Jim Duffy: News

Save the date -- Thursday, Sept. 16, 9 p.m. The Jim Duffy Combo will return to our "home court," the Lakeside Lounge, 162 Ave. B in Manhattan, near East 10th Street.

We'll be playing our unique blend of sparkling instrumental pop tunes and bouncy themes. We always enjoy playing at the Lakeside -- and who are "we," you may ask?

* Jim Duffy -- keys

* Dennis Diken -- drums

* Paul Page -- bass

* Lance Doss -- guitars

We'll be playing original tunes, plus a surprise or two. The more we play, the more "in the pocket" we get, and the wilder and freer become the musical notes. There's so much going on, you'll forget that there's no singing!

"Moody and bouncy instrumental pop tunes" is my catch-all phrase for what we do, but there's so much more. So come down and join us at the fabulous Lakeside on Thursday, Sept. 16, 9 p.m. -- sweet live music, no cover charge, intimate setting, friendly bartenders, and when we're done playing, the most rocking jukebox in New York City.

But I have to warn you: To be there, you have to be there!

You, dear reader, are the first to know. The Jim Duffy Combo has another date booked: Thursday, June 24, 9 p.m. at the fabulous Lakeside Lounge, 162 Ave. B in Manhattan.

This venue is our favorite spot for cutting loose and playing bouncy and catchy and grooving instrumental music. Check out this lineup:

Jim Duffy, keys
Dennis Diken, drums
Paul Page, bass
Lance Doss, guitar and lap steel

It all keeps getting wilder and wilder.

As for Dennis, people are starting to realize that his 2009 album, "Late Music," credited to Dennis Diken and Bell Sound, is one for the ages, a true keeper. Besides being one of the most powerful rock and roll drummers on the planet, he composes, he sings, he produces, he does it all.

Paul Page, as you read this, is performing all across Europe with Ian Hunter, one of the hardest-to-please rock legends in the business. Page provided the low notes on Ian's latest opus, "Man Overboard," which that action-packed band will be performing, along with indelible tunes from the glam era. They're making history.

Lance Doss, when he isn't rocking the biker crowd at the at one-of-a-kind Great Notch Inn in Little Falls, N.J., a true roadhouse of the kind they just can't make anymore, is singing like a bird with an acoustic guitar at venues all around the five boroughs.

And yours truly is practicing day and night, punching the heavy bag, swinging Indian clubs and tossing the medicine ball, just to be in good enough shape to keep up with these guys.

We'll all be down at the Lakeside, in common cause, on Thursday, June 24, at 9 p.m., so save the date. You want to be there, you know you do, so write it down in pen. Enter it into your little gadget: Thursday, June 24. That's when we put the "lounge" in Lakeside Lounge.

Grooving and sparkling instrumental music, intimate setting, friendly bartenders, no cover charge, and after we finish playing, the most swinging jukebox in New York. What's not to like? Come on down!

(photo by C.S. Gray)

Thanks to everyone who came out last Tuesday to see and hear the Jim Duffy Combo at the Lakeside Lounge. Something about that place makes it easy for us to cut loose and let the music fly on its own.

We'll have more events at that fine venue this spring, so please check back for updates.

On Tuesday, March 30, at 9 p.m., the Jim Duffy Combo returns to the fabulous Lakeside Lounge, 162 Ave. B, Manhattan. This is our favorite venue for cutting loose and playing sparkling and swinging instrumental tunes.

Jim Duffy: keys

Dennis Diken: drums

Paul Page: bass

Lance Doss: guitar

We'll be doing one set starting at 9 p.m. Expect moody and bouncy tunes, deft interplay, tube-warm sound. Intimate space, friendly bartenders, no cover charge. What is not to like?

If you're reading this, I hope you'll come down and check us out!

(For more details about how all this madness went down, please see the Blog section.)

