Light on the Path

Dear listeners and readers,

I am going to be completely honest with you. I literally lost sleep and hair, over-thinking and stressing about this episode. One afternoon in early June, Moe Denham contacted me about appearing on the podcast. This began my month-long, freak-out. I teetered from excitement to terror and then to all-out joy over the prospect of getting to meet Moe.

The day of our conversation I drove to his house and nearly ran out of gas on the way there. When I arrived, my laptop was running out of storage and Logic, the program I use for recording was running wonkily. I was struggling with dark thoughts of amateurism even though I’ve been a professional musician since 1993. I just couldn’t shake the persistent state of being starstruck, but as Moe and I talked for several hours I began to feel myself evolving and becoming a new version of me. This is the power that giants have. They can bless us and help light our path, and this is exactly what spending time talking with Moe meant to me.

Let’s be real. Moe is a legend and he didn’t begin to get through an nth of the stories he has to share in the span of our two-hour conversation. However, the experiences he did share were rich and loaded with musical nutrients. It took me a couple weeks to dig deeper into the wisdom, but first, I started really listening to his CD, “Soul Jazz Sessions” in my car. I just kept playing it, over and over. I can’t pick a favorite song but I sit down and take note of his command of organ tone and his wonderful bass lines. I enjoy his solos too, and the shout choruses in some of the tunes, all of which are soulful and funky.

After I absorbed his CD, I started looking for Les McCann online and found a video of him performing “Compared To What?” with Eddie Harris at the Montreal Jazz Festival. It is blazing hot and profound. I also found video of Richard “Groove” Holmes with a great view of his hands, helpful for checking out his bass lines. I listened to “Patricia” by Prez Prado and remembered hearing it as a child before I knew anything about organs. If you haven’t heard it, at least check out the trombones at about 1:15!

Here’s a few more pithy takeaways from the incredible career of Moe Denham: Serve your country according to your abilities. Find the right band for you. Play lots of gigs and make people laugh. If you take a day job, find one that involves listening to music all day and having fun talking about it. If you dig certain musicians, go hear them and try to get in their band. Play for free when the music and the musicians feed your soul. Reach out to your peers and heroes, and get to know them if possible. Know your instrument. Love your wife and tell her how grateful you are for her. When in the line of fire, dive behind your B3. Finally, mentor other musicians with kindness, honesty, and humor.

Thank you, Moe!