I was still a Young Man When I was working @ tower records following a stint @ Boston University in the late nineties when I came across a compact disc of a band that seemed to fit inside the Jake Feinberg pocket.
Nice melodies, contrapuntal piano techniques, power horns and the funk drumming. It was harder soul then the Temps and more modal then the Brubeck/Desmond/Guaraldi Tjader Jazz across the Bay.
They had infectious hooks, polyrhythmic percussion and messages that spoke to the changing dynamic of cities and the soul circuit of music as a conduit to magic.
My  guests drumming chops came from his work with Tower of Power but it also came in the form of Jacks on Sutter, The Vizedero, Jimbo's Bop City, The El Matador, the Black Saint and all his pocket trap buddies.....Eddie Moore, Gaylord Birch, Mike Clark, Eddie Marshall, Dick Berk Greg Errico and Jerry Granelli.  Being able to play live for nights a time in Japan town with some sticky sake and udon noodles next to Chester Thompson ambidextrous organ, Greg Adams trumpet or Lenny Williams urban renewal of the Oakland Stroke.
San Fran gets all the pub but Oaktown is the gritty dirty scrappy step brother who over performs and out maneuvers it's more glitzy neighbor. Don't change horses in midstream because the hot bet is on the boogie down east bay grease that cooked that stew of Sly Stone, The Fillmore District and East Side San Jose and Barry Bonds.
My guest today is in the same master drumming discussion as the aforementioned cats as well as Mickey Roker, Lenny White, Bernard Purdie and Jim Keltner. He has the chops to play in any musical setting because he can feel and is sensitive to the bump city that might be on the 1/3 or the 2/4 or a quick hop skip over to the BART station to learn some drumming techniques from the birds on hippie hill.
He's open to playing if the music is good just like Taj Mahal or Sam Lay or Michael White. He's open to painting the rhythm and hue because let's face it- the books still being written...David Garibaldi welcome to the JFS......