My most recent project is a collaboration with Ms. Carol Rosenthal – Vocals; Mr. Gary Pratt – Bass and myself on Cajon & other percussion. Here is the song “Candy” from a recent coffee house gig.
I now have a musician’s page on Reverbnation.com My current demos are hosted there, of which the song below is one of the selections. I am playing just my Cajon on all of them (these were recorded at an open mic night where I was the house percussionist):
My Percussion Kit
This is my percussion kit as it is presently configured.
On the left of the throne is my snare drum and moving clock-wise;
The high-hat
Stand with splash, cowbells, tuned brass bells, wood (well plastic) block
18″ Remo Rototom played with foot pedal
Mini-tambales and two cowbells with Percussion table and assorted shakers
In front of the throne is the heart of my kit, a Homero Chavez cajon
Not shown are 4 PZM mics and a Roland KC-550, a 150 amp amplifier which gives me the option of amplifying my entire kit.
What you are seeing in the picture are just the instruments that I would normally be gigging with. I own just about every percussion instrument available. Besides a large assortment of hand drums, I have lots of different shakers, rattles, gourds, tambourines, chimes, whistles, etc, etc. so I am pretty much able to come up with the right instrument for that particularly special sound.
The Homero cajon is a very unique instrument. Unlike all other cajons that you must sit on to play. Homero Chavez, master percussionist, the current president of the So. Cal. Percussion Society, my teacher and mentor, invented this state of the art cajon. He ingeniously added legs and rotated the box 45 degrees so that it can be played while sitting on a drum throne. This leaves the feet available to play other things like high-hats, bells and tambourines.
If you would like to find out more about me, click on the “About Me” page.