Bluesman Geezer Young
Well… what I’m doing at the moment is trying to record some Blues/hippy keyboards on an album by a nutty Yank called ‘Geezer Young’ (photo) that I’ve known for a few years. Geezer has a great mumbling blues voice. The problem is he wants me to play a ‘Joe Zawinul’ type thing on piano! Yep… I’m still trying to work out what he means but it really doesn’t work…Yet..!
What’s wrong with Zawinul? Nothing, of course. But if you play his type of stuff on a blues track, you immediately end up in a total harmony clash. Geezer plays loads of open-tune straight major chords. Adding 6/9 stuff takes it in a completely different direction and pulls the attention away from the singing. So instead of blues with some jazz, it’d be jazz with some blues. I could do it, but it would be weird.
Thinking about it, maybe he needs something more like Bill Payne of Little Feat. Maybe that’ll work. Hmm. I’ll keep you posted
