Certainly, there’s a lot of hopefulness going in. I felt like our band was hot, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking that we would necessarily win the event just by showing up. Our version of blues–what I call funky rockin’ blues–may not have been what they were looking for in booze-soaked Memphis. So the trip would be a little excursion to go down and see what was what.



Our band consisted of:

Thornetta Davis, vocals

Brett Lucas, guitar/background vocals

Chuck Bartels, bass

Dave Marcaccio, drums

James “Jamalot” Anderson, percussion

Phil Hale (that’s me), keyboard



James and Thornetta (the happy couple) drove together, and Brett and Chuck rode with Dave. I had to fly in to make the gig. That was interesting in itself.



Normally, I’m very good at gettin to the airport on time, getting through the whole check-in process, getting near the gate, and finding a pub. Well, I got all of that done. I was early enough, not carrying too much baggage, relaxed, and found my pre-flight pub. Problem was, after sitting around drinking beer and running my mouth on the phone, I looked up and had ten minutes to get on the plane…just a few yards away from the National Coney Island I was in. And….I didn’t make it! Sure, the plane was still sitting there, and the ramp was still connected to the door of the plane. But Miss Lady told me that I was too late…period!



I wanted to bitch-slap myself, but I wanted to bitch-slap her first! I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that I had missed that flight. I started sweating, and had feelings of angry nausea at the thought of having to take the tram and walk over to Gate 43A and re-book, hoping to make it out at a decent hour. I’ve had to sleep at an airport overnight before. I was sick.

I was the 2nd person in line. That was the good news. The bad news was the person who was up there being waited on. This guy must’ve been standing up there for a year! My mind was becoming numb waiting for this guy to finish his business. Was the person in front of me going to take that long, too?!! Finally…..finally….that guy moved on. The person in front of me went up, and was pointed down the hall for reasons unknown to me. Now it was my turn. The middle age portly black female took my ridiculous information, scoped a monitor, and matter-of-factly told me….(drum roll, please!)….that a flight would be leaving in just over an hour. YESSSSS!!! I could go standby….or give her $50 for a definite seat. This was the beginning of money flowing out of my pocket for insane reasons. I grabbed the “fiddy”, breathed deep, and headed for my gate. Did I stop at the pub again? Hell, yeah! I had over an hour. I got a tall Sam Adams Boston Lager, and kept my eye on the clock.



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Memphis, Tennessee. Home of Graceland, Staxx Records and the Lorraine Motel. In the time I was there, I never saw either of the three of them. The opportunity was there, but I wasn’t into it. Elvis had already left building at Graceland, nobody stacks records anymore, and I didn’t want to be shot. So I stayed around the downtown area. There was plenty enough to do there.



We stayed three or four blocks north of Beale Street at the Sleep Inn. I roomed with Chuck, who has a lifetime contract to make me bust my gut by way of laughter anytime we’re within an earshot. He’s a joker if there ever was one. I always have to be careful that I don’t end up pulling my face from the underwear in my luggage after falling on the floor laughing so hard at something crazy Chuck may have said. It’s happened before. In the next room was Brett and Dave. Across the hall, the loving couple, James and Thornetta. Ed and Sue Curtis, our good buddies from Detroit, also stayed at The Sleep Inn, helping keep a party rolling whenever possible.

The first night, I hung out with James and Thorn. We rode down to Beale Street to see what it was like. It turned out to be one block of clubs and rib joints sitting side by side on both sides of the street with the removable front windows open, and bands playing in every venue that could hold a band from BB King’s on the corner of 2nd to the Rum Boogie on the corner of 3rd. The corners were blocked off, and you could buy a beer in one club and walk it out the door to any other club on the strip. Very hip!



Blues, blues, blues! If you don’t love blues, don’t come to this town. Maybe it was just the week that we were here. I dunno (although I do have some suspicions). Every club had their dirty blues drawers on. Most of it was what you’d expect from a town that bases itself on old shit like blues and barbecue. James, Thorn and I were casing these clubs, looking for the one where we’d go inside, enjoy the music, and get some food. BB King’s was too crowded. Club 152 had a younger blues band happening, but didn’t look like a place to order food. The Rum Boogie was already crowded in a sardine kind of way. I didn’t want to eat while dodging people’s asses just to get my fork in my mouth.



We ended up one block south around the corner from Beale Street at Morgan Freeman’s blues joint, Ground Zero. They had a good local band with vocalist, Miss Nikki (who’s really from northern Mississippi about 30 miles away). We also had space to relax and order food.

Ribs were the thing that we had been talking about. I don’t eat a lot of pork, so I reserved my pork intake for when we’d all go out together for ribs. After consultations with homies like promoter Matt Lee and guitarist Paul Carey–both of whom were really big on promoting Rendezvous as the place to go–we decided to go to…Neely’s. Chuck and I wanted “wet ribs”. Rendezvous is famous for “dry rub” ribs. I didn’t want a dry rub. I wanted ribs in a kick ass sauce, and to be able to come back to Detroit with that story.



Well, nothing turned out like we planned. Thornetta ordered ribs there at Ground Zero. Okay, fine. Thorn will probably have some more ribs before it’s all said and done. I wanted Neely’s, so I ordered catfish, the “other” Memphis meat. There’s catfish all over Memphis. Everywhere. And this catfish at Ground Zero was very, very good. I was glad I ordered it. Thorn’s ribs looked good, too. But I was saving myself.



We turned in after eating–and even sitting in and playing–at Ground Zero. We partied a bit in the room, then went to bed.

