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​#JimiJazzIsBack

It was a cool afternoon last August, I was walking my dog Samba, and the phone rings, and it's a 215 number. Can it be? It is, G. Love calling me up from the East Coast. Cape Cod in fact, he's driving out to his folks place, and making his calls.

We had spoken about a year ago at Chris D's wedding in the Dominican (what a party!) and he said the Houseman wanted to do a 20th anniversary tour to celebrate the first record in 2014. It seemed like a long way away at the time and I just nodded, but now, here he is, can they be planning this far in advance?

No way! It's G. Love! How about a recording session in a couple weeks? Why not? A trip down to LA sounds great, especially when it just starts raining up here. Yea, I know that's the first step, but I'm still telling myself, "I'll just go jam out down at Jacks studio, warm up, session with G and the Housman, no pressure, no strings . . ."

See, I'll be the first to admit things got a little crazy there, back then - in the aughts. There's a lot of frustration in the music industry and a lot of striving. Sometimes in just too many different directions. And I guess I needed to get off the road for a while - that's the mild version. I wasn't sure I wanted to go all the way back.

But yea, the magic was right there from the first session. G's voice was good, and Jeffery's groove was thicker than ever - I really missed playing with him without even realizing it. I guess I needed to rock out. I'd just been playing jazz, half of my gigs were totally acoustic, I'd just been mellow for a while. G put's that shit on eleven and it felt great.

So, I was packing up to head back home to Portland and he gave me that look. "I'll think about it" I said, and got on the I-5.

Classic Rock. Always there for you on the FM dial, in the heart of the beast. There are a lot of songs about coming back, Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith, Back in the Highlife by Steve Winwood, The Boys are Back by Thin Lizzy, but on comes Bob Seager, "You can come back baby, Rock and Roll never forgets." Indeed.

Portland OR

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