Q Your first high-profile gig was in the jazz
orchestra of Gil Evans, who wrote arrangements for Miles Davis. Yet your
website says you worked with Dr. Ruth. She's a pistol. It was an infomercial of some kind, and I wrote
the music. I like doing different things. It's a big leap from playing with
Gil, but I've done a lot of things like that being a hired gun in New York.
Q But when you first came to New York, you were a
French horn player, right? I went to Boston
University and Julliard, earning a master's as a French horn player. I was
playing jazz piano for fun. As a jazz player, I wasn't very good, but in the
late '60s I started playing gigs on a Hammond B-3 (organ), my first electric
keyboard. It was so soulful.
Q That instrument was everywhere at one time, in
rock, R&B and jazz. Why do you think it went away? It was a sound that filled in all the holes,
and during the disco-era producers wanted to name the sounds that filled those
holes -- and I made a good living doing that -- but nobody wanted the organ
anymore. I put my Hammond in storage, but in the '90s I wondered why did I
stop? And I started playing gigs again.
Q You mentioned making a good living in the
studios. I came to New York in
the late '60s, and I was doing a couple of sessions a day -- a jingle in the
morning, playing on someone's record in the afternoon and then I'd play a jazz
gig at night. It started to change in the '80s as the technology changed ... by
the end of the '90s, the studio scene completely disintegrated.
Q Yet there's something like a studio scene in
Woodstock where you live. I had family and
friends here and eventually I moved. Now, I play on somebody's album every
week. I played on Genya Ravan's album last week. I had never met her, and she
lives down the road from me. -- John Chacona
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