Just to finish up the rib story, we never, as a group, went out to eat ribs. Everyone splintered off one way or another. Chuck totally broke the code, wandering back in the room after a noontime stroll with ribs he’d picked up on Beale Street from Blues City, across from BB King’s. He was even nice enough to save me a few bones for inspection. I ate them, and they were wet ribs, and pretty damn good! The problem with that was that it took away my wet rib fever, leaving me at the mercy of Matt Lee and Paul Carey insisting that I go to Rendezvous, which I did. Alone. Brett told us later that he went to Neely’s. When asked how the ribs were, he said, “They were alright,” in his lazy, southern/northern drawl.



Memphis is very proud of Rendezvous. The front door is really an alley street named after the joint. I entered, went down the stairs, and the place is a world unto itself. It is a cavernous, bricky, woody interior. Everyone working there had an old, traditional, southern charisma about them that made me glad to be there. I ordered a Sam Adams and waited for my slab of dry rub ribs. And, yes, they were delicious. They tasted better when they first came out than toward the end of the meal. There were spices leaping from every bite. The mix of beer and spiced-up ribs was off the hook!



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The setup for the Blues Challenge went something like this: There were ten venues; 10 bands would compete against each other in each venue; the winner of the venue would be a finalist, and the ten finalists would compete for the grand prize on finals night at the Orpheum Theatre.



There was an indoctrination early Thursday at The Holiday Inn Select on Union Street, which is by the Peabody Hotel, which among other things was famous for a duck walk twice-a-day. Like Graceland and the Lorraine Motel, I never made it to see the ducks. We were busy that time of day. A room full of hopeful bands like ourselves gathered to get the necessary info, which included one very important issue: Someone from your band had to be at your club throughout the day until your band went up to play. There were approximate times scheduled for each band, but sometimes people weren’t there, or a group might end early, etc. So every band had to have someone there at all times until you went up and played. If people wanted to leave and wander, someone had to be left behind, and everyone had to keep cell phones in hand in case of scheduling re-arrangements.



Our club ended up being….Alfred’s, located kitty-korner from The Rum Boogie on Beale Street & 3rd. We trucked our equipment over, went back to the hotel, and returned by the start time of 5pm.



Alfred’s was a hip club. I liked the feel of the place. They had a nice stage, and it wasn’t long before catfish was floating across the tables. We settled into a corner table by the front window, got beer and checked our times. We weren’t scheduled to play until almost the end, around 9:30pm. We stuck to the plan: Someone always stayed behind while everyone else wandered around the other clubs. Brett and Chuck took off the see Chris Canas’ Band at The New Daisy Theatre, directly across from The Old Daisy Theatre. (???!!!!) I hung out at Alfred’s, waiting for my good buddy, Jeremy Voas, who I’ve known for a few years during his time as the editor-in-chief for Detroit’s Metro Times magazine before he eventually took off to live in Phoenix, and who I had communicated with on Facebook. He let me know he was coming to town on business, and would be free to hang in the evening. Cool. And, sure enough, Jeremy showed up and we partied for the rest of the time we were out there.



I didn’t get to see all the bands who were playing in our venue because Jeremy and I eventually took off to walk around and see who else was where, and try to get a feel for the whole thing. The bands had two days to compete. All ten bands would perform a set that would last no longer than 25 minutes before points were taken away for going over the scheduled time. Two different groups consisting of 6 judges would choose a who they felt had won on each day, and decide who’d make the finals at the end of the 2nd day.



We watched a good number of bands at our club and other clubs. Most of the bands were traditional blues. But I felt good about our set, which featured all original tunes. Thornetta is one of the top blues singers anywhere. Her voice is full of the history of blues and r&b. Our set was diverse: “I Wanna Sing The Blues” is a rockin’ blues that gets you dancing; “I’d Rather Be Alone” is a slow blues with a strong crescendo that has a cool break-down at the end; “Get Up And Dance Away Your Blues” has a gospel/blues vibe that really does make you get up and dance; “A Whole Lotta Lovin’” has a New Orleans type groove, and is a butt rocker for us. We had to do the same set both days, and when we were up, so were the people in the club. The place was rockin’, the room attendance swelled both days, and some of the other bands felt that we were the front-runners at our club.



We didn’t do a lot after the first night’s performance. I do remember at some point searching for Dyer’s Grill, a place where they cook the burgers in a big iron skillet with grease that is 90-100 years old. Talk about a greasy spoon! The burgers were great! Very tasty. No mayonnaise and all that bullshit. Just a simply made cheeseburger that tastes good.



The second day, we played earlier in the evening around 5:30 – 6:00pm. Once again, the room swelled up, there were video cameras, and the set went really good, I thought. I watched a few more bands before wandering down the street to the New Daisy Theatre to find out who the finalists were. At that point, I caught some of the Chris Canas Band, and they were sounding strong and looked like they were having fun. The Karen Lovely Band was the last act. I liked her a lot, too, and had caught some of her show the day before.

When they were through, the finalists were announced. One band would represent each club, and those finalists would go on to compete the next day at The Orpheum Theatre. They called out the winner from Alfred’s, and it was…..not us! It was a band from Ohio called Mojo Theory. I hadn’t seen them either day, so I wasn’t sure what they sounded like.



