Last night at Walter Gentry’s Chicken Wings blues jam at Patrick’s, we had a house full of brass (sax, trumpet and trombone).
In this video, visiting Australian Somerset Barnard is playing guitar and singing a Mojo Webb (another Australian bluesman) tune called Hands Like Mine. The vocal sound quality isn’t that great, but the rest is really good and catches solos from everyone on stage. Along with Somerset is Leonard Lee on guitar, Bert Hammer (visiting from Canada) on drums, Gary Stutts on bass, Steve Lang on harmonica, Chuck Arcilla on sax, Carlos Serrano on trumpet, Phil Lozano on trombone, and also on sax – a 21 year old I’m waiting to get the name of, who was amazing.
If you haven’t been to the annual Gator by the Bay, add it to your list next year. It is a 3-day festival at Spanish Landing Park (across from the airport) with 5 stages of non-stop bands, mostly zydeco but also blues, boogie and some jazz.
This was my first year, and I was impressed by how well the event is organized, the good selection of booth fair, the bands and all the shade options!! I’m always hoping for enough shade at these outdoor events!
Here’s a good video of Annette DaBomb with the Lance Dieckmann Band (Lance on harmonica, Phil Diiorio on guitar, Bob Prater on bass and Becky Russell on drums) performing the Ray Charles cover song, Night Time is the Right Time. Sadly the video got cut off before they finished the song, but Enjoy the 3 1/2 minutes we did get. They sounded great on this stage.
Walter Gentry’s Tuesday night jam was another packed evening on and off the stage. Who ever said blues is boring hasn’t been to a San Diego jam!
Here we have Ray Zvetini playing guitar and singing an Albert King (and later Eric Clapton) cover song Crosscut Saw. With him on stage are Doyle Thomas on guitar, Seth Webster on bass, Lisa Viegas on drums, Tim Sutherland on keyboard, Ray Brown on trumpet and John Brooks on sax.
Some of the musicians switched out and Ray Brown took over the vocals and belted out that great Commodore’s cover song Brick House. Justin Fools joined in on harmonica, Fuzzy Rankins played the keyboard, Matt Taylor was back on drums, and I’m not sure who was playing the other guitar. Seth was still on bass, John was on sax, and I didn’t catch who joined them on trumpet. The sound got a bit loud, so it didn’t pick up too well on my mic.
Earlier that night, Somerset Barnard, visiting from Australia, was performing one of his own tunes Nobody’s Fault. He was joined by Seth Webster on bass guitar, Johnny Vernazza on guitar, Matt Taylor on drums, Ray Brown on trumpet and John Brooks on sax.
This coming weekend is the 3-day Gator by the Bay (Spanish Landing Park – across from the airport on Harbor Drive) event, featuring blues and zydeco music. For more details and the huge lineup of bands, check out www.gatorbythebay.com.
Humphries seems to have shifted its calendar (at least for this month) to blues on Mondays, R&B on Thursdays and open mic R&B/soul/gospel/jazz/blues on Wednesdays. Kona Kai (also on Shelter Island) is undergoing extensive renovations, so there is less blues on the island right now.
Patrick’s Pub is adding more rock to the schedule, which means fewer nights of blues on our calendar. Yet House of Blues seems to be adding more nights of blues, and this week Catherine Denise out of Antonio, TX will be here with her award-winning blues playing.
Speaking of House of Blues… there is no Wednesday night jam this week. But there is the 88.3 Jazz blues jam that night from 6:30-9 at Proud Mary’s (up in Kearney Mesa), which used to be in Little Italy.
LaMonte DeMille is back in town with his Chicago Blues after being away this past year. He was at Humphrey’s Backstage this weekend with his band, which includes many familiar faces in our blues scene (Walter Gentry on sax, Victor Franklin on bass and Ernie Ferrel on trumpet).
