Slim Man

Slim Man has performed all across the country with musical talents Acoustic Alchemy, George Benson, Fourplay, Boney James, Herb Alpert, the Yellowjackets, the Rippingtons, Spyro Gyra, Rick Braun, Marc Antoine, Everette Harp, Freddie Ravel, Brian Culbertson, Candy Dulfer, Jonathan Butler, Al Jarreau, Chris Botti, Dave Koz, Keiko Matsui, Paul Taylor, Chieli Minucci, Michael Franks, Joyce Cooling, Pete Belasco, Jesse Cook and many more.

*Slim Man has performed at prestigious events and venues-Catalina JazzTrax Festival, Art Good's JazzTrax Christmas Tour, Capital JazzFest, Thornton Winery, Adam's Mark Hotel, Great American Music Hall, Riverwalk Jazz Festival, City of Lights, Center CityFest, World Festival, Taste of Cincinnati, River Lodge, Sycamore Gardens, Seascape Resort, Sugar Pine Railroad, KIFM's Anniversary Party, and KSBR's All Star Bash.

*Slim Man has been featured in publications like Billboard Magazine, Gavin Magazine, R&R Magazine, Strictly Jazz Magazine, and Radio Statt Radau (German). Slim Man has had compilation CDs released in Spain and Germany.

*Slim Man is receiving airplay on Smooth Jazz Stations in the USA as well as in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Bahamas and Australia.

*Slim Man has four CDs End of the Rainbow, Closer to Paradise, Secret Rendezvous and jazzified. Secret Rendezvous features Rick Braun, Everette Harp, Chieli Minucci, Marc Antoine, and Denny Jiosa. "Faith in Us" from End of the Rainbow, went Top Ten for Smooth Jazz. jazzified, Slim Man's latest CD, features Marc Antoine, Joe Ercole, Kevin Levi and Ken Navarro.

*Every Sunday for the past four years, Slim Man has hosted the "Smooth Jazz Brunch," radio show on WLIF 102 FM in Baltimore, MD.

* www.slimman.com has music samples, CDs, pictures, playlist, concert information, ordering info and more. 1-800-505-SLIM features music samples and concert dates. With a database of 6,000, area fans are notified of new releases and concerts.

*Slim Man is endorsed by Steinberger Sound/Gibson Guitars. He uses Steinberger Bass Guitars exclusively. Slim is also sponsored by Esperanza Cigars: www.esperanzacigars.com and his CD is featured in their Smokin' Sounds Sampler package.

*Slim Man has sung jingles for companies like Ford, Maryland Lotto and Cellular One. He started off as a songwriter for Motown Records and has had songs recorded by Angela Bofill, the Temptations, Carl Anderson and many others.

*Slim's music can be purchased at participating music stores, from Bona Fide Music, Inc. directly, and on Online Sites such as Amazon.com, CDNow.com, Musicblvd.com, Blockbuster, Tower Records, and Songsearch. Slim Man is distributed by Select O Hits (main office: 901-388-1190).

*Slim Man is featured on the Internet at sites like: www.penduluminc.com; www.esperanzacigars.com; www.cjazz.com; www.contemporaryjazz.com; www.webcom.com/pboehi, www.smoothjazz.com, www.sunspot.net/our_town/music and more.

*Slim appears on several smooth jazz samplers which have included artists like Seal, Fourplay, Kenny Loggins, Marc Antoine, Rick Braun, Dave Koz, Al Jarreau, Oleta Adams, Joe Sample, Simply Red, Steve Winwood, George Benson, Bonnie Raitt and the Rippingtons.

SLIM MAN INTERVIEW FOR …jazzified

RS: CD number four, jazzified, is finally here. It's been two years since Secret Rendezvous was released. What took you so long?

SM: Well, End of the Rainbow came out in '95, Closer to Paradise came out in '96, and Rendezvous in '97. And in '98, I produced Manhattan Nights, Joe Ercole's debut, and then Joe and I formed a funky instrumental jazz band called Bona Fide. Both CDs were released in early '99, so I've been real busy. And all the while I've been writing Slim Man songs. And Joe and I have been building a studio during the whole process.

RS: This CD has a different sound than the other three.