To say we were disappointed would be a major understatement. That disappointment found some particularly explosive ways of expressing itself. After leaving the New Daisy, we stood around on the corner trying to figure what to do next. Thornetta mentioned that someone approached her about doing a different blues competition the next day, Saturday. I thought it wasn’t a good idea, and went into a monologue about not doing anything like that. (I likened it to a basketball team that didn’t make the NCAA Tournament entering the lesser NIT Tournament). I was a little buzzed. Chuck and I stopped at the store earlier and bought some double-shot bottles of Jack Daniels. My bottle was empty at that point, and I was a little jacked. After going through my monologue, Brett started talking, and he used words like, “You don’t understand…”, and that set me off! There were were, standing on Beale Street & 3rd, and I started shouting at Brett, blowing up about him telling me that I didn’t understand something, feeling the drunk demons running through my head and out my mouth! It was wild. So much so, in fact, that Thorn ended up telling me that I should be quiet. I was like, “ME??!! I should be quiet??!! Well, FUCK IT THEN!!” And I stormed away from the band, and Ed & Sue Curtis, and Jeremy. I stomped across the street….back to Dyer’s.

Eventually, Chuck, Jeremy and Ed joined me in there. Maybe even Dave. I wasn’t really mad. I was almost laughing to myself about it when I was walking in the door. I just let the moment get the best of me. The burgers helped. We hit a few more clubs, drinking over that old burger grease, and finally turned in.




_____________________



The next morning Chuck told me that there was a nice breakfast restaurant across the street called The Blue Plate. They had a throng of people out the door earlier, but we were able to walk right in by the time I was lucid. The food was pretty good, even though I’m no real fan of breakfast food. Sometimes it works.

We went back to the hotel. We watched TV, and I listened to music on the headphones for awhile.



In the early evening, Chuck and I decided to go the the beer emporium on 2nd & Peabody Place. The place had a sort of German bauhaus layout with an open air area in the front, and an enclosed bar further in. They had taps all over the place, a real beer haven…I mean, heaven. I ordered a kolsch (did I say it right, RJ?), and Chuck grand-fathered me into a new beer. He’s the same guy that turned me on to Stella Artois, so he has carte blanc. That other beer was very good. I still ended up finally ordering a Beck’s Dark, just because they had it. Dave joined us after a while, and he and Chuck ordered food. I wasn’t hungry yet.



Those guys went back to the room, and I wandered around Beale Street before heading over to the Orpheum for the finals. In talking with Thorn earlier, we all agreed to go to the finals and not be sore losers. I was curious about the gist of the winning bands, how the judges chose them, and if there was any consistency. Would they all be traditional blues, or would there be a mix of differences?



The Orpheum Theatre is a very nice place. It has chandeliers, plaster moldings, fancy drapes…a very nice place. It made me appreciate how lavish Detroit’s own Fox Theatre is in comparison. The Orpheum was built in 1928 after the old Orpheum burned down. It has suffered the hard times and ended up refurbished and one of the best theatres south of the Mason-Dixie.



As a performer, we had access badges that got us into anywhere. That held true for the finals, thank goodness. The ticket price for entry was something like $30! I went in, and saw James, Thornetta and the rest of the band shortly thereafter. I went up and struck up a truce with Brett, letting him know that there was no animosity. Then he let me know that I had done all that blowing up for nothing. He said that we weren’t in disagreement, but that I blew up when he used the words “You don’t understand.” He was saying that I didn’t understand that we were already in agreement. So, there!



The place served some horrible little beers that I bought anyway. Jeremy eventually showed up. I got to meet Candye Kane, the blues vocalist and sex activist. Janiva Magness also was there (who I know from the Music Menu days in Detroit, and her ex-guitarist, George Friend). Ed and Sue Curtis showed up, as well as some of the people from the Northern Michigan Blues Society, who sponsored us.



We went inside and got seats to check out the finals. Each group had 20 minutes to perform (before penalty for going overtime), and 10 minutes between acts. The lineup was as follows:



- R&K Brew Co.

- Mojo Theory

- Karen Lovely Band

- Sonny Moorman Band

- Cheryl Renee & Them Bones

- Jesse Green Band

- Jackie Scott & The Housewreckers

- Labron Lazenby & LA3
- Grady Champion

- The Avery Brothers



I liked Cheryl Renee. She had her keyboard set up in the middle of the stage, and gave me a sense of Nina Simone. She was very animated. Jackie Scott & The Housewreckers was a group that sounded different from typical blues. There was a guitar player who was off the hook, but I missed who the group was. Grady Champion sounded like a male version of Koko Taylor, and all of his songs had long grooved out sections. And he ran his time to within ten seconds of going overtime. Karen Lovely also put on a good finals performance.



And the winner was……Grady Champion from Mississippi! The Karen Lovely Band came in 2nd. And Cheryl Renee & Them Bones came 3rd.



I heard that Grady Champion was in the contest last year, but didn’t place. I guess the idea is to keep coming back until you win the thing. I don’t know. The judging situation leaves me a bit skeptical. I never knew who those guys were, and they remained conspicuously invisible in our venue. Were they even music people? I looked up any info about who the judges were, and found nothing. They could just be people from Memphis, pulled off the streets to come in a vote on these acts from 39 states and 13 countries. I dunno. I wasn’t happy about it.

There was another vocalist who I heard was really good out there: CeeCee James. I never got to hear her, but someone was saying that she and Thornetta should have gone head-to-head in the finals. Who knows…




Most of the band left before the end of the show. Jeremy hung around for awhile, then said he was splitting. I knew it was too early for me to turn in. It was only around 11pm. I let everyone take off, and I ventured out the door…and found it was raining cats ‘n dogs out there! I ran like a sprinter over shrubbery, around turnstiles, across the street and into Ground Zero. I thought I’d stop there to eat, but once I sat down I lost interest in hanging out there. I went over to Miss Nikki, who sitting in her spot beside the stage, and said goodbye. She came to our first performance on Thursday. She was really cool. We hugged, I waived at the band, then back in the street. The rain was not so bad by then. I walked up to 3rd, headed north to Beale Street, headed east two buildings….and ended up back at Dyer’s!