I know lots of blues lovers also enjoy jazz, and I’m one of them. While I don’t cover jazz on this site, Whitney Shay is part of our jazzy blues scene downtown, and she kicked off the 88.3 Jazz Summertime series at the Westgate hotel on Friday night. The next event will be on June 6th.
Here’s Whitney and the JazzKats performing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy on the Riviera Terrace of the hotel. Whitey Shay is delightful. Enjoy as I did!
Last night brought in a great crowd and another awesome mix of musicians at the JammingOut at HOB. We just kept the video going as the night got better and better, and we only caught the last 2 hours of the 4 hour jam! Most of these musicians have never played together, and often they don’t even know each other before going up on stage, so it isn’t always clean and smooth. But everyone has a good time!
Local bass player, Shaaron Schuemaker, was singing Sam Cooke’s cover song Bring It On Home to Me in this clip. She was joined by Jaz Jaszewski and Judd Austin on guitars, Steve Douglas on drums and Tom Safreed on harmonica, who was the recent winner of the BLUSD Spring Harpfest two weeks ago. Congrats to Tom!
A member of the audience, Greg Loving from Indianapolis, then got up to join the folks on stage to sing cover song Falsom Prison Blues, to the delight of his other colleagues from out of town and the rest of us. He was great!
New to the jam was Terry Padgett, who came in and sang cover songs Wish I Had a Nickle and Turn On Your Love Light, while playing guitar. He was joined by Shaaron on bass, Nicholas Butterfield on guitar, Dennis Bucko on harmonica, and Bert Hammer (visiting from Canada) on drums.
Then Nicholas took over and sang Bill Wither’s cover song Use Me.
This was followed by Doyle Thomas playing guitar and singing his favorite Stevie Ray Vaughn cover song Pride and Joy. He was joined by Junya Isogawa and Jacinto Castaneda on guitars, Fuzzy Rankins on bass (which is rare to see), and Jay Morris on drums.
And the night ended with Silky Sol (aka: Red Afro Queen) coming to the stage, along with Kevin Cooper on bass, Fuzzy Rankins and Mark Augustin (host of the 88.3 Jazz/blues jam now at Proud Mary’s earlier in the evening) on guitars, and Michael Minor on drums. They performed Jimmy Reed’s cover song Big Boss Man and then Aretha Franklin’s cover song Rock Steady. Unfortunately both videos got cut off at the end, particularly the last video – ran out of memory taking so many videos 😉
Here’s a clip from Walter’s weekly Chicken Wings Jam at Patrick’s Pub. I’m afraid it’s a bit grainy and dark, but it captures Shaaron Schuemaker on bass and singing that great cover song You Got Me Hummin, along with “Harmonica John” Frazer on harp, Johnny Vernazza on guitar (not sure who other guitarist was), Matt Taylor on drums, Tim Sutherland on keyboard, Chuck Arcilla on the sax, and Phil Lozano on trombone.
Every Tuesday night Lafayette Falkquay and his blues band plays at the Gaslamp SpeakEasy. On drums is Billy Wear and on bass is Ronnie Baumslater. This Tuesday he was also joined by harmonica player, Doug Camphuis (who played with Lafayette a number of years ago), doing one of Lafayette’s signature cover songs… Black Cat Bone.
A former drummer also stopped in to play with the band, Frank Alverez, and here he is playing with other friends who came in that night: Fuzzy Rankins on guitar and Ms Silky Sol (Red Afro Queen) as they perform cover song Rock Me Baby.
And later on Ronnie took over the mike to sing Skin Tight. Not exactly blues, but rounded out the evening perfectly.
Summertime jazz is happening again at the Westgate Hotel up on the pool deck, and while this isn’t blues (as a rule), Whitney Shay will be singing there on Friday night before her quartet plays next door later on at the US Grant.
For those of you who love to swing dance to blues… this week we have lots of swinging blues around the downtown. Tuesday night at Humphrey’s and at Henry’s Pub, and Wednesday night at Tio Leo’s.
