No Santa Fe gig this week, BUT...

Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns will not be appearing at The Palms August 7th (bummer). They return a week from Monday (the 14th, schedule is on the links column to your right). I ask everyone, however, to show up in force on Monday night the 7th at 8 pm in Rock's Lounge at Red Rock Station to see and hear the incredible Steven Lee Group. Anyone who digs Santa Fe will appreciate this band equally, they are really fine. Check some of their mp3 samples here. I bought their CD "From The Ground Up," and I gotta tell ya, it's as good as anything I have in my collection. The sax man Rocco Barbato is totally A-List. They all are. See my prior post about the band here.

The Suits at Red Rock just informed the band that their Monday night gig has been canceled, in favor of Monday Night Football! Man...so, we all gotta show up en masse to show the flag for this fine band.

RONNIE FOSTER UPDATE

I stopped by The Artisan last night to see Ronnie and the guys. David Inamine (recently of the Wayne Newton show) was subbing on bass. Yet another Bad Boy player. Awesome. Great tone, and great technique, perfect mix of legato and staccato fluidity and percussiveness, with lots of perfectly timed breathing spaces. David stepped right up and delivered, no rehearsal. Jeesh...

BTW- Ronnie and I will throwing down the hoops today at 24 Hour Fitness Sport at Sahara & Buffalo today at 2 pm. The nascent-geriatric "Old School" posse, LOL!!!

UPDATE: HOOPS post-game wrap-up...

Ronnie Foster was rainin' 3's during half-court (we played for 2 1/2 hours, a mix of full and half court). He was also takin' dudes off the dribble to the hole and throwin' down his little baby-half-hook shot off the glass. They think they don't gotta respect the Old Man. Hah!
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Also BTW/FYI, don't forget the weekly Sunday night jazz jam at the Hurricane Bar & Grill tonight with musical hosts Joel Richman and Tommy Alvarado. They will no doubt be throwin' down.

MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE (August 7th)

Cheryl and I brought a dear friend from Chicago, Brian (Shaw Group colleague of hers), to hear the Steven Lee Group last night. My daughter showed up also with a couple of her posse from work. Everyone was dazzled. Thanks also to Dr. Lenny the Lopez and Gabriel, as well as Michito Sanchez and David Inamine, for coming out (BTW- Michito tells me there's a Latin jam night in the works; stay tuned for details). A few pics from the evening:

Above: in particular, bassist Keith Nelson has entirely too much fun! He graced us with an absolutely killer bass ride that elicited prolonged, loud howls.

Above: Brenda is totally bad. I kept pokin' my wife's arm: "...'eh, 'eh...she bad, or what?" Y'know, if Dave Richardson ever can't make it to the Santa Fe gig, I know exactly who to call. Serious, serious chops. And, that voice!

Above: Rocco (That's all you gotta say).

This is one fine, fine band. Buy their CD. Worth every penny.

BTW- Rocco introduced me to jazz great Robert Conti last night. I am so blessed. They've just done a project together. I gotta hear it. Check out Robert's site, there's a wealth of information there.

BTW- Rocco has a sax training method DVD project in the works. I'm certain that will be awesome. I been thinkin' about buyin' an alto anyway to learn it (something I've wanted to do ever since grade school, when they blew me off and told me to do trumpet instead). I get so inspired by Santa Fe (and all these A-List cats I've come to know and respect so much), I'm gonna buy a flugelhorn soon to start woodshedding to get my reading chops together, but alto would be so much fun too, I told Rocco I'd like to be his learn-it-from-scratch experiment once his method is released.

UPDATE2:

OK, if this doesn't kick your ass, nothing will. Robert Conti just sent me some video links, OhMyGod!!

Check THIS out, Robert and Rocco throwin' down up-tempo jazz "fours" (Google video clip: warning, requires Flash). From the web page copy:

Jazz Guitarist Robert Conti and his regular sidekick Sax Ace, Rocco Barbato, trading round after round of blistering "Fours" during the recording session of the "To The Brink!" CD. That's Brad Wendkos of TrueFire fame behind the video camera. Billy Moran, Hammond B-3 & Aldo Bentivegna, Drums, Mike Sak, Engineer Tone Factory, Las Vegas NV, USA. www.RobertConti.com

Wow.