Two days after this past Mardi Gras on March 6th I had the pleasure of going down to Kingston Jamaica with good friends Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, his manager Rueben Williams and guitarist Damon Fowler to start work on Monk's upcoming CD. We arrived on the evening of the 6th, rented a car and headed off into Kingston. If you are familiar with Jamaica, you know that they drive on the opposite side and the steering wheel is on the “passenger” side also....which made for some interesting road trips the first couple day's, including the one from the airport to where we were staying in Kingston. Kudos to Rueben for driving the whole time we were there and thank god for the GPS supplied by AVIS, without which we would have never made it home......We arrived at our BnB tucked up against the mountains on the north side of Kingston an hr or so later and were pleasantly surprised by our “gated” accommodations. After unpacking, I wandered out to the road where you could see the moon hanging a little over the mountains which were lit up like christmas trees, and the musical beats and sounds coming from them.....wow....the beats were pouring out of the hills cascading from every direction.....something you just have to experience to understand. Friday we spent the day on a road trip up into the mountains to Nine Mile located in St. Ann, Jamaica, a place Bob Marley called home.....where each year thousands upon thousands of Bob Marley fans make their pilgrimage to pay their respects and to experience the birth place and final resting place of the King Of Reggae. What an amazing and spiritual and “Natural Mystic” experience that was.....one I'll never forget..... the drive up thru the mountains was a “memorable experience”of a different kind....self policing drivers, very small roads, very large mac trucks speeding around hairpin turns overlooking steep cliffs......you get the picture?? We spent the last 2 days at Tad's International Recording Studio joined by Jimmy Cliffs rhythm section ‘Unga’ Thompson(drummer) and Jason Welsh(bassist) aka “NOTICE”, to lay down a few tracks with Talking Heads sound engineer Stephen Stanley which not surprisingly went very well........These are the stills from the studio sessions with Monk and some of my impressions from other excursions while in Kingston.......I'll take the time to write a blog sometime this coming week....too much info for now......Enjoy the pics.....Jerry ;-) A musical slideshow and more pics can be seen at http://www.nativeorleanian.org/big_chief_monk_boudreaux_kingston_jamaica_sessions_March_2014
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