Guatemala International Jazz Festival

From Idaho, it was straight South to Guatemala with the Blues Band.  This time, for the first time with Charenee Wade, vocal and Ben Stapp, tuba, along with LaFrae Sci, drums and yours truly at the piano and hollering.  Man, what a gas.  The first night we opened the festival with a concert on the […]

Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival 2011

  What a phenomenal festival this is.  7,000 young people from all over the Northwest descend on Moscow, Idaho where they are embraced by the entire University of Idaho community.  And I mean the whole community from the president to the freshmen and families in neighborhoods.  Students, teachers, jazz fans and curious bystanders are all […]

A Healing Song, AVAILABLE NOW as single

In anticipation of our new CD with The Eli Yamin Blues Band, “I Feel So Glad,”  we just released a single from the album: A Healing Song by Eli Yamin and Clifford Carlson This song is a message to the world about the healing power of the blues. It’s great to groove to and sing […]

Remembering Santiago

I just found this video online from our visit to Balmaceda, a community music school in downtown Santiago.  Can you believe they have a blues harmonica class that meets every week?  Just fantastic.  When I went to Mississippi a few months after visiting Chile, I was telling teachers from the Delta about it.  I was […]

Whole Schools Institute, Meridian, Mississippi

What a pleasure and honor it was to work with Mississippi Teachers at the Whole Schools Institute in Meridian, Mississippi July 19, 20 and 21.   3 hours a day for 3 days we worked on the workshop version of Nora’s Ark, the jazz musical by myself and Clifford Carlson.  Some folks started out with a […]

What a year this has been…

We had a great quartet gig at Blues Alley on June 15 with Todd Williams on saxophone, LaFrae Sci on drums and Amy Shook on bass.  As it turned out, the performance was exactly one year after my first trip to the White House for the White House Jazz Studio Event.  It’s been an incredible […]

Santiago, Chile

Why do I LOVE the blues so much? It’s the universal language of the heart. It brings people together and makes them happy. It’s full of passion, spirit, harmony, melody and rhythm.  So much RHYTHM! We spent the final week of the tour giving workshops and concerts in Santiago and around Santiago.  What a gas […]

Iquique, Chile

After our show in Curico, we headed North to Iquique, Chile.  Our concert was on the in front of the Municipal Theatre in Hemicicio Plaza, Central Square.  It was organized by the great jazz and blues enthusiast, Alvaro Gomez. We met many eager young musicians after the show and of course, invited them to an […]

Fishin’ Blues in Southern Chile

Seems like everywhere we go in Chile people like fish! So do we and Fishin’ Blues is perfect for the occasion.  The message of the song is “many fish bite if you’ve got good bait.”  We love singing this song as much as we love PESCADO FRITO! Here are two clips from Southern Chile.  The […]

Curico, Chile

Curico was also hit hard by the Earthquake.  We can only imagine how unsettling this is to the residents here. After taking this all in we arrived at the Library where our concert was to take place.  Next door to the library was a building full of music… We were surprised to find students in […]