Thanks to everyone who came out last Thursday night to the House of Blues in Boston for the V66 Reunion concert. You all made it a memorable night for Rods and Cones. We had not performed live in 22 years, and we did put some effort into making the set as powerful as we could. To see so many old friends and new friends made it all a rare experience.

Special thanks to Brian "Bone" Marra for doing quick study on bass guitar, to Curtis Kelley for swinging the drums for our rehearsals, Granny (soundman extraordinaire from the Rat), Un-Ted Murphy (for his organizational abilities), John Innamorato (for behind-the-scenes work that we didn't even know about), Tom Schneider (our once and present manager, God help him), Pete Newman (thanks for watching my bass, Pete) and to everyone else who pitched in or danced or simply added their good feelings.

Also, there were fine performances from vintage Boston bands and performers. I heard an especially soulful sound-check from Woody Giessmann and Right Turn, and I also enjoyed the rocking sets from O Positive, Digney Fignus, the Fools and Animotion. If I failed to mention any other fine performers, forgive me -- it was an eventful night.

Playing music with my old mates Rods and Cones for five days and nights has certainly turned my head around. All that bass-playing is going to make it hard to go back to the keyboards, or it may influence my keyboard playing, such as it is. Rods and Cones is the most overtly rhythmic band I've ever played in. Everything fell right into the pocket. When it gets grooving, the music has a lot of air and space in it, and that dual-percussion lineup has a homemade sound.

To get a sense of that night, please go here.

To make it all even better, on Saturday night we re-convened for a party at the Real School of Music in Burlington, Mass., where we shared a bill with the Elliot Mouser Floating Blues Band, which features the incomparable Chris Jenner on guitar. Rods and Cones then played a more jammed-out and perhaps less professional set of music. Then, for an over-the-top third set, the Mousers and Cones joined forces, and we mixed and matched performers and played everything under the moon until the wee hours of the morning.

I'm hoping we get to do this again before another 22 years go by.

Keep those Deluxe Reverb tubes nice and warm!

(Photo of Chris DiNardo taken by Chris Kelley at the Real School of Music)

Back in the 1980s, Boston was a great place to be a local band. In Kenmore Square, the Rat was spawning punk rockers, in Cambridge, the Inn-Square Men's Bar was featuring creative music every night. Further out on the fringes, thousands of college students were looking for a good time, and the drinking age rules were not enforced the way they are today.

In those days, Boston radio stations -- not only college stations but commercial stations as well -- would play records by local bands. You could be a big fish in a small pond, flopping around merrily.

In the midst of all this, a local TV station blinked onto the air, on the other-worldly UHF dial. It was V-66, and it was a free version of the then-new MTV. You might have to move your antenna around to tune it in, but it was music on TV, and it was free.

The band I was in, Rods and Cones, arrived at the right time. We had had something of a local hit with our tune "Education in Love," and our guitarist, Gary France, arranged for some Emerson College film students to create a video for that track. For a long stretch of time in 1986, V-66 was broadcasting it every day of the week.

Great memories and high times. There are worse ways to misspend one's youth.

So ... V-66 is coming back, at least for one night, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, at the House of Blues in Boston. A video documentary about V-66, called "Life on the V" will be released that month, and the hard-working people who produced that film will show the world what it was about. Rods and Cones will regroup for that one night, with yours truly on bass guitar.

Other Boston bands from that era will be performing that night, including O Positive, Lizzy Borden and the Axes and a few others yet to be announced.

Well, if you live long enough, you become an oldies act. But Rods and Cones will not be sleepwalking through it. No! We're already undertaking a strict health regimen, jogging, skipping rope, punching the heavy bag. In fact, we have all secluded ourselves at a training camp in a remote part of Massachusetts, subsisting on whole grains, carrot juice and meat that we have hunted ourselves.

OK, I exaggerate. But we are going to be kicking it at that gig. More soon.

