The Sam Crain Trio

Remind me to use hair gel next time I get my picture taken. Well, I've had worse hair in pictures, and the expression is okay. Plus, and most importantly, this is the first picture of The Sam Crain Trio we've had to work with. It's only taken us a year and a half, but we're getting there.

From left to right: Bill Schlipf, Sam Crain(aka Roger U Roundly), Don Cochran. Don has been with the group since '98-99 when it was a quartet, first with vocalist and then with tenor saxophone/vocals, occasionally quartet with piano . Since January of '06, the group has been a trio. Our first gig was on January 27th, which as it turned out was Mozart's birthday, kinda cool. A subsequent engagement at the same place honored another birthday but not quite so momentous: Snoop Dogg. Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind... We're playing there again on the 25th of this month, so I'll have to see what kinda celebrity birthdays we've got going then.

But I digress. We're having a nice time playing together. Just like the previous incarnations, this group does jazz standards and originals by moi. But this group is more interactive than many of my other assemblages as far as feedback. With the quartet we started off with noble intentions as far as the different things we were gonna do, but ultimately everybody was kinda going their own ways. We'd just show up and play our setlist and say 'see ya next time', kinda set it and forget it as far as that goes. That gets the job done, but you don't have any growth. So it's cool having a fresh new group, relatively speaking. People speak up more, and thus a rehearsal sometimes becomes like a clinic as far as making changes, with everyone critiquing everyone else.

I have something myself to work on as far as that goes. It's not something I have totally implemented into my own playing just yet of course, but our bassist has suggested I change my posture on the fast numbers. Up until now, it's been sorta scrunched over as if trying to get in out of the rain, basically trying to "maintain" the time. He just brought the tune to a halt at a recent rehearsal and said, " hey, why not try leaning back(so to speak, but it's still a literal physical act)and relaxing into it". Damn, never thought of that..

So anyway, we play things at pretty much all tempos, from ballads to what is in certain circles referred to as tempo di tear-ass. And we try and cover a variety of feels, something else we're working on. It's all good.

Actually, as groups go, I suppose ours is really still in its infancy. We just need to get more gigs to grow. So- trio for hire. Reasonable rates. Plus that classic guitar trio sound. Just remind me to use hair gel if you take our picture.