentatively titled "Father of Scat Hop". We have a few things online you can listen to over at www.scathop.com, but rest assured, the stuff that will really knock your socks off has not even been put out for public consumption yet. But folks this guy Jesse sings, scats, blows, funks, jives, whistles, does just about everything but the kitchen sink on this album, in extremely tasty style, every riff -- and in combination with my produced grooves, well, I think we have a real winner here, and also extremely unique. So stay tuned!

 Oh one more thing before I click the "post" button -- last week when Barack Obama was on the David Letterman Show, I'm pretty sure that was Dave Mann sitting in on saxophone. Dave played in Picante band with me back in the eighties.