Gilreins/Worcester, MA

New blues jam and last night was their second Sunday. Gilreins is a blues club that is well known in the area, but has been closed for a few years. The new owner has done a beautiful job of revamping this venue. However the jam still needs some work. First there's a good size stage and sound system. Nice crowd and some dancing, which is always a plus. The jam starts at 4 pm and ends at 9. I arrived at 6 and signed in on the jam list, but never got on to play until after 8. It seems that if you show up with a group to play you get on first, even if you are at the bottom of the list. One group was a jazz quartet that got to play 5 songs. Hey, I thought this was a Blues Jam? Using the sign up list in order and limiting sets to 3 songs or 15 minutes is a good policy to consider here since most players, myself included, won't be returning if they have to wait a long time to play while having to listen to something other than blues. The house drummer is a friendly guy with a great set of Sonor drums with a poppin' Gretch snare. This is one of the nicer sets I've ever had a chance to play at a jam. Check out Gilreins website: www.gilreins.net

Providence Zen Center/Cumberland, RI

Not a blues jam, but a half hour gig playing "Buddha's Birthday Weekend" celebration on April 7th. I received a Email from my buddy Bob Cohen who I met at the Chan's blues jam that he needed a drummer for a Saturday night blues gig. My problem was that I was traveling for ten days straight and would not have any time to practice. In fact, I didn't get back home until about 6 hours before the start of the gig. So, Bob posted the songs on his Web-site for us to learn, and we had about 5 minutes to go over the starts and stops of the tunes before we played. All in all we sounded great! The group was made up of myself on the cocktail set, Bob on harp and singing, Bob Vabulus on bass and Chris Stovall Brown on guitar. With the majority of my playing doing jams this was a real treat to play with some terrific local blues musicians.