Hello, I hope you'll save the date -- Thursday, Dec. 10, 9 p.m. sharp. The Jim Duffy Combo will be returning to the Lakeside Lounge, 162 Ave. B in Manhattan, between East 10th and East 11th. We'll be doing a set of original instrumental tunes, including some from the latest album, "Mood Lit." The music will be loose and free, and whatever we do, it will have feeling. And I hasten to add that Dennis Diken will be on drums, Paul Page will play bass, and Lance Doss will be on guitar. With any luck, I'll be playing my keyboard through a 1968 Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier, which is en route from Indiana as we speak... The Lakeside is always a fun gig for us -- there's no limit to how "into it" we can get. My friend Eric "Roscoe" Ambel sees to it that the place has a vibe. Plus, no cover charge, and friendly bartenders. What's not to like? So come down and join us at the Lakeside on Thursday, Dec. 10.

Having grown up in the era of 1960s hit radio, I have a deep appreciation for the tightly arranged three-minute record. A great three-minute record glows like a gem. There's no wasted motion. It's like a dream that you can return to again and again.

Over time, and having listened to many other styles of music, I found that many hard-bop records of the 1950s and early 1960s, the early LP era, had such great vibe and hi-fi sound to them -- the whole band is performing live in the studio, and there's such great feeling and playing. The only trouble is, those records have so much soloing and take so long to get to the point.

The idea may not be original with me, but I wondered, what if you tried to get that great vibe and feel and musicianship of those great jazz records, but had the concise, tight structure of a three-minute pop tune?

When I had the opportunity to make my first record of instrumental pop tunes, "Side One," the sound engineer, Greg Duffin, understood all of this immediately. Greg had earned a degree in broadcast engineering, then worked for Lou Whitney in Springfield, Missouri, in an all-analog setting. Greg knows a warm tube tone when he hears one.

What's a bit odd about all of this is that the recording group of myself, Dennis, Paul and Lance is sort of a rock band. We can't help it -- we came up through the rock basements. As much as we may try to stretch away from a rock background toward other forms of music, the rock will always be there. So there's a bit of tension that I believe benefits the records -- a rock band stretching toward other forms.

The term I tend to use is "moody and instrumental pop music." Instrumental music engages the listener in a different way from vocal music -- you don't have to process verbal information. Plus, not too many people are making instrumental pop music in a non-retro way, so the field is wide open.

Since there's no vocal in the center, we're free to move away from verse-chorus-verse song forms. This opens up all kinds of possibilities and allows for bits of improvisation. If it gets "jazzy" at times, it's as a style, not as an art form. The composition comes first. This is pop music, and that means that anything can happen.

With the second record, "Mood Lit," the production is more stripped-down, more immediate, fewer overdubs, and the band may be swinging it a bit harder. We just grooved and rocked and had fun and tried to swing it as hard as we could. Some of that feeling made it onto the tape, I believe.

To make swinging, grooving and moody instrumental music in the form of three-minute tunes -- it seems like such an obvious thing, but not many people are doing it.

You may not care for Laura Nyro's music. You may find it too "Broadway" for your taste, or you may find that her shrieking falsetto is too much. Her self-coined words may make you wonder just what she's singing about. And then there are those unwieldy album titles. But to speak for myself, in the past year, no other artist's recordings have moved me more than Laura Nyro's.

She performs with a wild abandon that's frankly scary. Maybe it will make your blood run cold. As for me, it gets me right here [points to left side of chest].

You can find the facts on her elsewhere -- teenage prodigy from the Bronx who came up in the mid-1960s, and who, before she was old enough to vote, wrote top-10 hits for the Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, Blood Sweat & Tears and Barbra Freaking Streisand. But although she could write hit records, much of her music pulls away from all that, toward strange, dark, asymmetrical suites.

Where's the chorus? On her magnum opus, "New York Tendaberry," released in 1969, when she was 22 years of age, many of the tunes are "through-composed," one theme into another, with no repeats, rather than using verse-chorus-verse song forms. She gets deep at the piano, and her silences are pitch-dark. Her sense of time is drifting, and the more it drifts, the more dead-sure she sounds. She draws on rhythm and blues, doo-wop, early soul music, church music and Tin Pan Alley. Shocking bits of orchestration burst in suddenly and then vanish, never to return. The chorus is there. Thing is, she does it only once.

