Q. What inspired you to first pick up the guitar and what were your first attempts at playing the guitar like?

A. My dad, although he didn't play an instrument, was a big music fan with great taste and a huge collection from just about every genre of music. He always had his stereo going in the house, so I learned to love music at an early age. I played the tennis racket for a while until moving up to the real thing. The first guitar I had was a cheap little rental that came in a cardboard box. Having horrible action, it was really hard to play. So my first attempts were discouraging. But I kept playing it until my parents bought me an electric for my tenth birthday. My grandfather and his brother both played and they insisted I have a Gibson and I got a Gibson Sonex guitar. I loved that guitar and played it incessantly. My brother and I formed our first band that same week. He was the drummer, playing on pots and pans to begin with.

Q. Did you take lessons or are you self-taught?

A. After getting an electric guitar I started taking weekly lessons at a local music store. I pretty much kept taking 1-2 lessons a week from a number of different classical, jazz or rock teachers in the metro Detroit area until going to college, where of course I also took private lessons.

Q. Who inspired you to learn the guitar?

A. My first guitar hero was Angus Young of AC/DC. There have been many since. They were also the first band I saw live in a big arena. My dad took my brother and I to go see them.

Q. What is your practice regimen like?

A. When I was younger and without much if any responsibilities, I practiced constantly. 8-12 hours a day. I don't have a schedule that I follow on a daily basis right now but I would like to get into a more structured regimen again. For the past several years I devote most of my practice time to learning new material or composing. When I find concepts or ideas I need to improve upon or develop in my playing I will spend time on that until I have a good grasp on it.

Q. How would you define your style of playing?

A. Modern Bebop

Q. Tell us about your CD "Nightfall"

A. The compositions on "Nightfall" come from a cache of tunes spanning about a ten-year writing period. I think these tunes fit well together as a collection. The band I assembled for this project is incredible. Kenny Banks on piano, Zack Pride on bass and Kinah Boto on drums. They each have such a unique and characteristic style unto themselves and make each of the compositions come to life beyond my expectations. They are such supportive players and truly gifted improvisers.

SONG BREAKDOWN:
"April Fools" I put together on the 1st of April some years back hence the title. I was going for something Horace Silver like. The thing I really love about this one the most is the bass line and the quasi swing-latin feel.
"Ain't Messin' 'Round" (title suggested by my dad) is a funky tune with a bass line. This one is kind of an 8 bar blues with a 2 bar turnaround. I like to write things that are bluesy but not necessarily true blues form or changes.
"Inconstant Moon" was taken from a big band composition I wrote that was inspired by Thad Jones' "Quietude". I just condensed the tune section to a lead sheet for quartet.
"Time Machine" is yet another tune utilizing a bass line throughout with a straight eighths feel. A line I heard bassist Tim Delaney play as he was warming up and adjusting his amp had inspired it. I had purchased my guitar synth specifically for this tune. That is the sound I had heard to play the melody from its inception. It was to have a primitive yet futuristic sort of feel. I have always loved the things that John Abercrombie and Pat Metheny have done with similar guitar synthesizer sounds.
"Into the blue" I was going for a kind of Hammond organ trio thing. Something Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery might play. Another bluesy yet not blues tune.
"Nightfall" I love the sort of calm eeriness that guys played with. The acoustic nylon worked well blending with the other instruments on this tune.
"Smudge" was inspired by a tune by Blue Mitchell called "Fungii Mama". Also a rhythm changes tune in F with a calypso type feel. This was titled after my aunts dog named Smudge.
"Summit Drive" is the only vocal tune on the CD. I used to live on Summit drive when I wrote the tune. It's in a heavily wooded area and was an inspiring place to be at times.
"Neutron Star" was inspired by Stevie Wonders "Too High". I always loved the changes and wanted to write something using constant structure major 7 flat 5 chords in fourth voicings like Stevie did. That is what I came up with.
This is a project I have been looking forward to recording for a long time. I am extremely happy with the end result.

Q. Lets talk about your creative process. How do you approach writing an original song - do you compose from the guitar or do you use a piano?

A. I will usually be inspired to write a tune by something else I hear and want to try and compose something similar to that or take a certain aspect of it and find some other way to approach it. Most often I will think of a certain idea when I am doing something totally unrelated to music. Such as; driving in my car, mowing the lawn, cleaning the house etc. I will try to work it out in my as much as possible then I will go to my guitar mess with it further and hopefully have a new tune. A lot of times I will just record a melody or fragment and come back to it later. I have pro tools sessions devoted for just that purpose. There are many little snippets or seeds of tunes that need to be completed.

Q. What challenges do you face when switching from different styles of music?

A. Usually it is logistical. Changing guitars, adding pedals for different effects, that sort of thing. You can get quite tangled up in cables. Sometimes it can be difficult to do this between tunes.

