Since the Grammys are on Sunday I thought I would tell a Grammy memory. In 2003 i was making new album for Telarc. It was called maximum Grooves Coast to Coast. I wanted to create a project of grooves that reflected the East and West Coast studio vibe. We started out with myself,Gene lake,Dean Brown and Will Lee going into the studio and just spontaneously playing around Grooves. I came away that night with some great grooves and turned number of them into songs fronted by artists like Jay Beckenstein and Derek Trucks.
I then wrote some more focused tracks.I wanted to write a song dedicated to Joe Sample and the Crussaders and came up with a very cool track that Kathy named Chasing Shadows. I brought in Gene Lake and James Genus to cut the track with me and was trying to figure out the right vibe for the melody which was not even written. I had just finished working with Herb Alpert on Gato Barbieri's The Shadow of the Cat Album were he played on 3 tracks. I asked him if he was up for it and he said to send him the track.
He got back to me a few days later and said he just loved the track and that playing on it was like eating peanuts.Once he started he couldn't stop! He just killed it and it gave a chance to orchestrate instruments around it. I asked Russ Freeman to put some edgy west coast guitar on it and it came out great! Mixed,done the album comes out and slowly dies even though we were having some real radio success with the song I cut with jeff Kashiwa called Everyday Magic. I was of course upset that it didn't do better and even today I feel it was most under appreciated album.
Then one day in December 2003 I was at the computer and I look at my email and I have at least 50 messages.most of them say Congratulations! I then open one up and I'm getting congratulated for a Grammy Nomination of best Intrumental performance of the year with Chasing Shadows!How could this happen? What a real shocker. We didn't win the Grammy but we should have! Herbs performance was truly amazing and we went to the Grammys.The last year I went and we say many old friends. The cool thing was the other musicians on the track were also recognized in the nomination! Here's the track.
https://youtu.be/WAd7jCGh2Ac
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