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In an effort to provide as much info as possible on the career as possible, I normally do this to dispel rumours and myths about what's up, I was deeply inspired by Bob Baldwin's site (one of my childhood idols), which outlines his experiences as an artist. So with that, I'm jotting down some key notes on the site as an Artist. I hope you enjoy this new addition.  These records are what I feel are important documents in my career and the experiences I hope are helpful in younger artists' pursuit of a career.  This is good reading with some great history here and it's a little different than what's outlined on my bio page.  This page will take some time to evolve, so visit often.

In 1996, I opened up for Tom Browne at the Bottom Line in NY (08/86). At that time, I was working with Al Orlo. With only $5.00 collected at the door, we were making $20.00/per man (on a good day) at the door in New Rochelle at the Crazy Horse. Vinny Pastore (now the infamous Sopranos actor) ran a club there and as quiet as it's kept, Vinny loved jazz!  I lived in N.R. at that time, so we designed a Sunday Night scene there.  We featured James "Crab" Robinson on vocals.  From time to time, we were graced either in audience or on stage some of the great musicians in that area, which included Vaneese Thomas (who cut her teeth there on many occasions with the group Nite Sprite as she eventually blazed the trail onto being one of the best NY Jingle singers of all time in the 80's and 90's). 

Also in the house included some of the creme of the Westchester music scene including Oscar Cartaya, Joey Calderazzo (great pianist!!) Joel Rosenblatt (pre-SpyroGyra), Dave Weckl, Fred Vigdor (AWB), Brian Doherty, Rob Aries, Porter Carroll (frmrly Atlantic Starr), to name a select few.  I remember rushing to get home in 1986 from Virginia Beach at a family reunion.  Remembering that we were paid at the door, it rained cats and dogs the third weekend that August 1986.  My flight was turbulent at best and I was clutching the lady's wrist adjacent to me. The plane hobbled across the sky and finally, it landed. 

I rushed to get home to schlep my gear (Fender Rhodes, Yamaha DX7) to the club in my Mercury Lynx Hatchback (those poor shocks) in time for the gig. That night because it rained cats and dogs, we made about $4.00 apiece, but nonetheless, the music was killing and we all enjoyed that gig.

Tom Browne - No Longer I (1988)

This as actually the record that exposed my career to other heights. I've always been a believer that you do things not based on money, but based on the passion within your quest.  There are people who make tons of money in the business, more that I may ever make in my own career.  What most people in this career don't have is longevity and sometimes that comes down to the foundation which has been laid in the earlier part of the career.  Some people lay foundations for decades before you can figure out the path.  If you want to emulate great artists with longevity, Herbie, Stevie, Quincy, Bob James, Sanborn, Joe Sample are at the top of the list, some of which are embarking on a 5-decade legacy.

Back to the Crazy Horse. We worked that room for about 6 months straight, irregardless of the weather because of our love of the music and the comradreship.  Well, our hard work paid off, being asked to open up for Tom at the legendary, now defuncy Bottom Line in New York City.

We did "What's Going On" and Crab sang his booty off!!  I was even surprised. Our version had some twisted chord changes (what, you're surprised??) in it and it caught Tom's ear. It just so happened that Tom was looking for a keyboardist to fill in some dates. He was still getting work from "Funkin' For Jamaica", which is now a funk-jazz classic.  So I did a few gigs with him. Then he invited me to come play and arrange some music on his record. That was a blast.  The coolest part about this record was that T.B. was embarking on a great musical venture, which was a gospel-jazz recording. Tom was deeply seeded in his beliefs in God to the point that he didn't even want to do "Funkin'" live.  This gospel-jazz venture was almost 15 years ahead of it's time.  Years later, Ben Tankard, Koinonia and Kirk Whalum eventually broke through with Whalum penetrating the three-note chord myths within the fibers of old-time church traditions with extended jazz harmonies.  The truth is that Tom Browne was miles ahead of his time on this record.

Combine that with an old label experimenting on a new genre and new distribution challenges, this record hadn't a good chance for success.  Malaco never produced jazz and were relying on artist's reputation.  Nonetheless, the marketing endeavors on this record were a little short because start-to-finish, this record is one of Tom's best ever.

On a positive note, this record was part of a production team featuring Danny Weiss and Dave Wilkes, two respected people in this genre. Weiss heads up the Shanachie label and Wilkes is now pioneering Koch Jazz. We would do two more records in this regime as a team, in particular, the next three.