I sat at the bar this time. (We sat at the tables previously.) I orderd a double cheeseburger, and actually saw the oversized cast iron skillet brimming with hot, bubbling grease from the early 20th century. They took the meat, flattened it on a board, and plunked it into the hot grease. Yikes! The burger meat was floating around in that grease, and my mind/body finally found out who each other were. Had I seen that prior to that moment, I may have saved my arteries the extra trans-fatty, gunky, greasey burgers that I ordered after the first one. Then they put the cheese on it, and dunked the burger and the cheese in that grease. What the fuck….!



After getting my daily grease infusion, I headed out the door and saw Thornetta standing in front of the Rum Boogie. “They’re having a jam session!” Yippee! That’s what I needed. We sardined our way inside, eventually found some seats under an iron swirling staircase–watch your head when you stand up!–and checked out the music. James eventually strolled in and found a table spot somehow. Candye Kane was at the next table.

It wasn’t too long before Thorn and I were heading to the stage. She belted out “A Little Mixed Up” like she was Bessie Smith, and brought the house down! It was invigorating, and just what the doctor ordered. After watching all those bands and the Orpheum, I just wanted to go somewhere and boogie it up. Where better than the Rum Boogie?! Candye Kane came up and sang next. I stayed up and played a song with her (so I have to add that to my resume).



The night ended with Thorn losing one her precious feathered fans. Someone saw that thing, and it was gone! She was all bummed out walking out the door.



Walking up the street to go to our van, all those clubs seemed to have become what they probably are on most weeks…dance clubs with hip-hoppers. Club 152 had a line of young asses out the door, and those party lights were on. The blues got old fast. So long Memphis. It was nice while it lasted.



phillip j hale
from March 17, 2010

(Reprinted from 2006 article.)

I can’t get comfortable. No, really. There is no “comfort level” in this town. There are veins of musicians here in Detroit. There are veins of music, and veins of the musicians who play those veins of music. It’s amazing how many great musicians there are in different genres of music in this town.

There is the stupendously talented, Geri Allen, who has covered everything from 60′s Miles to playing with Ornette Coleman. I mentioned recently about jazz pianist, Carlos McKinney. He’s one of our top level exports of great, kickass Detroit born and bred musicians, and he is living in New York nowadays because he’s so good that he can go to the Big Apple and thrive rather than merely survive. James Carter, the volcanic voice of Detroit jazz on any sax with a reed, is another Big Apple export. Rod Lumpkin, the high-intensity, phreak-of-nature organist, is another one. But, if I spoke about ALL the musicians playing ALL the instruments, there wouldn’t be enough room in this blurp to say anything.

When I saw Chris Codish the other night at The Buzz, I told him that I could hear a sound in his playing that was cool as hell. Chris preceded me in The Thornetta Davis band, and was responsible for me being in that band. (He needed a scapegoat so he could do his own thing. Chris is one of the most in-demand gig and session players in town. He’s still in his cocky 30s, and he’s a player who, when you look up as a musician and see him on a gig, you can dig into the music and enjoy what’s coming. He’s always well prepared and totally pro. I should be his agent and get 10% of what he makes just for liking his playing this much.

But I’d like to do the same thing with a bunch of guys around this town who are playing my chosen instrument. The legacy of keyboard players here is astounding. Occasionally, you’ll have someone like Eddie Harsh, from the Black Crowes, in town. Wanna record a rock album and get the authentic rock piano and organ sound? Look no further. Al Hill, who is part of Bettye LaVette’s band, is another great rockin, boogie, r&b, blues pianist who is also a great singer. Shawn McDonald is another kickass blues-boogie-r&b piano AND organ player, and his vocals are also excellent.

Suppose you’re a smooth-jazz kind of guy, and you need someone to rock the keys? We have Gerard Gibbs, Greg Dokes, David Lee, Bam Davis, Al Duncan, Al McKenzie, and Keith Ferguson. All of these guys are bad as hell. Gerard is so bad that he can wear a red suit to a gig. (No shit—dead red!) He also is one of the top-notch organists who plays with perhaps the cockiest musician from our town, saxman James Carter. Greg Dokes has been the music director—or MD—for national acts, like The Temptations. Keith Ferguson, I believe, is with The Spinners. Bam is, or was, with The Gap Band. David Lee and Al Duncan play with Earl Klugh.

I can’t go into any sort of detail about the throng of truly wicked keyboard players who come from the gospel community, who I don’t get to see anymore (because it’s too hard waking up on a Sunday morning when you just went to sleep at 6am). The world of gospel and smooth-jazz has a certain affinity, and the players who play that music in Detroit are comparable, and oftentimes better, than you’re going to find anywhere else in the country. That makes them some of the best in the world. But I hear that some of the gospel keyboard players in Detroit are excellent musicians. I’ve heard a couple of spillover guys, like Malik Alston. He does some gospel, as well as originals that I can’t really tell you what they sound like. He’s a really good player, even though he says he can’t play a 12-bar blues. He says, “I’ve just been playing my originals.” I stare in disbelief, of course. How do you get to originals without having a couple of days with a 12-bar blues?

