Certified Organic

A harder driving organ trio setting, I was stretching the organ trio genre, but notably working with 4 different guitarists rather than having it be a set trio, guitarists with very different styles. Again with the brilliant Joe Beck, Mike DeMicco from the Brubeck Brothers Band, John Cariddi, an A-list NYC studio player, and Jesse Gress, who’s best know as Tod Rundgren’s music director and lead guitarist. Jesse and I cranked out a blistering version of Jaco Pastorius’ “Teen Town” – with no bass player! Drummer Harvey Sorgen (NRBQ, Hot Tuna) was recruited to lock it all down and Erik Lawrence was in as a guest sax player. Pared down to a trio, Cariddi, Sorgan and I toured Europe several times in subsequent years, recording a live album in Italy – and probably a few bootlegs we don’t know about. My friend Emily Saaen, a superb Irish vocalist and graphic artist, came up with one of the most unusual album package designs of anything I’ve released. Mike DeMicco jokingly said, “Hey, why don’t you call the album ‘Certified Organic?”” The name stuck, and Emily added the bogus official stamp on the cover from the “Unified Staves Department of Grooviculture.”