BGU/ABQ: Jamming in Albuquerque

The subject of this post is the seminal event around which our whole trip was planned. I’ve been an active member of Griff Hamlin’s Blues Guitar Unleashed for a baker’s dozen of years, and much or most of what I can now do with a guitar is a result of that. Our blog has a bunch of posts about visits with friends from the BGU forum and we’ve previously documented a couple of these Blues Guitar Unleashed student blues jams (here and here). A year ago, BGUer Larry H. announced his intention to host a jam in his hometown of Albuquerque the following fall (i.e., now). I was interested. Sue and I agreed that a fall-to-early-winter tour of the southwest would satisfy several of our needs, so I upgraded my response to officially ‘very interested’ and when the ‘who’s coming?’ poll opened I was the first one in.

Larry booked Red Gorilla Studios, a recording studio in the north-central “Balloon Fiesta” part of town, for four full days. The studio has a large stage, pro sound system (and pro sound guy/owner Ricky), a great audience/hangout space with couches, tables and a bar, and a very blues-y vibe. Larry also hired a bass guitarist (also named Larry) and a drummer (Eric) to back us up for the four days. He facilitated the arranging of the 26 of us players into groups of three, and managed the whole show so all we had to do was show up, get up on the stage and play music. Awesome!

My group was actually a duo – me & Gary. Since we were only two, we recruited a series of capable session guitarists to sit in with us as our sidemen. Many thanks to Doug E (backSlash), Jon M, Alan (Alan B Go), and Larry (Larry H.).

Griff showed up for Days 1 & 2 to play and coach and hang out with us all. (Was it a coincidence that the next two videos that appeared on his BGU youtube channel after the ABQ jam were about the exact things I’d done that prompted coaching? Either way, I’m quite proud of what I learned.) I was also proud when he played my guitar in one of his sets. Wow, that guitar sounds way better than I thought it did! 😉

Eric, our pro drummer, seemed able to play forever although he did relinquish his throne for a few rest breaks during each day. Fortunately, we had two very capable backup drummers. My partner Gary’s main instrument is drums, and Sue was in good form, so between these three drummers and five available bassists – pro Larry plus backups Elio, Chris, Lloyd, and me – we stayed in time and in the groove.

We brought our traveling keyboard again (as we did in Grand Rapids). Sue, Frank, Chris, Lloyd, and Griff all sat in at one time or another, also sharing tips and techniques with each other and having a great time of it. By special request from Barry, Sue had worked out an organ part for Hurricane by Band of Heathens, which she played along with Mark, Brian and Warren Haynes Barry (see the Hurricane video below).

(There is a youtube playlist of these and a few more videos from the jam at this link.)

Sue and I have been attending BGU jams since 2o14, where we immediately started making friends. At each jam, we see our old friends and we gain new ones, and they will typically be our old friends by the time we see them at the next one. And that is about as good as it gets!

For those interested, see more of our jam pix in this flickr album.