Then, of course, there’s the straight up jazz guys. Ken Cox, Gary Schunk, Eileen Orr (I suddenly want to call her “Leen Cuisine”, but she might kick my ass), Bill Meyer and Scott Gwinnell come to mind. Mike Jellick is a phenom, and he’s still under 25. If I’m ever feeling full of myself for no good reason, and I look up and see these guys hanging around, I don’t need coffee to wake me up. Suddenly, I’m hearing a slow leak in my hot-air balloon as my bloated ego gets some cold water slapped on its face. Henry Gibson is one of my favorite jazz pianists in town. Henry is very dynamic, and brings a strong energy to the sound. Jim David is another favorite who can swing his ass off. Mark McGruder, who plays with Urban Transport, is still another great player. Van Cephus, thought-of by many as Rod Lumpkin’s protege’ on organ, is another great player. If you like fast swing versions of difficult songs—like “Giant Steps”—Van specializes in that. “Cherokee”? Get your tom-tom and hang on tight. I met Van at Jimmy D’s on Livernois and W. Outer Drive years ago. He was sitting in for Rod Lumpkin. Rod and Van were organ monsters!

There are some other exports besides Rod. Kelvin Sholar and Craig Taborn are major players. Both play in the same direction as Geri Allen and Carlos McKinney. Very top-of-the-line players, all of them.

Some guys hang out more in the solo piano set, but still are excellent on a band hit. Bob Mervak plays and sings. Tim “Rocket” Brockett and Mark Moultrip play and sing, too. All three are keyboard assassins. Stefan Kugaruga plays, sings, and blows harmonica! My good buddy, Charles Green, doesn’t sing. Thank goodness. But he plays his ass off, and does band sets, solo piano, and solo keyboard setups. Dale Grisa is another excellent player whose talent deserves wider recognition. Rick Jones, who we simply call “Rockin Ricky”, plays and sings and backs Detroit musicians and vocalists who have been playing gigs around this town since the 80′s and before.

If you have more fusion, avante-gard, and/or neo-progressive tastes, Amp Fiddler comes from Detroit and is lighting fires in major locations around the globe with his own music. That’s right—-with his originals. (But I’ve also heard Amp play a mean 12-bar blues swing when he played with saxman Alan Barnes.)

Likewise, Jeremy Ellis is doing dance music by mixing drum rhythms while singing and playing. Jeremy has been making trips to South America, where I hear they’re eating his very original dance music up. Jeremy is an extraordinary player, and it is fully evident when you see him mixing drum beats, playing keyboard parts, warping certain sounds with tone modulators, setting up loops, and being a musical DJ who actually plays the parts live then manipulates those structures! Very good shit.

We still have “Canadian Phil” Whitfield and Mick Dobday (of Blue Dog) here in the area. Undiscovered gems. I’ve done double keyboard gigs at different times with Amp, Jeremy, Canadian Phil and Mick, and they are all very creative players who cover a wide variety of formats. Each of these musicians can jazz it up, and each of them can play beyond the edge of the structure, into the abyss, orbit, find their way back home, and they can excavate sound, in the words of George W. Bush, “at the whim of a hat”. (That’s from “Bushisms”, which are the spoken words of the national retard.)

Then there’s Robert Jones, who can cover everything from jazz at Baker’s to The Funk Brothers to blues and r&b gigs (. . . at the whim of a hat!) without missing a gliss. Also there’s r&b and funk caught at its best with Ronnie Rushing with his signature way of interjecting hypnotic rhythmic chord clusters. Randall Poindexter is another fine established player who plays both jazz and r&b sets.

My good friend, RJ Spangler, has a host of some of the baddest players you’re going to find. Besides Shawn McDonald, who is the current keyboardist in RJ’s Rhythm Rockers, there is Duncan McMillan, who is also an excellent player who plays some of the smoothest, finely-crafted organ accompaniment around with Odessa Harris. Both play organ and piano, and have their own Hammond organs that they move around whenever they want. I just met Mark Loduca recently, and he’s an excellent player and doing some fine organ work. Martin Simmons is another great player who also sings and also blows flute.

All these individuals, at any time, are likely to pop in at a gig that I might be playing on. The best thing I can do is try to remain aware of my own groove. Otherwise, weird and bad things could happen that could shatter my music concentration and leave me hanging.

I really try to play for myself. The room should be secondary. What you’re playing should be primary. If I’m looking around too much, I might get caught up in somebody’s shit. I’m at my best when my “ear” is travelling around stage, listening to the different members of the band, and playing with the sound that becomes apparent once the alignment is established. I can hear it with my eyes open or closed, but when they’re open, I might become distracted by something going on in the area. As musicians, we have to learn to maintain our surfing legs because our attention can become wiped out by all sorts of b.s. going on in a room.

Including musician sightings.

When I first met Gerard Gibbs years ago at The Boardroom, a westside chitlin’ circuit neighborhood club where I worked with saxman Mike Fleming playing a funk-jazz-r&b jam session, I had no clue who he was. He sat directly within my line of sight throughout the whole first set. I could tell he was a musician. On the break, I went over and asked him if he played, he said he did. I told him, cool, come on up in the next set. The next set started, I played a couple of tunes, then on one of the tunes—something like “Chameleon” or whatever—G came over in the middle of the song and asked if he could play the solo, and I went along with it and got up. He sat down on my keyboard, starts playing his ass off–everybody in the bar was getting up, and shouting out and really into it. He’s a really extroverted kind of guy, and he’s playing, looking at everyone in the room with a big ol’ smile on his face like “Hey, check THIS out!” Soon he’s standing up, puts his left hand on one hip, starts doing all this Chick Corea stuff with the right hand, and I just sat there and thought: “Next time, get your own song, mutherfucker!” He was playing his ass off–on my song–and standing there posing, smiling, and making the audience say “Wow!” Things like that make you think a little harder later on, but you have to get passed that. And I have. I love when I see and hear any player who knows what he or she is doing. I love it.