She is stubborn, uncompromising. And when she lets loose with that untrained voice, your stereo speakers go into panic mode, having never processed anything like this before.

And yet, and yet, she wrote pop tunes that were smashing victories. "Wedding Bell Blues," which she recorded at age 19, is so satisfying that to match it you have to reach for Brian Wilson on a good day. The bridge on "Stone Soul Picnic" is so astonishing that it must have sent fear through the corridors of the Brill Building.

Her work is uneven, often self-absorbed, as though she is working out a personal mythology known only to herself. By all accounts she was difficult to deal with, and she had a knack for sabotaging her own career. But when she soars, she reaches heights of freedom that pop-crafters and punk-rockers alike can only dream about.

Some people have written that she wasn't much of a live performer. The legend is that her set at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was a bust. But a recent CD, "Spread Your Wings and Fly," has her on solo piano at the Fillmore East in 1971, and it's just hypnotizing.

Here are some emailed comments from Bob Brainen, a disc jockey at WFMU in Jersey City: "I did see Laura at The Turning Point, very small intimate club, and I was about 10 feet away. Just her voice and keyboard, it was wonderful...

"I think the live aspect is largely based on misinformation about her Monterey Pop performance. She was ahead of her time and channeled Nina Simone's penchant for taking styles and songs from wherever she wanted to, long before it became a standard practice."

You can find a video clip of Laura Nyro on solo piano on a "Kraft Music Hall" TV special in 1968. She's singing "Save the Country," and she is out for blood. That last high note, which breaks up in mid-flight, is a doozy.

From there, you can find the facts for yourself -- her album of rhythm-and-blues covers, how she retired and un-retired from music several times. In a late video clip from 1994, the camera shakes and the audio is poor, but her power comes through.

Laura Nyro died of ovarian cancer in April 1997, at age 49. She has been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, and she probably won't get in. That doesn't matter; any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that excludes Iggy and the Stooges is a joke anyway.

If you have never surrendered yourself to the sound of Laura Nyro cutting loose, give it a try. Maybe you'll resist it, but maybe you'll feel a bracing chill that I can't compare to anything else in music.

(New York) The Black Hollies, from Jersey City, N.J., may have a misleading name. They don't sound like the Hollies, but they do sound like the Yardbirds, or the Zombies or the early Kinks, or the pre-"Tommy" Who. They stepped out of a time machine, from the era when bands had long hair but still wore suits -- 1965 or '66, but not '67. They're young-ish guys, too, playing vintage gear. Only the band members themselves were manufactured after 1970.

They capture a particular vintage sound, and they are dead-sincere about it. No spoof act here. They put on a tight, well-put-together set, one song right into another, and beyond the fuzztone guitars and Farfisa organ, they have some real tunes. On their first full-length album, "Casting Shadows," I like every single track.

My girlfriend Amy and I first saw them as an opening act, and they were way better than the headliner. We've gone back to see them a couple of times and have not yet been disappointed.

So, first of all, check out the Black Hollies. Second, even in this era when so much music is available for free, if I like a band, I want to buy something, and I don't think I'm alone. A couple of weeks ago, we saw the Black Hollies play an early set in New York, and the cover charge was very low. And they wailed. They played a set that gets you rocking and puts a smile on your face. They have a new drummer, who apparently went to school on Keith Moon records. So it all keeps getting better.

When the set was over, I wanted to buy something. The cover charge was so low that I wanted to give them something. A basic human impulse, to open the wallet. For centuries, buskers and public-house minstrels and Beatles have survived on this impulse, and free digital file-sharing won't erase it anytime soon.