SM: We recorded jazzified on a computer. It was my first time doing that. Joe Ercole produced the CD, and he brought a very sophisticated and elegant style to this music. And I'm very proud of Marc Antoine's and Ken Navarro's guitar playing. Kevin Levi plays some amazing sax. His solos are like little journeys, with some pleasantly surprising twists and turns. And Joe is such an amazing keyboard player and producer.

RS: Which do you like better, working on the computer, or working with tape?

SM: They both have advantages and disadvantages, but in the end it's the music that matters. When you look at a painting by Van Gogh, does it matter whether he used a brush or a roller? No. It's the final result that matters. And I'm very, very happy with the way this album sounds. We really took our time, until everything was just right.

RS: jazzified also has a different emotional sound than your other CDs.

SM: From September '98 to February '99, three very good friends of mine got married. I'd known all three for a while, and to finally see them all so happy and in love was a real joy. And each relationship was so unique and special. I went to Spain for Marc Antoine's wedding. It was the wildest wedding I've ever been to. Two weeks later, I'm in Little Italy for the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends, Mark Velleggia. And last February, I sang End of the Rainbow as Peter White played guitar, at Art Good's wedding on the cliffs of Catalina Island. They were all starting new lives together. And that sense of new beginnings, of falling in love, I found very inspiring.

RS: You take some chances on this album. Other Side of Love is seven minutes long!

SM: Our criterion for this CD was 'Is the song better because of this?' Both Marc Antoine's and Joe Ercole's solos on Other Side of Love sounded so perfect, we included them all. There's a lot of extemporaneous stuff on this album. We had no idea that A Night Like This was going to end that way. I let Kevin Levi and Joe Ercole loose, and we just happened upon that ending. The last song on the CD, Finale, is an instrumental version of the first song. I liked the 'full circle' vibe it gives the album. And people can sing-a-long if they want. Like Slim Man karaoke.

Slim Man "Secret Rendezvous" Interview

R.S: I notice on the new CD that you used a different producer than your first two albums. Why the change?

Slim Man: I produced my first two CDs, End of the Rainbow, and Closer to Paradise. I've always wondered what someone else would do with this music, as far as the production goes, and when I had the opportunity to use Carl Griffin, I couldn't pass it up. Carl is a great producer, who has produced, among others, Patti Austin, Ramsey Lewis, the Rippingtons, and B.B.King's Live At The Apollo, which won a Grammy for best blues album in 1991. Carl and I go way back. He signed me as a songwriter to Motown Records back in the late seventies, and placed one of the first songs I wrote for Motown with Angela Bofill on her debut album, Angie. Based on the success of that album, Motown offered me a recording contract. Carl produced that album. Soon after we finished, the vice president in charge of our project got fired, and all the acts that he signed got shelved, including yours truly. So somewhere in the Motown archives is an unreleased, completely finished Slim Man album produced by Carl Griffin.

And now, some seventeen years later, Carl is producing the new Slim Man album. It's an incredible story. Carl and I have been through hell and high water together, and we've stayed close friends throughout. We talked extensively about this new CD, how it should sound, where to record, who to use as players. Carl's input was significant. It was difficult for me to relinquish the helm to Griff, kind of like letting someone else raise your child, but Griff is the man. He has a way of bringing the best out of people. He picks songs that are unique, different. He has a great reputation for picking undiscovered gems. He placed 'Tell Me Something Good' with Chaka Khan and Rufus on their first album. And "Until You Come Back To Me' with Aretha. Both were unknown Stevie Wonder songs, and would have stayed that way. Carl wanted the songs on this album to be well crafted, unique, tightly arranged, and he wanted all this done well before we went into the studio. I spent the majority of my time on this album writing the songs. After the songs were chosen, we started discussing instrumentation, and Carl brought up Chieli Minucci's name as the main guitar player. I was familiar with Chieli's album Jewels, but wasn't aware of how very talented he is. That was a great call on Carl's part, and Chieli laid down some beautiful stuff on Secret Rendezvous. I wanted Rick Braun to play the trumpet. I love Rick Braun. He's a very talented man, and he's played with everyone from Sade to Rod Stewart, and he did some superb work on this CD.