Nevertheless, I vowed not to let anyone come in the middle of my song and whip up a frenzy like that again. But years later–perhaps a year, two years ago–I broke my vow and let another guy come up in the middle of my song. I wasn’t thinking. It was a jam session. The atmosphere was a little loose, but it was still a hit where people were sitting around listening. This young guy asks to sit in, once again, in the middle of a song that I started, and I went along with it. That really wasn’t a very bright idea. The player was Mike Jellick. He’s, like, one of those incarnations of one of the gods who, like, take on a human form just to, like, fuck with people like me. He wore that piano out so bad that, after he got up, the piano sat upright and puffed a cigarette. When guys do that to you, you remember them the next time. It makes you try harder, so I dig it.

Johnnie O’Neal is an Oscar Peterson-level player. If he sits down, he ain’t gettin’ back up. Period. Just call it a day. But if you want to hear some of that pure Old Style, where the two hands work at maximum capacity, playing faster than hell, yet each hand is playing independent of each other in order to do David Blaine-type magic on the piano, then Johnnie’s your guy. And he’s definitely one of the kings of piano in this town. He and Gary Schunk, who’s really from another dimension. He’s waiting for the transporter to return him to Mount Olympus.

When I played during the 70s, Lyman Woodard was the man. He held court over at Cobb’s Corner in Cass Corridor, and he would be burning. He would play way deep in his groove, and that kind of taught me what disposition a player should be in when he’s playing. He would just groove, tirelessly, and propel the sound of the whole group. I can hear Lyman Woodard grooves in my sleep because I really used to focus on what he played at that time, and that became a reference that helped me get on a page that I really wanted to be on.

Bill Heid is a killer organist who lived here for awhile. We did a gig together once with drummer Greg “Vibrations” Williams as the leader. We both looked at each other when we got there, wondering whose datebook was fucked up. But Vibrations is a bit eccentric, and he did his own ideas about how he mixed band members. Bill was the senior on the hit so I let him know that I would acknowledge him as the primary, and I would backup whatever he was doing. When you have a gig like that with two keyboardists who are used to setting up their own song structures (at the whim of a hat), you can’t just go and start playing. There has to be the acknowledgement. When you’re playing jazz standards, there are multiple ways to play the changes. So who’s gonna be in charge? Whose changes will be the ones that we go with? I’ve played with “The Professor”, Herishimo Cox, the late great organist who was every bit as eccentric as Vibrations is, so I didn’t have any problems playing the secondary. In the end, the gig with Bill was outstanding. He played keys & bass most of the night, and colored around what he played. I played a couple of songs of keys & bass as the primary because Vibrations likes my bass lines on certain things he likes to do. It was all good. We had fun, and no one was bitching in the end.

We have lost two of our most legendary keyboard hellraisers around town. Teddy Harris, who was a mentor to most of my generation of jazz players around town, passed away recently. And, just before that, Rudy Robinson passed. Teddy was the scourge of lazy musicians because he wouldn’t put up with their shit. He always taught young players the right way to play. Kinda like the legendary ex-Pistons basketball coach Larry Brown except in relation to Detroit jazz players. Teddy’s big bands and his small groups were always high caliber, and he was a true educator. If you got past his bark, you were enroute.

Rudy hosted a jam session at Bo-Macs. That’s where I got to know him. He was one funny dude. Serious player . . . . .funny guy. He would get on the mic and talk about anybody, and there was nothing you could do but laugh or leave. But, be it organ or piano, Rudy could kill those keys, even while playing bass lines. Rudy played for a lot of people. Martha Reeves, Bettye LaVette, Misty Love, and a host of others too numerous to go into. Rudy usually knew as much about the music as the person who hired him, so they couldn’t fuck with him. What I liked about him was his chords; he always played the right chords. That isn’t the easiest thing, as it turns out. But that ‘s why so many vocalists liked him: he knew the chords, and how to structure a song. Willie Wooten is like that, too. He’s another eccentric player, but he knows what the hell he’s doing. He’s a chord hawk like Rudy, and like myself.

With Rudy and Teddy, if your playing sucked, you didn’t get their approval at all. Either they wouldn’t tell you nothing, or they’d tell you where to go.

There are many, many musicians, even on keys, who I haven’t mentioned, or couldn’t go into detail because I’m about through writing this, as you can see. I would’ve like to delve into some of the gospel keyboardists I used to run into, like Twinkie Clark of the Clark Sisters, or Herbert Pickard, who played authentic gospel from the James Cleveland school. Twinkie (Hostess?) used to kick guys’ asses when all the choirs would gather at the Sunday afternoon big choir music programs at one of a network of urban churches back in the 70′s. She was kickass. Herbert Pickard had that really smooth sound, and wrote quite a few gospel standards. I know his family, and played on an album of his, featuring The Ridgeway Sisters. Although he’s an organist, he played piano and had me playing organ on all but two songs on that particular recording. (If anyone comes across that LP, let me know. Probably a ’78 or ’79…..) Rudolph Stanfield, Jr. is another monster in the gospel world. I used to see him when I was growing up because we would play at each other’s church during congregation visits. He’s gone on to become a Grammy-winner, and has played with a plethora of international stars, including Aretha Franklin.

There’s some rich history in this town, and a plethora of some of the baddest musicians on the planet. So you won’t see me getting the big head. I’m trying to stay afloat. New players are popping up everyday. I’m just trying to keep my groove growing. But I love music, and I love playing. That’s my motivation. I want everyone to keep growing and continue being an inspiration. The better everyone is, the better I can be.

phil hale / philharmonic

The Jazz Loft

I dub it, further, as the “overground underground“. It’s located on the 2nd floor, which is kind of a pain-in-the-back when you have to lug heavy equipment up and down the stairs every week. But, somehow, it’s an act that I carry out on a weekly basis, sorta like going to church or something.