I've Got a Long Way To Go (1988)

This album was a spin-off from the Tom Browne record.  As the relationship evolved with Wilkes and Weiss, we tried our hands at another Malaco effort.  It was more of a showcase as a producer for me personally to develop my production resume, which was at a whopping ONE (laughs)!

The 6-tune package had what I call the Baldwin signature vibe at that time, which was a tune called "Feelingood". It was a hot little tune with synth parts all over the place. At that time, I was heavily into EWF and Quincy and it seemed like those cats knew how to over-orchestrate with brilliance.  Every time I hear a Quincy record even today, I hear something different. They knew how to develop mulitiple conversations within one song, so those type of records were my inspiration. I was using sequenced parts from my computer and would overdub percussion to loosen up the arrangement. I added funky Phil Hamilton on guitars, who was dancing around doing Roberta Flack gigs.  PH played in my first band, and as he was the original guitarist from the NY-based Unlimited Touch, he was turned out by his tone and his wonderful spirit. 

This was also an opportunity to work with the talented Nelson Rangell on sax, which grew out of the Tom Browne record.  Nelson played on "You Will Know", which was one of my fave Stevie cuts ever.  Nelson at that time was a big Sanborn freak, so I purposely told him to sound like Sanborn when he sounded off on the alto. He had that screaming sound, which was a real hip sound at that time.

This record also features another saxophonist, Fred Vigdor, who was with me from the beginning. At the time, he was my first-call cat for the gigs, but lately, he's been gracing the stages with the group Average White Band, where he replaced the original saxophonist Roger Ball. It also contained the voices of ex-Atlantic Starr legend Sharon Bryant, and Frank Jackson.  Frank now calls himself Zoiea, as he sheds what he calls, "slave roots" from his person.  New Rochelle's own Zo is a great vocalist and writer and if you see some of my works of the new Century, you'll see his name, with his funky self.

All in all, if you're looking for solid grooves, this CD has a theme. It was not really designed for Bob Baldwin, the keyboardist, but BB the arranger, so in that respect, it served it's purpose.  Sound cards were pulling out their hairs in the area of sampled pianos, so I dove right in to the technology, never wavering.  We recorded this record on 2 inch, so it was an analog record, which actually translated itself warmly to the CD format.

Later that year, I submitted the record to the Sony Innovators Award and was selected over the group Straight-Ahead as the Innovator of the year, hand-picked by Roberta Flack. A humbling award recipient, so I guess in hindsight, it served it's purpose two-fold.

Rejoice (1990)

Now the fun begins. Sony signs me, then a Record Executive named Sylvia Rhone heard about the award through a former manager, the late Larry Maxwell, a.k.a., "Max-Pax". Larry and Sylvia were like family and Larry knew Weiss and Wilkes, so he basically walked us in.

The deal wasn't the greatest, but it got me in the door.  At that time, Sylvia was on fire, but her path made her stay with Atlantic Jazz a short one. While she was there, Gerald Albright and Bobby Lyle were there, Ahmad Jamal was doing his thing from the old regime.  I was trying to figure out how a young and fiery Rhone was going to keep the fire burning on the jazz front. More on that later.

In the meantime, here's my big chance. I start making some calls and forging ahead. Bobby Brown was hot then along with Babyface, so we did "On Our Own", which was a blast to record. I used Lenny White, who was teetering in and out of funk and straight ahead. Watching him design and build his drum sound on that tune as well as on "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" was a blast.

I then put together this medley on Marvin Gaye. He had already been dead 10 years and up until then, it was pretty quiet about the Motown crooner.  Marvin was one of my early faves because when he penetrated the universe with "What's Going On", that record had jazz harmonies all over it. Then he was stacking vocals while everyone was just short-layering vocals. Marvin and Stevie introduced the world to multi-tracking. "What's Going On" had great vocal layering of his own voice. What a genius he was.  When I was working late at a radio station in Mt. Kisco in 1984, I remember seeing the AP wire spit out the assassination of Marvin and I was devastated for about a month, so Marvin was close to the vest.

Back to "What's Going On", I was determined to make a record that was as good as the original, so I began to stack it with other Marvin classics like "I Want You", "Mercy, Mercy Me", and "After The Dance".  I have this killing medley of Marvin jams and a nice core of New York-based vocalists, including Sharon Bryant and Porter Carroll (Atlantic Starr), James "Crab" Robinson and Vaneese Thomas.  What a killing performance by all parties! I present this to Atlantic and Sylvia Rhone flips. She loves it and loves the album! I've succeeded in pleasing one of the great Execs in the business.  I know for sure that it is on!  A nice review by Billboard got us all excited about things.

