Thank you, David Surratt and LV City Life

Wow. Great writeup. And great photo by Bill Hughes of City Life.

"...This is no mere wealth of talent. This is an embarrassment of riches..."

Most def. I knew that from the first four bars of "Just Kidding" in the fall of 2005, the first night I heard these cats.

FRIDAY UPDATE: PODCAST #4 IS NOW UP

Friends of Santa Fe, Volume 1, 'cuz I can see that I'm gonna have to do at least two to give props to everyone would might like inclusion. I'm still awaiting permission from some, and cuts from others. Volume One features our eminent musical friends

• St. Paul Peterson (w/ an intro segue clip from his Bad Boy brother Ricky)
• MOSAIC
• Tom Schuman
• Michael Ruff
• Robert Conti
• Tommy Alvarado
• Fifth Avenue
• Michael Grimm
• Steven Lee Group
• Bill Champlin

Run time is 67:40, mp3 file size is about 93 megs. (My V/O remains shaky in places. Still working without a script, winging it and trying to not step on my tongue, amid my two crazed dogs who never fail to go episodically and randomly batshit while the mic is hot.)

All of these peeps represent the most serious of A-List talent. I am blessed and humbled to now know them and to present this podcast as one small means through which to help shout them out.

Buy their music.

MORE LOCAL UPDATES

Email I got from Tommy:

JUST JAZZ
Tuesdays starting March 11, 2008
10pm till 1am

SLICK WILLIE ORCHESTRA (SWO)

Tommy Alvarado (currently performing with Emmy Award Winner Wayne Brady) is the founder of the Slick Willie Orchestra.

The SLICK WILLIE ORCHESTRA is an 8 piece horn driven blues and jazz group. Every member was handpicked by Tommy for his wonderful musicianship as well as his approach to this new concept in music not found in Las Vegas.

Their motto "The Blues And Nothing But The Blues" is a term used lightly when it comes to pleasing everybody’s musical pallet. SWO can perform not only the blues but jazz, funk, and latin tunes that will make you holler for more!
"Ronnie Rose was my first and only choice when I was looking for a lead vocalist" says Tommy.

"I love the way he puts his personal spin on each and every tune"

Tommy welcomes all musicians to sit in after the SWO performance.

"I want to bring back the same vibe I had at the Hurricane Bar & Grill"

So come on in and join us for the debut of the coolest and baddest band in Las Vegas.

Every Tuesday starting March 11th , 2008 from 10 pm till 1 am. Slick Willie Orchestra will be performing at Just Jazz. Location: 1000 E. sahara Ave. #105, Las Vegas, NV 89104, 702.650.0432

www.justjazzlv.com

To hear and see a photo of Slick Willie please visit our site. www.myspace.com/slickwillieorchestra

Or contact Tommy Alvarado for more info:

Phone: 702 501-6104
Email: Tommysax@cox.net
Email: woodyreed@gmail.com

MY BUD MATT BALDONI

Another scary young guitar cat (appearing in Tommy's SWO, btw). Matt is now at Bellagio with "Replay" in the Fontana Bar, Mon - Thurs, 5:30 - 9 pm until March 13th, then back full-time in May. Jennifer Joseph on vox; Brian Doria on tubs; Rob Graves on keys, sax, flute, harmonica, vocals; George Rucker on bass; Eddie Fluellen, keys, MD.

Below, a couple of pics from the gig that he linked me to.

Buddy Miles, R.I.P., bro'

Another musical giant has left the building. From his website:

It is with tremendous sadness that we must share with all Buddy's fans around the world that Buddy passed away peacefully and quietly at his home last night (Tuesday, February 26, 2008) in Austin, Texas surrounded by his family. Buddy will be greatly missed as a wonderful person and as a truly gifted musician who gave so much to so many through the years.

The family ask for your prayers and that you respect their privacy. A tribute show will be announced within a short period of time and all are welcome to come and share in the magic that was Buddy Miles.

Fans, friends and family will all join in a celebration of the life and music of this talented and big hearted musician, so we hope everyone can be a part of this fond farewell.

Very sad. He was only 60.



STONES

[GUARDIAN.UK] Widow Six Seven had just given them the signal over the radio: "Cleared hot." Seconds later, a fierce roaring could be heard as the US F15 fighter jets dropped two 500lb bombs on their targets below. As one dropped a third bomb on a Taliban bunker, men could be seen on the ground desperately scrabbling out from their cover as it came under attack.

To the American pilots, the rather posh English vowels responding to their "in hot" request and guiding their missile fire over the "net" gave no clue that the army officer with whom they were communicating was in fact a member of the British royal family.

The soldier they knew only as call sign Widow Six Seven was in fact Prince Harry, working in Afghanistan as a Forward Air Controller [FAC] identifying Taliban forces on the ground, verifying coordinates and clearing them as targets for attack...

Photo: Prince Harry on patrol in southern Afghanistan. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
____________

Props, sir.

Feb 25th gig at The Palms

NOTE: scroll down for Wednesday updates

I love it when Jerry pulls out the Flamenco. The packed house roared at "Canta Con Amigo."

We were SRO and howling tonight. Repeated standing-O's. The band was inspired and on fire. It was way cool that they dug some tunes outa the book that haven't been played in a while (the book is gettin' pretty fat). The thermonuclear arrangement of "I Feel Good" was particularly smokin'.

I will blog incrementally as I go through my shots. Tonight we were blessed with guest sit-ins by our homie the awesome Tony Davich of Phoenix (great band) and the esteemed musical giant Ricky Peterson.

Ricky sang on "Take My Heart Away" and played the synth ride -- blew the roof off the place. Tony fronted "Soul Trilogy" (and returned to get down on "System of Survival").

