Bruce Kaphan Quartet doing the Allman Bros' "Jessica&am

[Matt Elsen]

You really do owe it to yourself to check out this great YouTube video of the Bruce Kaphan Quartet cutting it up on their take of the Allman Brothers' "Jessica".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eeawv2KdCk

This is one of the cuts from the Bruce's new CD "Bruce Kaphan Quartet" and the video was taped at Fantasy Studio. Bruce's playing is top-quality as always and the nice camera work really captures the moment.

The CD is now available on ITunes and on Amazon - I've had my copy for a couple of weeks and it's just about worn out. Most highly recommended.

Congratulations Bruce!

[Rick Schmidt]

Very nice! Great playing by all!

[Jerry Overstreet]

Ah yeah! Great treatment of this ol' Brothers' tune. Brings back a lot of memories. Kudos to Bruce and the Quartet.

Thanks for sharing, Matt!

[Joe Goldmark]

Wow! Real nice. A difficult piece, and to be able to play it so well live, is quite an accomplishment. Good work Bruce.

Joe

[Skip Edwards]

Absolutely! Bruce is expanding the envelope in a big way. Great versions of "Jessica", and "Birdland", as well as some very cool originals.
Some really great playing by Bruce. All the players are awesome...the piano player just lays me out cold...
And, if you haven't heard his CD,"Slider", you're missing out on something very cool.
Here's to ya, Bruce...

[Kirk Eipper]

Nice arrangement for sure! I actually used this tune to pass my rock jury at G.I.T. waaaaaaaay back in the day.

[Shorty Rogers]

Bruce, In the immortal words of Ray Nelson, America's leading singer of Country and Western motorcycle songs, "FINE JOB," Bruce Finejob.

Shorty Finejob

[Bruce Kaphan]

Hey Matt, Rick, Jerry, Joe, Skip, Kirk and Shorty,

Thanks for taking the time to check out the video and for the kind words! And Skip- yeah, John R. Burr can seriously cut it up, so that comment coming from you, one of the finest keyboard players I've ever worked with, is a big damn deal! In fact, all the players on the album kill me. Jason Lewis on drums has this amazing ability to keep playing it different but grooving all the time, Thomas Dolby refers to Jeffrey Wash, the fretless bass player, as "the king of precision on fretless bass", and I know all you steelers know what it means to find that perfect intonation that fretted players stuck on tempered tunings have to struggle so hard to find! On other cuts on the album alternately, Rich Kuhns plays piano and on the standard "What's New", John Wiitala plays upright bass. I feel humbled and blessed to be surrounded by such an amazing pool of talent!

[Chuck S. Lettes]

Nice job, Bruce. Creative interpretation on one of my favorite ABB tunes.
Chuck

[Mike Neer]

I really liked that. Terrific job!

[Mark Eaton]

Just killer, Bruce! I marvel at the musicianship of all four players in the video - I'm blown away. And that key change thing back and forth on the A part was crazy.

I first discovered John R. Burr's piano playing on two Rob Ickes albums a number of years ago that were in the jazz neighborhood and they were really the first "dobro-centric" CDs to to take an extended foray into the jazz world though Rob has always been very careful to refrain from calling himself himself a jazz musician. They were 'Slide City' from the late 90's and a few years later 'What It Is.' John's playing was amazing on those records.

[Patrick Janka]

Just found these videos and saw there was a thread. Excellent job by all! Love the fretless bass.

[Douglas Schuch]

Bruce: great stuff!!! I agree about the drummer: I normally do not pay attention to drummers, and do not even like standard trap setups (prefer Brazilian, Latin, and African percussionists). But this guy on Jessica stood out right from his intro. And I agree with Patrick: the fretless bass sounds great as well. I will have to look into getting the album.

Doug

[Patrick Janka]

I've been listening to the album on Spotify all day. It's very atmospheric and jazz influenced. Great stuff.