Windjamming

So I'm in SoCal on a pleasant Sunday...  what a great time and place to hang at a yacht club!  So I hit the freeways for an hour cruising up to Marina del Rey.  WTF!  Well, there's a musical reason.  A variation on Buck's Vibe is playing for happy hour.  They call themselves the Sunday Special, with Willis on guitar, Peter Buck on drums, and a couple of very competent Israelis on trumpet and bass (Itai and Hagai, if I've got it right).

Damn good jazz, although the place was crowded with heavy drinking boaters fresh from racing in the Pacific.  I did manage to record a bit of the gig.  Here's a lengthy MP3 of some funk jazz (from the Crusaders?) segueing into a cool version of Caravan.  Sunday Special plays this gig about once a month.  I hope to get back and do a better recording since the guys are quite good, and it's fun hanging out at the marina watching those expensive yachts wander in from the ocean.

Buck's Vibe 2--Hot Guitarist

Finally, at last, I've been waiting months for this. The first Buck's Vibe was a great CD, neo hard bop, and one of my favorite jazz CDs the year it came out. For his second effort, Peter has substituted the horns with the world's greatest guitar player (!... well, he's damn good). Willis Clow now fills out the quartet, and this addition allows the group to explore other directions from it's jazz core. Some vocal jazz from Peter's daughter, some well done "smooth" jazz tunes, some raucus rock guitar breaks, even a little Booker T and the MGs R&B stylings. All in all a nice variety of sounds excellently played by top flight musicians. The new CD is available from CDBaby and on iTunes. Check it out!

The Buck's Vibe group also plays regularly at Steamer's in Fullerton, one of the best known jazz clubs in SoCal. They will be there for a special Leap's Year performance on the 29th of Feb.