Beat Street [Rick's third album] is one of my favorite CDs. I've seen Rick in Philly, San Diego, and did a concert with him at Chula Vista [CA]. I wanted to use him for every song on the new CD. But I love the trumpet. It was my first instrument. I started playing when I was five. My dad took me to see a movie with Red Nichols and the Five Pennies, and that's when I knew what I wanted to do. My folks bought me a plastic trumpet for Christmas. I was so mad. I told them I wanted a real trumpet. So, for my birthday, January 16th, which also happens to be Sade's birthday, my folks rented me a real one. And I played for almost ten years. I was into Louis Armstrong, Jonah Jones, Miles, Bix Beiderbeck. And then, for some reason, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I must have learned almost every one of their songs. So my love for the trumpet goes way back. And it shows on the new CD.

R.S: Rick O'Rick, your co-producer of the first two albums, is nowhere on this record. As a matter of fact, many of the players on the first two albums aren't on the new CD. What's up with that? Do they think you've gone Hollywood?

Slim Man: I hope not. Rick is a great friend. But Carl wanted to do Secret Rendezvous his way. He picked most of the musicians, and the songs, and he picked the studio, Sound On Sound in Manhattan. Sound On Sound is a great studio. Everyone has recorded there. George Benson, Gato Barbieri, Stevie Ray Vaughan. It has a wonderful, warm sound. A very laid back environment, which was conducive to the Slim Man laid back jazzy pop thing. Carl brought in an acoustic bass player on a couple of tunes, so I put down the bass, which is a first. But that's the art of producing, finding the right ingredients and mixing them all together. And Carl has his own recipe. And he was cookin'!

R.S: What is this album all about?

Slim Man: The president of the record company said that Secret Rendezvous is all about sex and pain. I don't know...to me it's a collection of songs, and I don't like to divulge what each song is specifically about. I prefer to let the listeners draw their own conclusions. But I wrote most of the songs in the summer of '96, while I was laid up with a back injury. The pain was incredible. About the only position that wasn't painful was flat on my back. So I'd lie in the back yard with a guitar balanced on my stomach and write songs all day. And I'd read. I read the Iliad and the Odyssey. I read Dead Souls. I read Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain. I read the Invisibile Man. I was reading and writing. I had a chance to do a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting, and I started writing and this is what came out. And I was feeling mighty randy, laying in the summer sun, fantasizing...

R.S: It shows. Speaking of randy, who's the babe on the cover?

Slim Man: That's the big secret. Secret Rendezvous... Like my Dad used to say "No one gets in trouble by keeping their mouths shut." My lips are sealed.

R.S: Sounds like he was in the Corleone family. I know your father, the philosophy professor, and he's some cook. And so are you. What's your recipe for a great album?

Slim Man: Find a few, simple, excellent ingredients, mix them together with love and passion, make it spicy, and serve it up fresh and hot. Be inventive, intriguing...

R.S: Who picked the ingredients for the new CD?

Slim Man: I brought some of my special ingredients, and Carl brought some of his special ingredients, and we came up with something unique, yet very appetizing. Zesty, even...

R.S: So...who's the woman on the cover?
Slim Man: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Slim Man Bio Interview

R.S.: What was your first magical musical memory?
Slim Man: My dad took me to see a movie, Red Nichols and The Five Pennies, and I fell in love with the trumpet. I was five. My folks rented me a trumpet and I started playing. I loved Louis Armstrong, Jonah Jones, Bix Beiderbeck, Miles Davis. Oh, and believe it or not, Herb Alpert. Knew almost every one of his songs. I played along with records, and took private lessons. I also played guitar and piano. My dad had a guitar, and the house we bought came with a piano. So I taught myself how to play, primarily so that I could figure out Beatles' songs that I'd heard. And that's when I started writing my own songs. The sixth grade. My first song, "In My Dreams". I still remember exactly how it goes. And I've been writing songs ever since.

R.S.: When did you start playing bass?
Slim Man: I wanted to start a band with some friends and we needed a bass player, so I saved some money and went to the music store and bought a blue sparkle bass that was not only ugly, it was hard to play. I started playing bass and singing, fell in love with Hendrix. Snuck backstage when he came to town. Held Mitch Mitchell's flashlight as he fixed his foot pedal. Then I hid behind a curtain. Cactus was the opening act. Someone nudged my elbow and said, "These guys are pretty good." And it was Jimi Hendrix. I was speechless. I just shook his hand and nodded. He stood next to me for a couple of songs, and then he came on and I got to see the whole show from the side of the stage.