Q. What other types of music or artists do you derive inspiration from?

A. I listen to pretty much any guitar music. Every player has a unique way of approaching our humbling instrument. I love Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, Joe Pass and Scofield. Those are my big favorites. Others include Pat Metheny, Joe Satriani, Jeff Beck, Albert King, Lee Ritenour, Steve Morse, Jimi Hendrix, Andre Segovia etc. and on and on for days. Other instrumentalists I really love are John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Horace Silver, Bill Evans, Charlie Parker. I like to listen to classical music sometimes. Anything by Bach. Messiaen "quartet for the end of time" is great. Even Bela Bartok. I like a lot of Bluegrass to. And believe it or not, the music of my roots, AC/DC, Metallica, stuff like that. It has real great energy. I also derive inspiration from nature: Trees, sky, clouds, moon, and stars. And in visual art my favorite is Kandinsky. My wife and I have a number of prints about the house. Lots of energy there to.

Q. What's the most important bit of advice you were given by another musician?

A. The most important bit of advice given to me by another musician was from my guitar teacher at the University of Miami, Randall Dollahon. He said to me, "everything you play sounds really pretty, but where's the fire. You need to play with more fire." By this he meant to create more excitement in a solo. Ever since then, I hear that voice in my head saying "where's the fire" and strive to achieve "ignition" every time I play. Randall is a great teacher and one of the best players I've ever heard. He was brutally honest pointing out my weaknesses and he gave me a lot of incite into what I need to do to improve my playing.

Q. What equipment do you use live and in the studio and why?

A. The axe I use most on the CD is my main gigging guitar, a Heritage 575. It is a really great playing and sounding archtop. I string it with D'Addarios: .015 .018 .022 (unwound) .032 (flatwounds) .042 .056. I can get a fatter, punchy, more percussive sound without the twangyness of lighter strings. The unwound g-string is more balanced in tension to the adjacent string than is a wound g I think. Also on the CD I use my Yamaha SA1100 (strung with D'Addario .010s) with a Roland GR-33 guitar synth for "Time Machine". On "Nightfall" I used my cheap little Takamine classical guitar with an SM-57 six inches from the strings, pointing at the 12th fret. Lately, I have been using my new Godin multiac nylon string on gigs in addition to my 575. It has a real sweet tone and nice action. Live I use one of two amps. A Roland jazz chorus 55 (two 8 inch speakers) or 77 (two 10 inch speakers). I leave these in my truck. They are great little jazz amps that sound great, require little maintenance, and are small enough to lug around into any situation. They don't scare people as much as the JC-120 did. In the studio for my CD "Nightfall" I used my JC-120. I was unhappy with that amp in the mix so we tried the DI track going to some digital amp software, amp farm. We used a variety of amp models. A Fender deluxe model was used for most of the tunes except on "Neutron Star" we used a fender twin. I used to use fender amps live but they required a lot of maintenance and don't like being thrashed about from gig to gig, however I would like to get a deluxe for the next studio recording. I used one on a more recent project and just loved the tone I got with it and my 575.

Q. What one piece of equipment would you advise all guitarists to own?

A. Two things. An electonic tuner and a metronome. Play in tune and in time. This important.

Q. What's been your proudest playing moment?

A. When I was seventeen, I had been working tirelessly on some new classical pieces and I was getting very frustrated. I was somewhat of a perfectionist. One piece was Prelude from Suite BWV 995 by Bach and Capricho Arabe by Francisco Tarrega. I still have the music. My grandfather had come over and he wanted me to play for him as he always did. I was reluctant, feeling sort of down, but gave in and played. This was the first time I remember totally letting go and just becoming the music. It was as if I left my body and experienced the music from a different angle than ever before. I had glimpses of it but not like that. I was able to play without thinking about it and overly criticizing myself at every phrase. Just to play and love being the music. It was the best I had played the guitar up to that point in my life. Since then I want to close my eyes and get into that space every time I play. It is euphoric. An out of body experience. Kind of corny huh?

Q. What's the biggest disaster you've ever had onstage, and how did you cope with it?

A. I have had several disasters. Most have had to do with amplifiers breaking down on the gig. All have been handled with panic. Once on a small job my Polytone quit on me and I used the bass players amp and he played acoustic the rest of the night. I now always bring 2 amps and extra fuses to every gig. I feel more secure now and it is not such a big deal if one breaks down. I have yet to break both on one job.

Q. Do you warm up before a concert and if so how?

A. First of all, I want to find a hot water source and run my hands and forearms under warm water to loosen the muscles. Then I do some hand, wrist and finger stretches. Then I have a series of exercises mostly chromatic stuff utilizing hammer-ons and pull-offs. This really works the muscles in the arms and hands. Then I will do some alternate picking things chromatic then more intervallic. I don't have time for all of that every time, but the more I can do the more in control and confident I will feel. That is very important in performing music. If you don't believe you can do it, you can't.

Q. What's the most important bit of advice you could give to new guitarists?

A. Listen to as many different kinds of music artists you can. Go out and hear it. This is an aural art form and it is learned by ear. Find what you like and learn it note for note. Listen to it. Play it. Understand it. Assimilate it. Love it. I also suggest taking lessons. A good teacher can add structure to your practice routine, help you overcome your weaknesses and also be great source of inspiration. Find every resource you can about music and guitar. Study it and learn how to be your own best teacher as well.

Q. Thanks for your time and consideration for this interview. Any last thoughts for our readers?

A. Thanks for the interview!