I'm now less than two weeks past one of the most exciting shows that I've ever played. The Baked Potato 40th Anniversary Jazzfest took place May 22 and 23 at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. I had a chance to perform on the same bill with many of my idols!
I came to California to study with Scott Henderson back in '92, and he performed on the 22nd, as did Steve Lukather, Michael Landau and Allan Holdsworth who are all favorites of mine. I performed with Don Randi and Quest on the 23rd. Don is a dear friend, and also one of my absolute favorite keyboard players. He was amazing! We also had Tom Brechtlein on drums, H Chris Roy on bass, Gary Gardner and Pete Korpela on percussion and Chuck Camper on Sax. Also on the bill that day were Lee Ritenour, The Yellowjackets, The Jazz Ministry, and Larry Carlton, another personal favorite.
I stayed for nearly the entire show on both days and heard lots of incredible music. The memories are among my most professionally gratifying. I felt like a kid, hanging around watching the shows from the side of the stage with so many great musicians. At one point I can remember Michael Landau, Kirk Fletcher, Vinnie Colaiuta, Abraham Laboriel, and Tal Wilkenfeld all standing in the same small area as me, watching and listening to Larry Carlton. And I'll never forget the feeling of looking over to the side of the stage before we started playing and seeing Steve Lukather. Then halfway through our set I saw Michael Landau off to the side...and seemingly listening. Yikes, that was exciting and terrifying all at once!
Some nice people from the Gear Page posted some pictures of me on pages 4+5 of this thread. http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=724253&page=4 I can also be seen in the background of some of the pictures on the first page...haha.
In other news, the band Cathouse Thursday ,which I've been playing with for quite some time has nearly completed not 1, but 2 CDs. The band performs material by my longtime associate Will Faeber , who sings and usually plays keyboards. We also do some jam band style classic rock and r+b covers. The group also features the talents of Aaron Bagley and Jody Bagley. One CD is titled 'Til Death Do Us Party and the other one Nashville Baby. Aaron is just finishing the mixes, and the artwork is being finalized and I expect them to be ready by the end of June.
Will, Aaron, and I did a special performance on the radio yesterday to begin the promotion. The station is called www.adrenalineradio.com and the show was called Makin' It With Guil And Alesha. I believe the podcast will be archived, but it also went live over am! They played the track "Sookie" and then we performed "Make A Little Heaven" in the studio. Will played acoustic and sang, I played my Regal resonator, and Aaron sang backups. I think it's the first time we've ever performed in that configuration.
