What's Goin' On?

The new CD "What's Going On" from WorkshopLive jazz guitar maestro Tom Dempsey and bassist Tim Ferguson is slated to be officially released later this month.  Tom is a great teacher and a devotee of Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall and Grant Green, so, you can expect a lot of clean swing. You can hear some samples at their MySpace page.

I interviewed Tom a while back, and asked him if there were still things he found hard to do as a guitar player. Here’s what he said:

“Sure. - play guitar. It’s a challenge every day to try to sit there with a guitar and make some music, and make it consistently on a high level. Music, I think, is one of the most humbling things that I know of in my life. Whatever you give to it, it will give back to you ten fold, but if you’re not really good to the music, it won’t necessarily cover your butt. I know Wes Montgomery used to talk about how the guitar was so intimidating, he sometimes wanted to throw a steak into the guitar case. I think the most difficult thing about playing music is being able to play consistently on a high - and most importantly on an honest - level. Just trying to be true to it, and trying to deal with it with the respect it deserves.”

[TJH]