So I'm at the merch table, talking to the guitar player (I don't know these guys at all), and he starts talking and talking about the band's wares, how they make their records and so on. He keeps talking, because he knows that the more he has me listening, the more likely I'll buy something. So I buy the band's new album, "Softly Towards the Light," on vinyl, for $10. And it's a fine record. In fact, it may even be a little better than "Casting Shadows."

What's the point? In this day and age when music is given away for free, and when there's so much of it that you can't possibly get to it all, then when you find something you like, you don't mind paying. Or at least I don't. I'd rather pay for something, to feel like I'm supporting it or participating in making it happen, in some small way. And to get hold of a genuine artifact.

Not a very original observation, but it's a data point, at least. (Some of these comments are from email correspondence with my friend Jimmy Guterman in Boston, who is an astute observer of music and media and the world at large.)

(Albuquerque, N.M.) Another term that gets bandied about is "Muzak." Or perhaps "elevator music," "dentist office music." People use these terms to deride a certain type of instrumental music that consists of cover versions of popular tunes, done in a deliberately bland style. These tracks were recorded by a small orchestra, and the arrangements were apparently knocked out one after another, by an expert who needed some quick cash.

But how much of that old Muzak do you hear anymore? You don't hear it in elevators or dentist's offices. You don't even hear it when you're "on hold" or waiting for a conference call. Instead, what you get is that damnable "soft rock."

Of course, Muzak is a specific company that manufactured this "background music" for office buildings and retail establishments. Still, the generic term sticks. And the music is generic, or at least it was. Muzak, and the music resembling it, is vanishing before our ears.

The other night, while driving across northern Arizona on I-40, I was flipping the FM dial, trying to escape from Phil Collins. Suddenly, what is this? An instrumental version of the Lettermen's "Come Saturday Morning." Then a soporific version of Melissa Manchester's "Midnight Blue," which had a pseudo-classical piano break. Then an acoustic-guitar-and-strings version of Burt Bacharach's "Wives and Lovers." When you hear a sleepy orchestra cover Burt Bacharach, you know you're getting mellow.

This was vintage Muzak, or something quite like it. You may call it hack-work, but you know what? The arrangements were pretty cool -- one verse on the trombone, next verse on the flute, bridge on the strings, then modulate up. And the performances were spot-on. All these anonymous players were likely moonlighting jazzers or members of regional orchestras who were out for a few extra bucks. But they could play!

The radio station was KAHM -- as in "calm" -- which broadcasts out of Prescott, Ariz., at 102.1 FM. This station has the lonely job of carrying that low, flickering torch of instrumental background music on the public airwaves.

KAHM's slogan is, "Music as beautiful as Prescott." I've never been there, but if the claim is true, then Prescott must be a gorgeous retirement community.

According to Wikepedia, the Muzak company no longer produces its own content. Instead, it's in the business of designing soundscapes for businesses, using licensed material. That's why the sounds you hear on KAHM date to the late 1970s at the latest. One imagines a locker full of old reel-to-reel tapes.

And that's why you won't hear a string section doing a pizzicato version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Stick around, and you'll hear Percy Faith's "Theme From 'A Summer Place.'" Keep listening, and you'll get Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."

Sure, you can laugh at Muzak and at this type of background music, but it's vanishing. As with the term "lounge music," it's something people refer to in a derogatory way without having heard it in years.

According to the same Wikipedia article, the Muzak company is currently operating under bankruptcy protection.

The next time you're driving across I-40, or for that matter on historic Route 66, forget that caterwauling classic rock. It's dead, man; it's over. If you want to capture some of the spirit of the old America that is fading away by the week, tune into KAHM, 102.1 FM, in Prescott, Ariz., while you still can.

(Los Angeles) -- The term "lounge act" gets used and abused, but how many true lounge acts are out there anymore? The hotel chains don't book live entertainment the way they used to, and if you're lucky, you'll get a piano player. But even those are going the way of the dodo.

