Timing can be everything in life. When you're born and when you graduate college. What era did you live through and are you satisfied. When Art was considered a sustainable form of business?
My guest today took advantage of his timing and luck and fused that with an adventuresome often stream of consciousness taste in music.
He understands his own Jewish roots and has devoted much of the last 15 years to promoting unsung international heroes like Chiune Sugihara who as a Japanese Diplomat helped thousands of Jews escape Lithuania in WW II.
This bass understanding of history fused with his musical musings melded into an amalgamation of Moby Grape, The Pointer Sisters, Cold Blood and Buddy Rich.
He produced African Jazz albums by Herbie Hancock which focused on layers of rhythms that would change moods within the 18 minute track. Like a sleeping giant the tune moved from hypnotic percussion from the entire band to moody black jazz to funky blues back to Hancology.
How this ever was pressed on a record and furthermore a major label is vexing to this host. From my insular vantage point it speaks to a time in our society where stretching out was accepted and flaunted. The language of the rhythms indicates a lean towards education and teamwork with an onus on the accompanist. Values that have become liquidated in an downsized Music business. No longer an industry the major labels make offers based on how many Twitter followers you have and not on the quality of the content.
My guest has always been content driven from his earliest days on Columbia Records to his merging with Bill Graham and the evolution of Fillmore and San Francisco record labels which produced the sultry funk of early Tower of Power Records.
He has dealt with the biggest personalities in music and film like Francis Ford Coppola during the making of "Apocalypse Now." Or rediscovering a magical shepherd with Miroslav Vitous.
It's what the kids want, it's the real thing. David Rubinson welcome to the JFS