Some great news about Phoenix: they're gonna soon be doing Thursday nights in the main showroom at the Hilton, in addition to their Saturday nights South Point gig. Yes! I gotta go cover that. Below, the "Counselor" from Cirque's "Ka" (and Richter-scale effusive Santa Fe regular) Joerg lookin' mighty dapper. Below that, Joerg at his "day gig" (he's wearing the yellow top).

Below, Rochon tore it up tonight. Yikes!

BTW, Dave Surratt of Las Vegas City Life came down with one of his photographers (City Life Photo Editor Bill Hughes, actually) to cover the show and interview the band. Thanks, y'all, we really appreciate it.

I think they got an earful and eyeful.

Dang! those lenses. Me and my piddley-assed camera...

More shots randomly below:

Below, tight shots of the badass Brothers Johnson and Johnson.

Above, Jerry lays the room low with "Si Te Vas."

Among the many, many friends in the crowd tonight were Jerry Jones of Fifth Avenue and Steven Lee of the Steven Lee Group. I will be featuring these awesome groups on my upcoming podcasts providing you cuts by "Friends of Santa Fe." I am gonna have a great time putting those together. We have an incredible lineup. Stay tuned.

A NOTE FROM MY BRO' ROBERT CONTI

Yoeski, Bobby,

We are up to our eyeballs in a new shipment of DVDs! To free up space in the warehouse, we released two axes from my collection today. If you know anyone looking for a super high quality archtop, these are top of the line.

Thanks!

- Conti

Click here and/or here.

BLOG STATS UPDATE

Across the past month through yesterday, we had slightly in excess of 3,000 page views by 1,213 visitors (1,212 not counting me), nearly 700 of whom live in Vegas. This graphic above depicts the worldwide distribution of peeps hitting our blog.

FYI: SOUL MUSIC ONLINE

Among of your prominent bookmarks and regular hangs should be those of Andy Ebon's Soul Music Online and Soul Music News. Also, for the hippest in horn band funk, go to Andy and Raoul's Soul Radio Online.

WEDNESDAY UPDATES

Tony Perry and his fine band have ended their run at Paris, sadly.

These are some really nice, talented people. I would love to hear Tony sit in with Santa Fe sometime. Cat sings so fine (click his name for his website link, which contains an embedded mp3 sample). Hope they cop a new venue soon. I'll let'cha know.

Also, I saw our bro' bassist Eddie DiMarino at the Palms gig Monday night (link here to a gig he did with Kelly Clinton last year). He's available right now if you need an A-List cat on bass.

CAMPAIGN 2008 UPDATE

Wherein BobbyG monitors and provides updates regarding the ad nauseum developments to spare you the agony of keeping up.



These cats, LOL!!

AND NOW, BACK TO REALITY...



Some people simply have too much fun.

Sunday update from the First Ecumenical Church of Fat City Grease and Salsa

First, Ric and Jackie have had the awesome Patrick Lamb on today as a guest on their wonderful 97.1 FM Sunday Jazz Show. Patrick is the nicest cat, and a fine, fine talent.

He's got a very hip Tribute to Ray Charles project happenin' these days.

Link to a very cool podcast of this project here. I hope this thing is a wild success.

Back last May, while I was down in Florida doin' my ongoing Next-of-Kin schtick, Dave Siekfes copped some video of Patrick sittin' in with Santa Fe. Click here for that blog post (scroll down).

PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE PAYPAL

LOL! OK, yeah, mixing my metaphors. Hey, it's Sunday. On the upper right of the blog page you now see a "Tip Jar" exhortation and link. I put this up the other day, and would like to thank those who immediately responded so generously. Below is a graphic I culled the other day from my Google Analytics reports for the blog.


To date we have had well in excess of 10,000 individual visitors, peeps from all around the planet. My goal is to ramp that up by a factor of 10 this year, and to provide the best in comprehensive blog coverage -- all the way to live blogging with video webcasting (how cool would that be, 'eh?). With your help, we can get there. Just a little from everyone would go a long way. Please contribute.

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE

Guitar player critical mass at the Palazzo. Dave Hart just sent me this pic (caption by Dave).

"Left to right: Incredible Drew Zingg (Steely Dan, etc), David Hart (yo, that's me), Allen Hinds (in town with Gino Vanelli), Nicky Moroch (in town with Ricky Peterson), and the amazing John Weidemeyer."

Bill Champlin interview

This is fabulous! Great website!

InsideMusiCast.com

From their Champlin podcast interview page:

Bill Champlin
Taking The Off Ramp To Success

Bill Champlin is a man who has experienced musical success on his own terms. Over the years you’ve known him as a solo artist, session musician, vocalist, and longtime member of the band Chicago...That's why we're eagerly awaiting his new album which will be released later this year. Inside MusiCast is pleased to welcome Bill Champlin.

Bill gives huge props to Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns during the interview. Great, great (and by turns hilarious) interview with His Eminence Mr. Champlin.

Click the bar below to start the podcast.

Yikes. I have much improvement work to do on my own podcasts, LOL!

Mid-week updates

Check out the radio spot. Cool.

Ronnie also continues at the Palazzo in the Salute Lounge with John Wedemeyer. And, this week, Boy Katindig is there doing the early sets (3 - 8pm), with Bonny B. on drums (Major Bad Boy on tubs, lately of Spyro Gyra!).

MICHAEL GRIMM UPDATE

Michael got some great ink in today's Las Vegas Sun (by the ever-gracious Jerry Fink). See "A Soul of the South." Very, very nice.

DONT FORGET MICHITO'S SALSERO!

South Point every Thursday evening. And, while mentioning South Point, I gotta give a recurrent shout out to my friends Phoenix! These cats are so fine. Every Saturday.

Finally, one more time: Gino Vannelli is here this weekend.