Once up the stairs, you make a left turn into this hip, cozy, lofty club and enter Detroit’s best kept secret on a Monday night. (A right turn will take you into the otherworldly adventures of a psychic palm reader. Somehow, this seems appropriate.) You’re immediately greeted at the door by the happiest woman in the world, Denise Dotson, a.k.a. Diva D. She’s a vocalist, but she’s also the person who collects the benign donation at the door that supports the band and gets you inside.

The club has 2 rooms, one featuring the bar, the other featuring the stage, with seats, tables and couches. The club is painted in a kind of dark red, burgundyish color that requires a swatch from the paint store to know the name of it. Very comfortable atmosphere, to say the least.

When the weather is warm, the band sets up outside on the patio, which has been under as much as construction as some of the area freeways in the past couple of years in order to accomodate various other dance parties held at the club on other nights of the week. The patio is hip! It’s all woody, with white sheets hanging about, adding to the Greek ambience theme in some way. Also, due to construction, there are more covered areas than there used to be, but there is still plenty of open sky for summer partying. When we’re playing, tables and chairs are brought out and set on the first level of the multi-leveled deck. There is an outdoor bar, a now-covered area for DJs for when they’re doing that party, and various spaces on various levels for patrons to hang out and chill.

The Monday night show is hosted by my brother, Milton Hale, who plays drums. On bass is Ibrahim Jones, and I play keys. However, the gig is a hot jazz jam session, and musicians and vocalists are encouraged to come up and join the band. Milt is a good host, and keeps the party moving. He engages the players and the audience, and sets the tone of the night. Ibrahim (pronounced EE-bra-heem), or simply Ib (EEB) as we call him, is a very talented, agressive bassist with a contagiously hip personality. As a band, we attempt to swing the lights out, and dig into grooves. Anyone who plays with us knows that’s our M.O.

Fortunately for us, we live in a city where kickass players come out of the woodwork to contribute to those hot ass grooves. The list of musicians and vocalists who have come through The Jazz Loft is a sort of microcosmic Who’s Who of some of the best players from Detroit, some who primarily serve the metro area while others are international players. And many do both due to the fact that they still live here in the city, and play gigs any- and everywhere on the planet. We’ve had pianists like the extraordinary Johnnie O’Neil, Carlos McKinney, Kelvin Sholar, Alina Morr, Kenny Cox, Charles Green, Mike Jellick, Chris Codish, Steve Ritchko, Jim David, “Rockin’ Ricky” Jones, Robert Jones, Mark McGruder, “Canadian Phil” Whitfield, Shawn McDonald, Scott Gwinnell, Keith Ferguson, Greg Dokes, Brandon Williams, Duncan McMillan, Leonard Moon, Harvey Reid, Randall Poindexter, Mark LoDuca and John Dixon, amongst others.

We’ve had so many outstanding musicians over the years that it’s almost shocking. The long list includes: the great trumpet master Marcus Belgrave, trumpeter Dwight Adams, legendary saxman Larry Smith, saxman Alan Barnes, guitar master Perry Hughes, drummer Karriem Riggins, guitar great Johnny Bassett, sax phenom James Carter, trumpeter Walt Szymanski, trombonist Vincent Chandler, saxman Dean Moore, drummer Dave Brandon, saxman Scott Reiter, drummer Skeeto Valdez, saxman Keith Kaminsky, bassist Greg Cook, trumpeter John Douglas, drummer Terry Thunder, guitarists Paul Carey, Eric Watson and Evan Perri, drummer Greg “Vibrations” Williams, trumpeter Rayce Biggs, bassist Damon Warmack, drummer Nate Wynn, trumpeter/drummer Frank McCullers, his brother saxman Dezi McCullers, Jr., drummer Ron Pangborn, guitarist Jerome Clark, drummer Djallo Djakate Keita, bassist Josef Deas, drummer Gabe Gonzales, guitarist Mike Figaros, bassist Andrew Klein, saxman DeSean Jones, drummer Alex Brooks, saxman Gerard Evans, guitarist Andy Perry, bassist/keyboardist Glen Oliver,drummer Rick Beamon, saxman Richard White, trumpeter James O’Donnell, drummer GayeLynn McKinney, saxman Rafael Statin, bassist Pathe Jassi, guitarist Brett Lucas, drummer R.J. Spangler, drummer Dave Marcaccio, saxman Cassius Richmond, drummer Ken Scott, trumpeter Willie Matthews, percussionist Jamalot, guitarist Jeff Grand, drummer Butter Hawkins, guitarist Calvin Brooks, bassist Chris Rumel, violinist Leslie De Shazor, drummer Jerome Spearman, bassist Jim Simonson, guitarist Randall Wilson, saxman Dave Appelman, bassist Emily Rogers, saxman Glen Myrick, bassist/vocalist Fonte Everette, guitarist Ras Kente, drummers Big Walt and Carrie (aka Twin Towers), trumpeter Carey Heller, drummer Alex White, saxman Pat Seymour, bassist Shannon Wade, guitarist Ralph “RT” Tope, bassist Noah Jackson, saxman Mike Fleming, guitarist Loba, guitarist Mike Gabriel, saxman Bosco, guitarist Erich Goebel, trumpeter Anthony Womack, bassist Sean Harris, drummer Terrence Neal,&nbs p;bassist Jeff Reynolds, drummer Julian Van Slyke, saxman “Showtime” Johnnie Evans, guitarist Mike Smith, drummer Keith Glass, sax & fluteman Darrius Summers, guitarist Keith Owens, saxman/guitarist Spence Beamon, and many, many more.