R.S.: Was he a big influence?
Slim Man: Not really. I just loved his music. The Doors, too. My mom would let me go to all of these shows. I got to see the Doors' first two tours. Same with Led Zeppelin. Saw the Who do "Tommy". At about the same time, I had a high school friend, Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, who sang back-ups for Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy Collins, and they were a big influence. Those early shows were crazy. And then my mom would buy me tickets for Ella Fitzgerald, and the Billy Taylor Trio, and all this was happening while I was studying classical piano, theory, harmony, and composition at the Peabody Preparatory. A very eclectic background. But Nat King Cole, Chet Baker, Stevie Wonder had more of an influence on the stuff that I write.

R.S.: When did your first big break come?
Slim Man: I was writing songs, and recording them, and going to Manhattan, trying to get something going. The same kind of stuff I'm doing now, but a bit more lively. I had a meeting at Motown with one of the Gordy nieces, and it went well. Her boss, Carl Griffin, signed me to Motown's publishing company. He placed a song of mine, one of the first that I wrote for Motown, on Angela Bofill's debut album. The song was Summer Days. It was the same jazzy pop that I'm doing now. Anyway, the success of her album, Angie, led to a recording contract for me with Motown Records. I worked like a dog on that album. String charts. Real strings. Horn charts. Real horns. And then the whole music business hit a big slump. Executives got fired left and right. Acts got cancelled. The vice president in charge of my project got canned and so did my album. It was mixed and ready for release. Cover and everything. And it sits on a shelf somewhere in L.A.

R.S.: They'll release it after you go platinum.
Slim Man: A young Slim Man. They could call it "Slim Boy".

R.S.: So, you're crushed, downhearted, and you decided to...
Slim Man: I was still under contract to Motown as a writer. But I was pissed off about getting dropped as an artist, so I wrote a couple of screaming rock tunes that I knew that they would never use. And ironically enough, I got some offers on those tunes. Stiff Records, a great little British label downstairs from Motown's New York office on 57th St., was very interested. Stiff had one of my favorite artists on their label, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, as well as Elvis Costello. Stiff came up with a name for the band, BootCamp. Motown wanted too much money to release those songs, so Stiff backed off. Other labels eventually came calling after my contract with Motown was up, but nothing panned out. We came as close as anyone could to making the major leagues, but it never happened. We had some artist development deals with various labels. RCA. Atlantic took us into the studio. So did Atco. We were one of the first bands on MTV. We did shows with The B-52's, Squeeze, and got great reviews. J.D. Considine, who now writes for Rolling Stone, wrote in a review that it was difficult to believe that BootCamp didn't have a major label contract

R.S.: So, what happened to you guys?
Slim Man: We broke up. After coming so close so many times it was difficult to do anything but call it quits. I kept writing songs, though. I had heard about a singer named Brian Jack, who was with a band on Chrysalis Records. He's from my hometown, so I called him up and asked him to sing a song I had written. There was immediate chemistry. We eventually recorded a dozen of my songs, he quit his band, and we released a CD. The thing really took off. Radio jumped on it. That's when I realized how important radio airplay is. Shows started getting packed. Pretty soon the major labels came knocking, and he ended up signing with Epic/Sony. They eventually recorded four songs, none of them mine, and did the whole Hollywood production on them. Dianne Warren songs. Big producer. Big management. Big budget. Heavy session guys. And the label ended up dropping Brian after all.

R.S.: Weren't you involved at all?
Slim Man: No. I wrote and produced the album that got him the deal, and they cut me out.

R.S.: Were you pissed off?
Slim Man: Yeah, but it was Epic's money. They did what they thought was right. Typical major label crap. A waste of time, money, and talent.

R.S.: You must have been feeling pretty murderous at this point...
Slim Man: Not really. Music has always been such incredible fun for me. And I developed some wonderful relationships that I maintain to this day. But after the Epic/Sony fiasco, I started working on my first album, End of the Rainbow. It was a return to the kind of music that I started writing at Motown. Laid back jazzy pop. I've come full circle. Everything happens for a reason. If anything had happened any differently, I wouldn't be where I am right now. And this is a great place to be. I have a wealth of experience and experiences to draw upon. Not to mention a boat load of songs. And a deep love for music.

