Jeff Turmes

JT with Julie Christensen at Genghis Cohen 2/9

Admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:09:48 +0000

Thursday, Feb. 9 at 8:30 PM
Genghis Cohen
749 N. Fairfax, Los Angeles 90046.

Julie Christensen will be playing songs from her upcoming CD, Weeds Like Us, produced by Jeff Turmes. Jeff will play bass, guitar, baritone guitar, and banjo. Also with Rick Holmstrom on guitar and Steve Mugalian on drums. Good food, there’s a cover charge (not much); come down and hear a great singer and songwriter with a powerful band.

Jeff T. with Julie Christensen at Cinema 2/7

Admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:51:08 +0000

Tuesday, Feb. 7
The Cinema Bar
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 9:00 PM
3967 Sepulveda, Culver City 90230

Julie: 9 PM/ with Jeff, Rick Holmstrom, Steve Mugalian

Jeff: 10:30 PM/ with Steve Mugalian, Paul Eckman

Julie’s new CD, Weeds Like Us, produced by Jeff Turmes, will be out soo.

This is a “warm-up-for-CD-release” show for Julie, and Jeff’s set will consist of mostly unrecorded new material.

Great neighborhood bar, no cover.

News from the world of Mavis On Tour : Dec. ’11

Admin — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:18:20 +0000

I’m in Tahoe, at Harrah’s Casino. Is this California or Nevada? Beats me. We played here tonight for a medium-sized, or perhaps a small medium-sized crowd. We sounded good, although as I went on stage I realized that:1) I hadn’t drunk enough water for the altitude, and 2) I had eaten a big meal about an hour before. So I was feeling kind of sluggish. At times my bass was not my friend. But mostly it was good.

Sunday, the 4th, we flew from home to New York, to play the beautiful Beacon Theater as part of a benefit for radio station WFUV. The show was fun, the crowd was good, and the crew and sound were exemplary. What I seem to do in my free time on the road these days is look at art, and I made the 10-minute walk on Monday, show day, to MoMA to spend some time there. We were saying at a hotel on 50th near Broadway, right by Times Square. (Right around the corner from the Brill Building.) The next day we had all day free, since management chose to let us stay in Manhattan rather that fly us home and turn around and fly east the next day. Consequently, I was able to spend a few hours at the Metropolitan Museum, looking mostly at their exquisite Egyptian art and a ton of paintings with my bandmate, Vicki Randle. (We split up soon after arrival but kept running into each other.) It was raining in New York but unseasonably warm, in the 50s and 60s.

The next day we flew to Kansas City to do a show at the Kauffman Center, a brand-new concert hall. Again, a great crew, fabulous sound, and a very warm, appreciative audience. And I visited Gates BBQ, the fine Nelson-Atkins Museum Of Art, and the monumental Charlie Parker head by Robert Graham at 17th Terrace and Paseo Blvd.

This has been a great week. And I head back to finish mixing Julie Christensen’s record that I’ve been producing all this fall, with Julie and engineer Peter Malick. And I have a 1-set show at the Cinema on Wednesday with my band. So it should keep being a great week.

JT at Cinema Bar, 12/14/11

Admin — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 06:53:53 +0000

I’ll be at the Cinema, 3967 Sepulveda Boulevard Culver City, CA 90230,
on Wednesday, Dec. 14, from about 9:15 to about 10:15, opening for the great Peter Fahey and his band. I’ll have Steve Mugalian on drums and Paul Eckman on bass. And it’s free!

Discography Part 2

Admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:48:47 +0000

Albums I’ve made:

It Takes One To Know One (with Janiva Magness)
Fat Head, 1997

Every Day’s My Lucky Day
Fat Head, 2002

The Distance You Can Travel
Fat Head, 2006

Five Horses, Four Riders
Fat Head, 2009

Tour dates: Mavis Staples Band Europe Tour July 2011

Admin — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:33:27 +0000

7/7/2011 Imatra FINLAND, Imatra Big Band Festival, multi act event
7/9/2011 Gent BELGIUM, Gent Jazz Festival, multi act event
7/10/2011 Rotterdam THE NETHERLANDS, North Sea Jazz Festival, multi act event
7/12/2011 London ENGLAND, Under The Bridge, Support TBA
7/14/2011 Malaga SPAIN, Teatro Cervantes, Support TBA
7/15/2011 Valencia SPAIN, Palau de la Musica, Support TBA
7/19/2011 Madrid SPAIN, Jardines de Sabatni, Support TBA
7/22/2011 Cartagena SPAIN, Auditorio Parque Torres, Support TBA
7/23/2011 Portaferrada, Spain (tentative date)
7/25/2011 San Sebastian SPAIN, San Sebastian Jazz Festival, Support TBA