Unfortunately, the stars, moons and notesmiths all had Marvin on the brain that year, especially those under the umbrella at WEA (Warner/Electra/Atlantic). Allow me to explain.

On the Warner side of the house, there was a new group on the horizon. You may be familiar with them.  They go by the name of FOURPLAY.....Bob James, Lee Ritenour, Nathan East and Harvey Mason. This was the priority of the record company and even though they were on different labels, there seemed to be some dis-shoveled focus at the top where they could only promote one record successfully within the hierarchy at one time.

Fourplay dropped a remake of "After The Dance", which was geared towards what would be known as Smooth Jazz. The format still was liberal in their voices. Sylvia must have gotten the directive to back off the promotional effort of "The Marvin Gaye Medley", and with that directive, the record went silent.  My debut record and first urban effort fell on deaf ears, but they were cool enough to extend the contract, so we went for record # 2.

Reflections of Love (1992)

1992 was a good year. I had 3 CD's in the top 10 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Charts. The late Grover Washington, Jr. had a CD out entitled, "Last Exit", when I teamed up with Grover and Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops and did a slick 60's - flavored vibe called, "Til You Return to Me".  When I wrote it, it had a Bonnie Raitt vibe to it and actually, if she ever sings it, it will be a smash all over like "Just In The Nick Of Time".  The other record was by Marion Meadows with "Keep It Right There".  I was dancing between working with Noel Pointer, Will Downing, Grover, Marion and Pieces of A Dream, all of which are great memories.

Just to give you a little background here.  My dad got sick when I was 14 and my brother was 4, leaving me with the task of being the man of the family.  Let's call this tragedy #1. At age 15, I cheated on my application so I can get to work early at the supermarker in order to help make ends meet and take care of brother.  I was so devastated by my dad's illness (a botched-up appendicitis), that I completely stopped playing music for like 4 years in my latter years in high school before picking it back up in College, working in a Gospel group at Geneva College.

Fast forward to 1991.  What happened here was a family tragedy #2, and up until now, was quite difficult to write about, but as one says, "all things heal in time".  In January, 1991, my mother re-married to one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.  They had a post-wedding party on Sunday, Feb. 17, 1991. We were all having a great time at the house in Peekskill. Smiles and happiness abounded and all of my family was in the same room, such a cool thing.  It was late that night and it was time for everybody to disperse.  My brother William was in attendance. He was a college kid, attending Sullivan State Community College at the tender young age of 19.  There's a lot of stuff going on here with this relationship, all good....Billy was like my son.

William was getting ready to go back to school on Monday. He always came home on the weekend and had classes to attend on Mondays, so it was always an early rise to be at school at 8:00am. The night before at the wedding party, we normally give each other a hand-shake and a hug, but for some reason, there was neither. I was in a rush to leave and reached out for his hand and missed it.  We both laughed it off and said, 'next time, bro'. It was quite unusual.  Who would ever think that this would be the last time I would see my brother alive.

The next morning, the roads were slick from a light tropical rain with a little bit of freeze thrown in.  I went to work that day when I got the dreaded call late that morning around 11:00am. My sister cried in a panic, saying "Something happened to Billy! Something happened to Billy!" I began to get real nervous and started thinking the worst because the police called the house and didn't say what was wrong, but never said he was alive after having an automobile accident. He drove a white Pontiac Grand Prix, a very cool car indeed.  He was pronounced dead. The most devastating thing was that I saw a parent bury her child. My mother buried Billy and it was so harder watching her suffer thru this than me dealing with my loss. To see a parent bury their child, especially a mother is the hardest thing in the world to deal with.

Okay, so let's fast forward again to 1992.  "Reflections of Love" was dedicated to my brother, Billy.  I miss that kid so much. He would have been about 35 at the time of this writing. He also was a drummer by trade and a pretty good one. One of the pictures he had on his wall were of the legendary Buddy Williams, who I ended up doing a session with for the very first time in 2001, so Buddy and I were connected going back to the 80's through my late brother Billy.

A lot of passion went into this record. I basically did my first recording through a loss of a loved one and that changed the passion and fire in my delivery, so it would be safe to say that I was christened with the fire and realized what it was to take a gift from GOD and touch people's lives with it, rather than my talent being a hobby of sorts.

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