Vocally, we’ve had Joan Crawford, Shahida Nurullah, Audrey Northington, Sky Covington, Terry T., Chelly K, Sheila Hale, Jerourde Williams, Buddy Smith, Carolyn Crawford, Trish Shandor, Sheila Slaughter, Leslie Nelson, DeNise Jonson, vocalist/pianist Ola Hemphill, Denise “Diva D” Dotson, Helen Gilbert, Brenda Bradley, Jackie Green, Johnny O, Kym Wright, Jessalyn Brooks, Bill Beaver, Shiron O’Neal, Therese Rose, Misty Love, Diane Leslie, Lola Morales, Detroit’s own Nina Simone, and Renee Rice, to name the names that came to my head while writing this.

The world of The Jazz Loft (TJL, hereafter) is, well, otherworldly. It is a late gig with a late night feel. After you leave Diva D at the door, Bill the Bartender is the next place you tend to end up. Bill is a world unto himself. He’s almost like a band member, but he’s definitely a bartender. One of the best. He’s one of the most non-abrasive people I’ve ever met. This translates to no problems at the bar. It’s all good. All that, plus the fact that they have Beck’s Dark, puts TJL in a category of its own.

The personalities of the patrons make this place what it is: A hangout for neo-hippies. The fact that we play jazz, and have built up the crowd that we have at TJL says something positive about this town. The culture of musicians and those who like dance music merges and becomes a unique gumbo of personalities. Perhaps the character of the room itself contributes to that mix, but there is plenty of it there. Despite all the hardships and corporate looniness that is so prevalent here in our town, many of us have understood the times, made adjustments, and still have managed to maintain a creative enough lifestyle to continue to have our gigs and parties. That speaks monuments of the evolving, gritty nature of the denizens of of today’s Detroit. And with all the food banks that are popping up all over town, eventually this place will be the midwest San Francisco from all the hippies living here and growing veggies in what used to be vacant lots now turned into local food gardens. The farmlands return to Detroit!

What do you get when you mix neo-hippies with a bunch of swingin’ jazz musicians? A party that you couldn’t predict. And that party happens every week, on a Monday night of all nights! But it’s like the Hotel California when you finally make the journey up the stairs: You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. TJL is a location, an idea and a state of mind pressure-cooked and shaken (not stirred) in this overground underground hangout.

On a weekly basis, you never know which musicians (outside of the house band) are going to appear. As a player, I just do my own thing. I listen to music on the drive-in, making sure I get a good listening session in before heading up the stairs. I turn up the sounds and let the music flow, soaking in the sounds of my favorite players, bathing my ears in some hardcore swingin’ grooves, intending an alignment within me. Once I’m up, there’s no telling who I’ll end up playing with. So I like to be mentally ready, and get the non-related life noise out of my head beforehand. It’s sort of a meditation, you could say.

I know that, when it’s playing time, Milt will mix it up. Maybe a warm-up swinger, a bossa perhaps…then it’s off to the races! “7 Steps To Heaven” or “Caravan” won’t be far behind. I like to be ready to hit whatever, whenever. I just try to stay focused and loose, ready for whatever comes up.

I think that our audience responds to the intimate setting, and experiencing the musicians up close and personal. Everyone is completely intertwined. There’s no separation of players and audience–everyone is right there together. There is the inside and the deck, but everyone is all over everywhere. Everyone can talk to everyone free of barriers. Totally hip.

The players get the opportunity to interact with other players. Well, it IS a jam session. The mix of players can be quite interesting. On a given night, you can have elite players from the area mixing it up with elite players from out of town. Or you might have just all local players mixing it up. Maybe Larry Smith or Dwight Adams will show up and bring their unique experiences and styles to the gig. Or you might have Sky Covington or Terry T vocalizing in their own unique way. And then you’ll get all sorts of bands with different people coming up and replacing somebody, or adding sounds to what’s already happening.

Some nights just have their own personality which is totally different from any other night. I remember one night Carlos McKinney, a keyboard phenom whose talent points toward Herbie Hancock-like abilities, was sitting at the bar. He was early, which means we hadn’t started when he presumed we would, and he was just sitting patiently, hanging out. Knowing he was there made me get more into my sound because I knew when he came up he would get into his! So, once we were playing, I just got in and started having fun. After a couple of opening songs, I called Carlos up, not just for relief but because I’m a big fan. And, sure enough, he came up and laid it out! It sounded like Hands Across America–his hands were coming from everywhere! Same with Johnny O’Neal, another great keyboardist. One night, even after the gig was over, he was still in the groove and just sat up and played solo piano for quite awhile. He had a crew gathered around the piano like it was 1940 and everything was part of a black & white movie. You just can’t beat the influence of great players on a song, a set, or a gig. It’s special.

From the beginning of the night til the end, there are plenty of surprises. And it all comes crashing to an end when Diva D’s smiling face comes up and sings “Love Dance”, followed by Milt’s countdown of a superspeed end-of-the-night swing tune (the name of which I may have never known), and followed still by a version of “In A Silent Way” which is the party closer.

TJL is definitely special. The fact that you can order from The Golden Fleece’s menu of Greek cuisine only adds to an already phat list of positives. This session turns 6 years old in January. So we’re deep in a 5 year celebration that continues to feel like a celebration every week. TJL is a gem in downtown Detroit, a place for hip late-night roamers who are looking for that place where hippies, urbanites and creative people go when the walls close in on them on a Monday night. Let the dark night caress your skin…

Phil Hale – PhilHarmonic / 10.1.2009