"Let There Be Light..."

...said BobbyG, in an appropriately worded yet terse and pointed email to the good folks at Encore (with a cc to the E.D. at The Palms). And, lo, behold, it did verily come to pass that someone from Encore did calleth BobbyG back forthwith, and there was light.

And it was Good.

'eh?

More pics to come below. Well, we were SRO again. And we were in fact blessed to have Cleto and the Cletones of the ABC late night Jimmy Kimmel Show come to hang. They are all such nice people. Papa and Mama are simply wonderful, I'd met them before, so sweet. Their son Cleto Escobedo III (he's the M.D. on the Kimmel Show) and his fine keyboardist Jeff Babko both sat in. Way cool. Thank you all for coming, I know Jerry was especially thrilled.

Also sitting in tonight were several of the cats from the Barry Manilow show, keyboardist Ron Walters, Jr (Barry's M.D.), Michael Lent (totally fine on guitar), and Joey Melotti also on keys.

Michael Grimm got a ton of well-deserved love tonight. This is way different for him, and he seemed a bit tense and uncertain. He's stretching way out of his natural element (man, who mostly wouldn't be, with this band). But, this will be very good for him. When he launched into his lead vocal section of Toto's "Rosanna," Jamie and I exchanged 'yeah,-he's-gonna-be-fine' smiling glances. Michael is one stunning artist in his own right. This tenure is gonna be wonderful for everyone.

The solos were all on fire tonight, everyone. Wow. And, props to Eric Tewalt for again subbing with The Fat City Horns on bari and flute.

The crowd sure dug it. Lotta leaping up outa seats for standing-O's (one of these nights, Joerg is gonna attain escape velocity and go into geosynchronous orbit). Lemme upload some more pics. Below: Jeff, Cleto III, Jerry, Ron Walters Jr, and Michael Lent.

Above, the gracious Papa Cleto Jr. and Mrs. Escobedo. Below, Jeff throws down.

More stuff tomorrow (e.g., the alarm system going off through most of the 2nd show, etc). It's 4:17, gonna go crash.

UPDATE

Some pics our from our bro' Dave Siefkes. First Jerry and the legendary Rocco Prestia of Tower of Power, then Cleto, Joey, Mike, and Jeff.

Below, BobbyG lurking and crawling all over looking for the good shot. Time to trim that 'tee, Gladd.

BROTHER TYRIQ

Tyriq Johnson of the fabulous Santa Fe Brothers Johnson & Johnson will be gigging at Sonny's at 8 pm Wednesday, over on Flamingo just west of W 215 (place that briefly hosted Tommy and Joel's Sunday jazz jam). I'm sure he would dig it to see y'all come by.

Also, again, this Sunday our awesome homies The Steven Lee Group will perform at the grand opening weekend of the Las Vegas Springs Preserve. These cats are so fine. Not to be missed. As their percussionist, our friend Joe Bergeron said to me in an email "a lot of pent up creativity is gonna get cut loose."

I have no doubt.

BOOK REPORT

I did manage to read one book during my last crazed trip to Florida: Philip Toshio Sudo's delightful "Zen Guitar."

Highly recommended. I gave my copy to Jerry after I got back. He dug it, as I knew he would. Lots of conceptual similarities to Steven Pressfield's great book "The War of Art". Jerry had turned me on to that one, for which I shall always be grateful.