Everyone here in L.A. already knows about this hidden treasure, but for a visiting New Yorker, Marty and Elayne at the Dresden provide an eye-opening experience. They've been at it for decades, and their material is time tested, from "Summertime" to "I'll Remember April," from "Whatever Lola Wants" to "Come Fly With Me." The sound is a bit odd -- the sound system is strictly from hunger, and the upright bassist maintains a low, rumbling murmur.

But the spirit is there, in spades. Marty croons the night away, and the stage patter comes naturally: "Give us your requests. If we don't get requests, we'll just play jazz, and then everybody goes home early."

Elayne plays bebop-derived phrases at the piano, then startles you when she leaps up to the Yamaha DX7 and throws herself into a synthesized guitar solo. She also doubles on flute.

Are they kidding us? Is this all a huge put-on? No, and no. They have done this gig thousands of times, six nights a week. Who else maintains that kind of schedule?

The crowd is young and hip and pretty. A group at the bar says they're from Vancouver, and they want to hear some Hank Williams. Marty: "Did Hank Williams write 'Make the World Go Away"? No? It must have been Boris Karloff..."

Next, a request for "Stardust," which Marty and Elayne turned into a Hoagy Carmichael medly with "The Nearness of You."

I just happened to be there one of the thousands of times that they have swung into "The Summer Wind." And you may have to live through a version of "My Way." That might be a good time to get a drink. Marty and Elayne get terrible reviews in the local press. The L.A. Weekly took a shot at them just the other day.

But if you want to see some sincere practicioners of a dying art, you get to do it, every night of the week except Sunday, for no cover charge, at the Dresden on Vermont Avenue. They don't make them like Marty and Elayne anymore.

P.S., save the date -- Thursday, Dec. 10, at 9 p.m., the Jim Duffy Combo at the Lakeside Lounge, 162 Ave. B in Manhattan.

[Edit: In the original post, I forgot to include the date. Ay, carumba.]

More soon,
Jim

Hello, this is Jim, and I'm pleased to tell you that as of today, Mood Lit, my second collection of instrumental pop tunes, is available.

Making music is a privilege, and I'm glad I get to do it as much as I can. And in this day and age, when all kinds of sounds and visions are flying through the ether, ready to be captured on anyone's little gadget, I'm glad to know that someone who may be interested in this music has a decent chance of finding it. If that's you, then I say welcome, with all my heart.

Who knows what a release date is anymore? This CD, which includes artwork by Ben Gibson and photos by my longtime associate C.S. Gray, and a rather elegant, simple package, comes into the world just as the compact disc has become obsolescent.

As we all know, recorded sound is becoming disassociated from any physical artifact. Down at J&R Music World, the clerks are looking at their watches, living on borrowed time. CDs are passe, and yet a radio engineer told me that digital downloads are not yet up to broadcast quality. So we don't yet have something that pleases everybody.

As with anything released these days, Mood Lit is available as a download, in the usual places. Or it will be in a matter of days, so I'm told.

As convenient as this is -- portable music that weighs literally nothing -- some people will pine for the days of the 12-inch vinyl record, when the physical album was itself a work of art. And of course, by now we all realize -- too late? -- that vinyl sounds better than anything.

There's nothing I'd like more than to see my two albums go under the vinyl mastering lathe at Masterdisk, which is a breathtaking piece of machinery in its own right.

Then again, the manufacture of vinyl records has an environmental impact that's worse than that of CDs. You don't hear much about that. So you can't win, can you?

Gee, this isn't a very cheery press release, is it? Get me Derek Shackwell-Smith on the phone, stat!

Oh well, hey, my new record is out. What matters is the music. You can read about the music elsewhere on this site. And I hope you'll have a listen. I didn't do this all alone -- a lot of talented people helped me.

These are exciting times. The media are in a state of rapid transition. And music in general is in a state of flux approaching chaos. Anything can happen -- that's the definition of pop music, right? As for my own particular music, which I generally describe as "moody and bouncy instrumental pop tunes," it's here for the listening.

Thank you for stopping by. And a heads-up to the enthusiastic people at Planetary Group. More soon.

-- Jim