This is one example of a MP3 I performed, wrote and engineered this morning on my new Motif SX8 synth.

In 1975, as I was beginning my first year at University of Oregon in Eugene, the local jazz station braodcasting from Lane Community College became my window to a huge new musical world.  That window was of jazz created in the 1950s and `60s.

Having grown up listening to a narrow bandwidth of jazz, primarily from the `20s, `30s and `40s, I found that this new exposure to bebop and cool jazz was so freeing.  Artists like Horace Silver (Silver and Brass), Stanly Turrentine (Pieces of a Dream) and Miles Davis (All Blues), created new modalities and possibilities in my young musical mind.  Between leaving home and discovering these new musical expressions, I feel like I’ve been paroled and am ready to go on a spree.

One night I trundle down to the old Eugene Hotel and am blown away by this young pianist named Jeff Lorber.  He’s playing with great players, running pentatonic scales at the speed of light over the top of the funkiest rhythms I’d ever heard.  I was witnessing the infancy and best part of what we now call contemporary jazz.

Next into my musical world came the Steely Dan albums–Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied and The Royal Scam– a new modern music, but with the twist of traditional jazz sensibilities.  Enthralled with this musical genre,  I quickly overplay and wear out all these LP’s.

Fast forward to 1977.  The album is Aja, the song is Deacon Blues, and the musician is Pete Christlieb.  Boom!  This song has it all, great shuffle rhythm, cohesive melody line, brilliant chord structure and one of the most transforming saxophone solos I’d ever heard!  I was knocked out the first time I listened to it.  Who would have known some 25 years later I would be able to record with Pete Christlieb on my second CD, Loving Life.

Since recording with Pete, I’ve become even more amazed over his mastery of the saxophone.  I recently had the opportunity to interview him for this article, and here’s what he said.

George:  What was the session like when you recorded the sax solo on Deacon Blues?

Pete:  Well, I didn’t know much about them(Steely Dan), other than Tom Scott wa doing a lot of their horn arrangements for them.  They were strange cats (Walter Becker and Donald Fagan).  They were recording ina small studio called Village Recorders.  I was asked to listen to the tune a couple of times, and I thought it was an interesting play on words.  I heard the words "drink Scotch whiskey all night long, and die behind the wheel," and I thought, "hey, they’re telling my story," I didn’t say anything and I took one pass at the tune and that was it.

George:  When did you start playing the saxophone, and who were your early influences?

Pete:  I played violin first and then took up saxophoine at age twelve.  As far as influences, the first album I bought was Jerry Mulligan and Chet Baker.  Cannonball Adderley was also a huge influence.

George:  I remember how excited I got when the Tonight Show Band performed "Killer Joe."  You were in the band for twenty years.  That must have really been something.  Tell me about that experience and who were your favorite band mates?

Pete:  We were a close-knit group.  My favorite guys were Bill Perkins, Ernie Tack, John Audino and Conte Candoli, who I did a lot of recording with.  Johnny Carson loved music, and that’s why we were there.  If the executives would have had it their way, they would have gotten and organ grinder and pocketed the savings.

Welcome to my bright, new, shiny site!  I am very excited to let you get to know me and the music I love, but perhaps more importantly, that I get to know you, and learn from your experiences.  This becomes the network, or braincenter if you will, for musical ideas that we can share. I will be posting up new original music on a regular basis and I look forward to your comments and perhaps future collaboration.  A new CD of original material will be released in the next couple of months.  The possibilities are endless and the future for music looks bright.

The first time I heard that saxophone solo on Deacon Blues from the Aja album by Steely Dan I was blown away, and I knew I was listening to something very special.  That was my first formal introduction to the amazing Pete Christlieb, even though I had been unknowingly listening to him for years on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  How do I get so lucky as to have him featured on my Loving Life CD?  Find out!!