John Lee & Gerry Brown
My Father's Place
Old Roslyn, NY
??/??/1979

Pre-FM SBD feed > Nak 550 > Maxell UDXL2 (no NR) via Peter Hedeman

Transfer: MC > Nak CR7-A (azimith adjust) > SBM-1 (s/pdif) > Lynx Studio Technology One (soundcard) > SoundForge 4.5 > CD Architect 4.0f > Red Book CDR

Re-Master: WAV > Wavelab 6.10 (level adjust; cross fade; tracking) > FLAC

1. Jeff Carlson intro > Uncle William (Eef Alberts; appears on Brothers)
2. Cactus
3. What It If
4. Going To See My Baby
5. ?
6. The Path (Rodney Franklin; appears on In The Center)
7. Cornbread (Darryl Thompson) >
John Lee / Gerry Brown solos / duo >
Cornbread
8. The Groove (Rodney Franklin; appears on You'll Never Know)
9. Chaser
10. pre-encore crowd

Encore:
11. Don't Let Go (Bob Malach)
12. Uncle William reprise

Eef Alberts - guitar
Gerald Brown - drums
Rodney Franklin - keyboards
John Lee - bass
Bobby Malach - tenor saxaphone
Darryl Thompson - guitars

This is an excellent 90 minutes of late 70's funk/rock. Jimmy Smith meets Spinal Tap? James Brown plus Foghat? Soulive crossed with Gary Moore? Hard to pin it down, exactly, but great stuff with a real edge that speaks of the times.

Who are these guys? In the early 1970s, John Lee played around New York with the likes of Joe Henderson, Pharoah Sanders and Max Roach. Gerry Brown, in turn, was a member of Return to Forever, toured with Stevie Wonder for several years, and eventually played with Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack and Diana Ross. They met in Europe in 1972 and started working together, eventually recording four albums together before going their separate ways in 1981. More info here http://dougpayne.blogspot.com/2009/06/john-lee-gerry-brown-still-cant-say.html and here http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gerry+Brown

This show was performed shortly after the release of their fourth album, Chaser (1979) (which Jeff Carlson mis-identifies as their debut album). The band is tight! Like the other albums identified above, from which they drew material for the performance, Chaser is long out of print but sometimes available in vinyl. This site has a tracklist and more information: http://musicalmissingpiece.blogspot.com/2009/11/john-lee-gerry-brown-chasers.html

Brown mentions that they had played at My Father's Place many times with Larry Coryell, and how much they like playing on the Island. For all that, there's almost no information available online about this or any of their 1970's tours.

The recording had a tape flip about 30 seconds before the end of The Path, which was stitched together almost seamlessly. You probably won't hear it unless you go looking for it. Near the very end of the Uncle William reprise, the engineer decided that the levels were too loud, and quickly turned the input down. Fortunately, the levels were fine, and the volume adjustment was easily undone.

Though not part of this file set, the after-show music was Aerosmith's Walk This Way. Over the music, the house announces that the bar will remain open for a little while, "In case you'd like to have a few drinks." Or, drive home drunk. Or both. Why not? It was 1979.

Enjoy!

--mhg :: 08/17/12