Wednesday, August 25, 2010

the new york city strut....

I love New York City. It is the most kick-ass place in the world to me....my friends have inquired about what I mean when I say I'm doing the "New York City Strut"......here's the story...

The New York City Strut was a song recorded by The 24th Street Band on their "Share Your Dreams" album in 1980. Many of you have never heard of this band, but you'd be surprised at just how much you've heard this band - three of the original members (Will Lee, Steve Jordan and Hiram Bullock) went on to form "The World's Most Dangerous Band" with Paul Shaffer as the original Late Night with David Letterman house band. This band was one of my favorite bands as a kid (as I was usually staying up well past my bedtime on school nights to hear them!), and they had a lot to do with why I pursued my dream of becoming a musician.....to me, there are no better musicians than studio musicians - they don't always get the credit, but they do a lot of the hard work behind the scenes.....New York City studio musicians are like heroes to me - I learned names of musicians the same way other kids learn players on professional sports teams, and you can only imagine the amount of listening I've done over the years to so many of these amazingly talented people. Some of the greatest singers of pop music started out as background/session singers in NYC (Luther Vandross instantly comes to mind), and the thing I love the most is the "New York City sound" that comes across on many of these legendary recordings......(sorry, went off on a tangent, but what a great tangent to go off on!)

Anyway, the 'Strut' comes from spending a day in the Big Apple, taking in the sights, the sounds, the tastes and the smells (good and bad) that are New York - its walking through Columbus Circle to listen to amazing jazz musicians playing right by the entrance to Central Park; it's going up to Harlem and walking down 125th Street, listening to all of the styles of music (jazz, hip-hop, rap, ol' skool R&B) played on the boomboxes of the different street vendors; its riding on the subway, just to ride on the subway; its going to Sylvia's for a killer soul food lunch and then walking over to the lobby of the Apollo Theater to admire the many musical giants who have graced the stage; its walking through all of the vinyl record shops in the Village trying to find that long-lost Ray Charles album that my mom would love to have; its sitting in front of the fountains at Lincoln Center and just watching people go by.......I guess when you get right down to it, for me the New York City Strut is feeling like the city is mine for a day, and I can feel as cool and carefree as I wanna feel.....I don't feel that way anywhere else......so the next time you know that I'm in the big city, just know that I'll most likely be doing "The Strut", know that I'm happy, and know that all is well in my corner of the world.....

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