at Moondance Jam 13, Walker MN, July 2004
photo by Steve Loftness
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at Moondance Jam 13, Walker MN, July 2004 |
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A Little History |
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| I was born circa 1951 in Benton Harbor, Michigan - a town in southwest lower Michigan, on Lake Michigan, about 55 miles across the Lake from Chicago - a little bit further if you forgo that shortcut and drive around the Lake to Chicago instead (about 90 miles in that case). Picking up the guitar in the 60's my first influence was rock 'n' roll of course, but it wasn't all that long before I discovered blues and then jazz. I had two years of music theory at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor, and though mostly self-taught on guitar, two 'local' guitarists had a huge influence on me: Dick Curtis, with whom I did have a few lessons in '70 or '71 in South Bend, Indiana; and Bob Burford, who I met in '78 or '79. Dick taught me the basic jazz chord voicings and the rudiments of chord substitution; Bob introduced me to chord melody playing and chord solos in some original charts he gave me (and gave me a nice case of tendonitis in my right arm with those monster stretch chords in the process! - right hand is my fingering hand as I'm left-handed, the photo above is not reversed). | I moved to Minneapolis in '87
and since then have worked in a variety of situations: variety/top 40,
funk, rock & roll, blues, r&b, jazz, a couple musicals (West Side Story,
Funny Face, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and even a
country band or two. I performed with the Minneapolis Symphony of the
Lakes when an electric guitarist was required for their performance
of the West Side Story Suite; spent several years as guitarist
with two jazz big bands: Just Friends and the Twin Cities Jazz
Orchestra; and did a short stint as guitarist for the Coasters,
Drifters
and Platters when various versions of those groups performed in Minnesota/northern Iowa. For the
last seven years I have been the regular guitarist for vocalist Big John
Dickerson and with Hammond B3 organist Billy Holloman (aka: "The Legend").
I'm
currently working with Big John, drummer Curly Martin's trio, on
occasion with vocalist
Barbara
LeShoure's All-Star Blues Band, Danish/American jazz vocalist
Mikhala Iversen as
well as jobbing around. Always looking for more! On 28 Apr 2007 Big John Dickerson was inducted into the Minnesota Rock & Country Music Hall of Fame. I was inducted as a member of the Big John Dickerson Band. |
| Big John Dickerson: Live at Legends | ||
| These clips were lifted from three videos
of Big John Dickerson recorded by Mike Stromme at Legends
in St. Cloud MN in 2005 - a simple setup: just one camera and the audio
was taken off the club's mixboard (Don LaBounte, engineer). The audio files are in .MP3 format, the
video files are in Windows Media Player .WMV format (320x240
resolution). If you don't
have Windows Media Player it can be downloaded from the
Microsoft website. For my Mac
friends there is a Windows Media Component for Quicktime
available (for free) from Flip4Mac
(Mac OS X v. 10.3.9 or later & Quicktime 6.5 or later required). The other performers on clips 1 to 8 are Big John Dickerson, vocals; Donald "Hye Pockets" Robertson, drums; Lisa Yorke, keyboard and vocals and Steve Yorke, bass. On clips 9 and 10 delete the Yorkes and add Ron Scott, keyboards and Donnell "Papa D" Woodson, bass. |
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| Twin Cities Jazz Orchestra: TCJO - Temporary Insanity | ||
| TCJO was formed about 1995 by trombonists Neil Danielson and Roy Henline with the intention of performing non-standard big band jazz - nothing too out there or avant-garde, just something a little different (as a lot of big band music has been written since the 1940s). Unfortunately the band folded in 2003, the music required lots of rehearsal time and it was too difficult to get 17 people together on a regular basis to rehearse it. We did however record and release a CD in 2000 called Temporary Insanity, these two audio clips (.mp3) are my solos on it. My playing on Groove Blues not as clean and crisp as I'd like (it was recorded in January - in Minnesota! (that's my excuse)) but I liked some of the notes so it stayed; the guitar chart for Conspiracy Theory called for a "screaming guitar solo" so the overdrive is cranked up for it. Only the last third or so of the Conspiracy Theory clip is the guitar solo. I like the horn work before it so I left it in. |
This CD was recorded at
Wild Sound Studio
in Minneapolis, Matthew Zimmerman, engineer.
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scott@skives.net