Manteca Archives

4 Nov 2016

Later Is Now

Later is Now was recorded in 1992 in Montreal at the old Studio Victor, which was the original RCA Victor Studio and one of the oldest recording studios in North America. I remember that we were recording during the day and Quebec rocker Marjo was recording at night. She was a huge star at the time, her releases sold north of 300,000 units. She cooked the meals for her band as did I for Manteca, so every night at 6:30 Marjo and I would meet in the studio kitchen to change shifts. I was always surprised that you could sell 300,000 units per release and not have a caterer. Marjo was lovely. Cooking for our respective band was nurturing and I guess you can hear it in the tracks. This record was released in the U.S. on the jazz label run by the son of Laurence Welk, called Soundwings. This release got us to the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. Our wife’s were less excited about us playing the “Playboy” Jazz Festival than we were. Funny that.

3 Nov 2016

Manteca TV Spot (Band Leader)

2 Nov 2016

Extra Extra: Our 1992 Album

According to iTunes, as I would never remember something like this, Extra Extra came out on July 6, 1992. The tune Extra Extra is classic Aaron Davis, lots of call and response, a deep, heavily layered syncopated groove, an acoustic piano breakdown, lots of shots… , a lighting director’s dream. Art solo’s on this and kills it as usual. We opened the show with this tune for years. A great opening for Jazz Pyro…yes, I know you may not be familiar with that term. The voice in the role of the “paper boy” in the soundscape at the top of the tune is my eldest son Oliver. Which means both my sons have appeared on Manteca recordings as my youngest, played accordion on the Mensa Disco record. The Extra Extra release is mostly a compilation of the previous five recordings, but the other new tune on this disc was written by Rick Tait and is Beau Soleil en Soleil, which is a joyous Zydeco meets Manteca thing. Johnny Johnson rips up the ending on alto.

28 Oct 2016

Perfect Foot

This was Manteca's 6^th album and it’s title comes from a wonderful tune written by the late great Rick Tait. The title comes from Rick observing the wonderful artist musician Mendelson Joe in performance. Mr. Joe, who is a dear friend of the band and writes to us with his very articulate opinions on many matters, stomps his foot when he plays. Look he doesn’t tap his foot he freakin’ stomps got that? Observing this led Rick to think; “some people have perfect pitch, some people have perfect time, some people have perfect foot.” I think of the song Perfect Foot as what I call a “heavy metal hoe down”. It is a song that has stood the test of time, as a testament to that, it is the song that fills that most coveted spot in this year’s show line up… in the case of that cultural emergency better known as an encore we play Perfect Foot. Rick, this one’s for you brother, we miss you everyday.

25 Oct 2016

Fire Me Up: Our 1987 Live Album

Our 1987 live album, “Fire Me Up” was recorded at the Bathurst Street Theatre and it’s an unusual album in a few ways, it was recorded on digital multi-track 1-inch tape, on a 32 track Mitsubishi recorder. Geek me Martha! Really? Yep! I remember at the time Sony had a multi-track digital recorder and they were in fierce competition with Mitsubishi. Sony bought a full page ad in Mix Magazine showing their recorder in the back of a Mitsubishi pickup truck with the caption: “They Make a Wonderful Truck”. But I have digressed in the most geekly manner. Our label Duke Street Records wanted us to do a live album to get away from the refinement of the studio albums and capture the excitement of the live show They told us they wanted new material on the live album, in fact, half of the material had to be new. Of course, this was all super last minute and it is remarkable to write this but the first time we ever played those songs live, they were recorded. Fire Me Up is an expression given to us by our percussionist Art Avalos. He is from LA so while we were never sure exactly what it meant, we were pretty sure it was cool. Here is an Aaron Davis tune from the record called A World Away… we were some synthy back then!

24 Oct 2016

Mark Ferguson: The Bone In The Band

Have you ever seen a plunger mute? Horn players and plumbers use them and they are, well, just like what they sound like…a toilet plunger. Horn players use them to make their tone crescendo and decrescendo, much like a guitar player might use a wah-wah pedal. Plumbers use them for, well, you know where this is going. The great thing about this instrument accessory is you don’t have to go to a music store to buy it. Our wonderful trombone, keyboard and mallet player Mark Ferguson for some reason forgets his plunger mute frequently. Which is great for us, because we get to go with him to the hardware store and watch him buy another. It’s endlessly entertaining to watch the clerk, when Mark tells him he doesn’t need the stick.

Mark has been with us since 2007 and having the Bone in the band has been a bridge between the horn section and the rhythm section, it makes the band feel sonically more connected. Mark is a powerhouse of a lyrical soloist on both Bone and Piano and on the Twelfth of Never he also plays vibes. Recently Mark has released another solo record, The Next Chapter, which is brilliant and still in the top 20 at my house a year after it’s release… mz