SPOOKYS COOL

Category:  Cover Songs

Description:  Having fun on the flugal horn.

Rating:  All Ages

SONG FOR DAVE

Category:  Original Music

Description:  This song was designed to be my first collaboration song on the Internet. Ironically, I was forced to shut down my home studio before getting the files off and was left with the backing track and no lead line (melody). When I discovered that MyStudio wanted members of Home Jones to record individual sessions, I retrieved the track and began writing a head and chorus so that I could use it for the video. So Grrove for Dave was written to be a collaborative tune but ended up being released as a live recording on MyStudio.Net

Rating:  All Ages

BEING BROWN

Category:  Original Music

Description:  I was asked to review some background transitions that was to be used by MyStudio and if I could write and perform an accompaniment to the piece for Black History Month. When looking at the transitions I saw arguably the most influential blacks in history and of our time. Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Mohammad Ali to name a few. I was struck by the thought that I knew almost every Black displayed in the transitions and their contributions to our society. This was particularly moving for me because during the times when "Black" people (this description of being Black must be a term of endearment because as a race we are all shades of brown/olive hues) were experiencing these particular strides, I knew little of the "Black Experience" or who prominent Blacks were in this country's history. We have come a long way considering the cycle of life. Knowing who was being displayed in the transitions I needed one more tiny piece of information. I asked Lionel Martin, who was directing the video taping, what the transitions were about and what he wanted the music to say? He expressed that the transitions were to represent Black History but then he said with pure heart that it represented the struggles, conditions, and the promise for a better life for all. Lionel struck a chord within me and it was at that moment that I knew what the music should say. I entered into the booth and transformed myself to an earlier time when we all believed that our condition was temporary and that God would make a better life for us. A time of "Negro Spirituals" and the "Blues." I channeled the energy through my horn and we created the song, "Being Brown." I never heard the music because I was really unconscious of what was being played but from the reaction of the people who were present at the time this was captured it must have been moving. I entitle the piece "Being Brown because the sepia color of the transitions, the people the transitions represent (that would be everyone), and of course the state of mind that I was in when I captured the music.

Rating:  All Ages