THE SHOWROOM SESSIONS: Streaming LIVE from Piedmont Piano Company
The 12th Annual Jazz Organ Fellowship Tribute
Chester CT Thompson Trio with special guest Ernie Watts
Each year, the Jazz Organ Fellowship (JOF) honors a living legend in the field of Jazz Organ. This year we honor organist and keyboard wizard, Clifford Coulter. The Chester CT Thompson Trio will headline our show, with special guest Ernie Watts. Barry Finnerty will play guitar and Darrell Green will play drums.
Watch the LIVE STREAM on youtube.com or facebook
Donations/tips accepted via Paypal: JazzOrganFellowship@gmail.com
Clifford Coulter – a native of Arizona – started playing the Hammond organ in 1960. The organ was a natural progression for a young music student who filled his junior high school years studying the piano, trumpet, guitar and saxophone. By his teen age years, Clifford was playing professionally with the popular guitarist, Mel Brown, and recording classic tracks for ABC/Impulses Records. These vinyl gems are now sought-after by record collectors worldwide. Many fans readily associate Clifford with his ‘70’s jazz/funk’ vinyl LP, ‘East-side San Jose’.
Through the years, Clifford has spent a significant amount of time exploring the outer reaches of high-tech keyboards and computer assisted music technology. He brought this musical curiosity with him when he re-located to Thailand many years ago. There, he performed and recorded prolifically while those of us here in the States waited for his return.
His musical collaborators have included saxophonist, Danny Hull; guitarist, Chris Cain and drummer, Ron E. Beck. Margot LeDuc was one of many popular artists vocalists who traveled, performed and recorded with Clifford.
Influenced by Ray Charles, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, Clifford Coulter ranks among the most gifted in the Bay Area’s music community. It was Jimmy Smith who steered him toward the Hammond organ and we can’t be happier about that!
Chester CT Thompson started playing the piano at his home in Oklahoma City at age five, picking out the notes from popular songs he heard on the radio. His parents quickly recognized his innate talent and arranged for formal piano lessons. And, it wasn't long before Thompson started playing both piano and organ for the choir at his church.
By the age of 13, Thompson had discovered jazz, which became a major, life-long influence, and by the age of 16, he had switched almost exclusively to the Hammond organ, and was playing in high school rock bands.
It was while still in high school that Thompson realized he could make a living as a professional musician. He'd been performing in bands at gigs throughout the state of Oklahoma for a couple of years, when he caught the ear of Rudy Johnson. As he was losing his keyboardist, Johnson asked Thompson to join the Rudy Johnson Trio and, at age 19, Thompson packed his bags and spent the next three years touring the country with that group.
One of Thompson's first performances with the Rudy Johnson Trio was in San Francisco. He liked the city enough to make it his home, and he moved to the Bay Area permanently when the band decided to split up in 1969. At first, he took a day job at a bank while he broke into the San Francisco music scene by playing clubs at night. He spent the next few years playing around the Bay Area, and landed a regular gig as the keyboardist with Jules Broussard, which eventually evolved into Thompson leading his own band. It was during this time that Thompson also released his first album under the Black Jazz label, a solo project titled, "Powerhouse".
In 1973, Thompson was playing at a club and was heard by a member of Tower of Power. Although Thompson had 'retired' from the road, he was convinced to join the band as keyboardist. And, for the next ten years, Thompson not only filled out the band's distinctive R & B/funk sound with his dynamic keyboard style.
Chester joined the Santana band in 1983 and starting with his debut on "Beyond Appearances", Thompson has injected the band's music with a powerful, creative energy that has added new dimension to their sound. In addition, he has continued to make contributions in other areas. He not only co-wrote, with Carlos, the songs on the instrumental album, "Blues for Salvador" , he also provided an inspirational spark during the recording of it's Grammy Award-winning title track. In addition, Thompson also collaborated with Carlos on nine songs that were included on "Spirits Dancing In the Flesh".
Since joining Santana, he's had opportunities to play with some of the other great musicians and groups, including Wayne Shorter, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Temptations and many others. santana.com/Chester-Thompson
Ernie Watts was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and began playing saxophone at thirteen. After a brief period at West Chester University, he attended the Berklee College of Music on a Down Beat magazine scholarship. He toured with Buddy Rich in the late-1960s, occupying one of the alto saxophone chairs. He visited Africa on a U.S. State Department tour with Oliver Nelson's group. For twenty years he played alto saxophone with The Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen. He was a featured soloist on many of Marvin Gaye's albums on Motown during the 1970s, as well as on many other pop and R&B sessions during his twenty-five years as a studio musician in Los Angeles. He has won two Grammy Awards as an instrumentalist.
In the mid-1980s Watts decided to rededicate himself to jazz. He recorded and toured with German guitarist and composer Torsten de Winkel, drummer Steve Smith, and keyboardist Tom Coster. He was invited to join Charlie Haden's Quartet West. They met backstage one night after Haden heard Watts play "Nightbird" by Michel Colombier. Watts played on soundtracks for the movies Grease and The Color Purple and on the theme song for the TV show Night Court.
In 1982, his version of "Chariots of Fire" was featured in the Season 4 episode of WKRP in Cincinnati ("The Creation of Venus") as Andy Travis and Venus Flytrap are playing games in the studio when Momma Carlson walks in and surprises them. He was featured in one of Windows XP's sample music, "Highway Blues" by New Stories. In 1986, he visited South America with the Pat Metheny Special Quartet, alongside Charlie Haden and Paul Wertico, playing at Shams in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 2008, his album Analog Man won the Independent Music Award for Best Jazz Album. He played on Kurt Elling's album Dedicated to You, which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2011. erniewatts.com
Guitarist Barry Finnerty was one of the top guitarists on the New York jazz scene in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. His brilliant playing with the Crusaders, Miles Davis and the Brecker Brothers put him on the international map. A San Francisco prodigy known for the fire and fluidity of his deep-grooving guitar work, Finnerty returned to the Bay Area in the late 1990s to compose, perform, and teach. He wrote a lot of music and two volumes of his acclaimed “Serious Jazz” practice books, which were published by Sher Music. He describes his guitar style as a mix of George Benson and Jeff Beck, his prime influences. barryfinnerty.com
Music is definitely part of Darrell Green’s family pedigree — his father was a bass player after all — but this jazz drummer also has his own preternatural sense of groove. Over a career that’s spanned more than two decades, Green has become a master technician and prolific sideman, sharing stages with everyone from Blue Note vibraphonist Stefon Harris to saxophonist Red Holloway. Though jazz is his primary focus, Green is conversant in every genre from straight-ahead jazz to Latin and West African music. darrellgreen.net