I began working with a guitar and drum duo when I started playing for brunch every Sunday at a local New Orleans/Southern Louisiana style restaurant called Acadia. The "Brunch Duo" included fellow displaced New Orleanian musician and jazz drummer extraordinaire, Mark DiFlorio. For 2 years, every Sunday around noon you could hear the Brunch Duo while people grinned, mimosas bubbled, and blackened catfish got topped by poached eggs before being smothered with creamy crawfish etoufee. We looked forward all week to those Sundays. They were such great times that we decided to record a live CD. And it's as live as ever, with silverwear and plates dropping to the floor like cymbals crashes with the music. Feel free to give a listen to it and/or purchase it here. 

  Jesse and Demy

 A few months after the CD was released, Mark moved to Seattle to be with the girl he would soon marry so I began looking for another drummer and I soon met Demetrius Keller. Greg Hyatt, the bass player/co-founder of Brethren Thread, brought Demy over to my house for a jam in the garage. And what fun it was! Submerged in the flavors of hip-hop and RnB, as well as being raised up with a heavy dose of gospel music, singing and playing in church every Sunday and Wednesday night, Demy is full of groove. He conjures up the perfect compliments to what he hears, either providing the driving force of the song or just the right touches to embellish the atmosphere. With Demetrius a foundation of deep roots feeds a fountain of soul. 

  The "Sapphire Sky" Sessions         

Demy and I had been playing together for about a year when we started doing regular gigs at Twilight Pizza Bistro in Camas, and at the Sapphire Hotel in Portland. We found the distinct character of these venues well suited the ambience of our music and the ensuing positive direction the gigs took inspired us to bring our sound to a high end studio environment to take advantage of expensive microphones and world class architectural design. Demy assumed the role of producer and called up Billy Oskay at Big Red Studio for whom he had done a recent session with. Spending two whole days recording, mixing, and mastering, we completed a total of 6 tracks, some of which you can hear in the music player at the bottom. These will be released in some form or another soon as an EP called Sapphire Sky.

You can also see a bit of footage from the session at Big Red in the video below.