R.S.: How did you get the name "Slim Man"?
Slim Man: After BootCamp disbanded, I started organizing country music talent contests sponsored by Marlboro, who also sponsored a big concert tour that had acts like Alabama, George Strait, and Barbara Mandrell. We would go into a town like Lexington, Kentucky, or Tulsa, Oklahoma, all over the United States, and find thirty country music acts in each town. The winning band would get to open up for the big show when it came to town, and would represent their town in the national finals, the grand prize being a recording contract worth $50,000. For three days, ten bands a night, we would go to the favorite local honkytonk, and listen to some of the best and worst of undiscovered talent. I was the organizer and the M.C. At the end of my very first week, I was getting ready to announce the winning band, and the road crew was tearing down the equipment in a hurry. I was wondering why they were so anxious to get out of there when all of a sudden it hit me.

Only one band would get to go to the finals. Country music fans are very passionate and loyal, and so are the musicians. And at 12:01 you would have twenty nine very disappointed bands, and all of their fans equally disappointed. There was a lot at stake. The winning band got to open for the big concert and also had a shot at a fifty thousand dollar recording contract. Well, I announced the winning band, and all hell broke loose. We tore out of the club like a bat out of a cave and got away unscathed. But, the next morning when I went to check out of the hotel, there were people waiting for me in the lobby. Losing bands, their fans, their families, all wanting to know why they'd lost. Of course they knew my name, and I guess they tracked me down. So, in my second week on the tour, I introduced myself as "Slim...Slim Chance." Which got a couple of laughs and also protected my mental and physical health. That led to Slim Man, and that's my story. We discovered a lot of great talent. Brooks and Dunn. The Tractors. We also did a series on up and coming artists, and we helped promote the likes of Garth Brooks, Marty Stuart, and Mary Chapin Carpenter, way before anyone knew who they were. And Marlboro also sponsored songwriting seminars, which were amazing, especially for me. John Hiatt, Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, John Prine, describing how they write songs. The whole thing was an incredible education. Especially for a city boy from the East Coast.

R.S.: I heard that you were nominated for a Grammy. What's the scoop?
Slim Man: A couple of years ago I wrote two songs for an album that was released by GRP. It was an album of jazzy children's songs with a whole bunch of different artists. Natalie Cole, B.B. King, Patti LaBelle, The Pointer Sisters. The Temptations recorded one of my songs. Carl Anderson recorded another. The album was up for a couple of Grammys.

R.S.: Let's talk about your first album, End of the Rainbow. How was the reaction to your big debut?
Slim Man: Incredible. We started a slow climb up the radio charts, and eventually hit the Top Ten on both Smooth Jazz charts. The album, End of the Rainbow, ended up at #23 for 1995 on the Smooth Jazz album chart, and the single, Faith In Us, was #17 for the year. And it was recorded in a spare bedroom in a house next to the University of Maryland. If you solo some of the vocal tracks, you can hear the Maryland marching band in the background, along with the usual assortment of dogs barking, and phones ringing. But it was great to work in such a laid back, low pressure environment.

R.S.: And you toured the U.S.?
Slim Man: Yeah. It was great. We went everywhere. Dallas, New Orleans, San Francisco, New York, Providence, Kansas City, St. Louis, Orlando, Miami, Denver, Tampa, Fresno, San Diego, Monterey, Cleveland, Washington D.C., Baltimore, ... I know I'm forgetting some places. We toured as a trio, I played bass and sang, John E. Coale on drums and Rick O'Rick on keys. We'd pick up a sax player and/or a percussionist when we'd get to town. Radio stations would hook us up with different players in each market. We'd rehearse at sound-check and then hit it. It was great. And every night was different. We did 500-1,000 seaters. It was wonderfully overwhelming. I always wanted to drive across the United States, and I did. I drove every mile on that first tour. I wouldn't even let the guys park the truck.

R.S.: And the second album? Closer to Paradise?
Slim Man: Another great reception from radio. One week it jumped 19 points on the radio chart! It is the same laid back jazzy pop as the first album, maybe a little more jazzy, and even bluesy at times, but it is in that Slim Man style. Recorded at the same studio. We used most of the same musicians, including the guys who went on tour with me. It was great fun. And we are looking forward to touring until we drop. We love playing this stuff.