Just A Little Of My Jazz

[MsRowdyRedhead]

Maybe we could have a Music Board in the Creative Boards?? I KNOW I am not the only one here who does some kind of music.....

I produce Blues and Jazz Music as a hobby, had a band in the 90's, played at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival, three times.
After our lead singer was killed in a car crash, I worked with other artists, mostly friends.
I also was a part of The DePriest Project, and in later years DePriest Family Jazz.

These are from the J Soul album, by DePriest Family Jazz.. one of my projects.

http://209.85.62.24/...3242/J_Soul.mp3     J Soul
http://209.85.62.24/...Man_Boogle_.mp3 Our Man Bogel

DePriest Family Jazz produces concerts as well, in family friendly venues, such as the U of Portland and The Old Church.. I was both on the BOD and sometimes on the stage.
Akbar was a dear friend of mine, and this was his last CD. He passed away at age 77 in 2007,
His mission was to educate the younger generations on the beauty and joy of jazz and the blues. This is from a 2005 Press Release:
“We want this to be educational,� says drummer and bandleader Akbar DePriest about the Family Jazz Concerts he’s been leading in Portland since 1991. “We want to get the youngsters in and expose them to the music.�

With an increase to three concerts a year and a bump in the age for free admission up to 17, DePriest is renewing his efforts to present jazz and blues outside nightclub settings. He also wants to pass along the rich heritage he absorbed as a youth in the music scene on Central Avenue in Los Angeles and during a career that began on the chitlin’ circuit with Big Maybelle, blossomed in Chicago with the likes of Rashan Roland Kirk and Eddie Harris, and continued on the stages of Europe and, later, in Denver, where he ran his own nightclub. He moved to Portland in 1987.

That varied experience helps explain why DePriest doesn’t want to see jazz separated from its blues roots.

“We want the youngsters to hear jazz and blues in the same setting,� he says, “so they will hear it coming from the same source. When I came up, T-Bone Walker and Duke Ellington would play on the same stage; we got the blues and jazz on the same plate.