JT to produce new Julie Christensen album

Admin — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 06:12:29 +0000

Julie Christensen, a singer and songwriter of some renown (she has toured as a backing vocalist with Leonard Cohen and has released a number of albums on her own) has asked me to produce (or co-produce, depending on how you look at it) her next release, at this writing titled “Weeds Like Us”. Which is the title of one of my songs that I’m lucky enough to have Julie cover, along with a bunch of great songs, many by Julie and some not. I’ll be weighing in with various opinions, playing various instruments, and helping Julie bring in the best musicians we can find. I am very excited about this project.

Julie has a kickstarter page up if you want to contribute to this project. The address is:

http://kck.st/m06V6D

You can get more information about Julie at:

http://www.stonecupid.com

new old site under construction

Admin — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:48:43 +0000

If this site looks incomplete, that’s because it is. It was down for awhile due to my not paying attention. I promise to be more attentive in the future. Meanwhile, I am slowly rebuilding the site and attempting to keep maintain a stream of current, nutritious, provocative content.

Levon’s Ramble/ Bonnaroo

Admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:08:23 +0000

June 13, 2011. I find myself in Denver, Colorado. We had a thunderstorm earlier this evening. Storms are hard to photograph, at least with a cheap digital camera; you keep shooting and shooting but somehow the dramatic flashes and streaks of lightning don’t make it into the image you get in the box. We’re here on a night off, opening for Dr. John tomorrow night here at the Botanical Gardens. We just arrived from Tennessee, having flown out of Nashville after playing the Bonnaroo Festival. More on that in a minute.
A couple of weeks ago we traveled to upstate New York to play at Levon Helm’s place in one of his Midnight Rambles. What a wonderful time! We stayed in nearby Kingston and drove over for a rehearsal day and then (on June 3) a short rehearsal and the performance night. Levon was there to greet us as we arrived at mid-day on the first day. “I’ve been a fan of yours since I was a teenager”, I told him as I stepped out of the van. He was as kind and gracious as he could have been, he still plays great, and his band, led mainly by guitarist Larry Campbell, is fantastic. The plan was for Mavis’ band to play a short set, for Levon and his band to do the same, and then for us all to play a set together. Which meant that we all had to familiarize ourselves with a set’s worth of new songs. I ended up in the horn section — and Levon’s horn section is very, very good — which was a challenge, as I hadn’t done a reading gig on saxophone in a while. The level of musicianship in that room was quite high, and we ended up having a fine time and playing some great songs.
Mavis and the band played the Bonnaroo festival yesterday in Manchester, TN. We went on at 1:15 PM on Sunday. “This is as close to church as you’re going to get”, Mavis told the crowd early in the set. It was early, so there wasn’t a huge crowd, but those who were there were very responsive. Patti Griffin and Buddy Miller, of Robert Plant’s Band Of Joy, joined us for The Weight, with Buddy on baritone guitar, and they fit in beautifully. Afterwards I walked through the dust with Rick Holmstrom and Stephen Hodges to see Black Dub, who were playing an apocalyptic-sounding instrumental (at least it did with all that dust swirling around; Manchester hadn’t gotten as much rain as usual for festival week) before Trixie Whitley joined them on vocals. I especially liked Brian Blade’s drumming, like a jazz drummer who knows how to rock, full of nuance and great fills. I caught a van back to the hotel (I have a chest cold and the dust wasn’t agreeing with me) and later went for a long walk in a wooded area and a park a mile or so from the hotel in Murfreesboro. Mosquitoes, dragonflies, a sunset and a three-quarter moon. Later on lightning bugs came out. I wandered back to my room and got some rest.

Australia/New Zealand

Admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 07:28:19 +0000

I’m going to make this short, because I want to go to bed. Australia and New Zealand were lovely. Nine dates in eighteen days. Some theater shows, opening for the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama, with special guest Aaron Neville. Hearing him sing “A Change Is Gonna Come” was amazing. We played some outdoor festivals as well, most notably the East Coast International Blues and Roots Festival, where we played two shows (Saturday and Sunday), and where Elvis Costello sat in on Sunday on “The Weight” and sang the “crazy Chester followed me” verse. The weather was great as expected, travel was fairly smooth, and all of our shows went well. And now we’re home until May 22, when we play the Doheny Blues Festival in Dana Point.