Here are a couple clips taken from the road on the first night of my east coast jaunt with Graham Reynolds and Utah Hamrick. By the way, what is it with me and bassists with formidable names? John Houston Farmer, Utah Hamrick, Chris Black, all dudes you kinda feel obligated to state their entire name when you greet them.. Anyway, Utah’s uncle was kind enough to shoot some footage that I finally managed to pull from a DVD, not quite preserving the integrity in the process, but still managing to squeeze out a few good tracks all the same. So I present to you, in order of performance, Duke Ellington’s classics, “It Don’t Mean A Thing, Blue Pepper,” and “Caravan,” in all their raging glory. Thanks to the small-but-enthusiastic crowd at Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville PA who not only tolerated our bombastic stage volume and Graham’s affinity for Julia Child’s cat magnets, but answered in kind with ear-splitting applause and endless gratitude. Also props to the horn players who were Philly cats that we’d never actually physically MET before. In fact, the sax player had only been emailed the sheet music days before, and the trumpet player at last-minute, swooped in to fill in for the original trombonist, whose wife had quite unexpectedly gone into labor a couple weeks ahead of schedule and, understandably so, couldn’t make the gig. Solid professionals. We would actually rejoin forces with the sax player and the original trombonist days later when we circled back to play Philly. Footage of that show to come..
Enjoy! And if you DO like what you hear, please stroll over to your friendly Amazon or iTunes and pick up Graham Reynolds and Golden Arm Trio’s “DUKE! Three Portraits of Ellington.” You’ll make your ears happy, bob your head, and possibly freak out the neighbors all at the same time!
Golden Arm Trio – Don\’t Mean A Thing
