Summer 2008: Highlights of the past year include a great tour
in Belgium (he returns for another, more extended tour in November), a
week on the Jazz Cruise as part of the Eric Alexander Organ Quartet, and
many enthusiastically received performances up and down the East Coast
with his own Bob DeVos Organ Trio. There was the release and highly
gratifying reviews and airplay for Bob’s third Savant CD, Playing
for Keeps. Bob is currently writing and performing new compositions and
arrangements for an early 2009 new Savant Records release. He much
enjoys playing his second Rob Engel guitar, and just completed
building himself a higher powered version of a Fender Vibroverb amplifier.
He is enjoying working with his students, and is writing a guitar
method book. He looks forward to some recording dates with Hendrik
Meurkens, Onaje Allan Gumbs, and Bill Warfield. Bob will soon be adding some more
info re the new guitar and amp under Equipment below.
Fall
2007. It has been a highly gratifying few months with many
enthusiastically received festival and club performances nationwide with
my Bob DeVos Organ Trio and a California tour with guest tenor great Eric
Alexander. Playing For Keeps has just been released on Savant; I
will have much more to say about the CD in a few weeks when I return from
a Belgium tour and The Jazz Cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale in November. The
CD release events have been great. There are some new directions on this
CD; response has been terrific. I will also be writing more about my new
Rob Engel custom guitar that I am using on my November 2007 tours.
Spring
2007
With
the Bob DeVos Organ Trio, I have just enjoyed two terrific concerts
in MD and PA, the latter joined by tenor great Eric Alexander. I have been
writing and arranging new material for my group, and will be recording
another CD on Savant in early summer. I look forward to playing in
mid - April with my trio closer to home as well as to returning to
the Kitano with bassist Mike McGuirk and drummer Billy Drummond. I
will be on a Live at Cecil's recording with Hendrik Meurkens and Mike
LeDonne and then onto Cape May Jazz Fest as part of the Wes Montgomery
Tribute. I hope to see old friends and new listeners at these and
other future gigs. Please see my calendar page for details as well as
performances at the JVC Jazz Festival in Miami Beach, San Diego and LA.
And plan now for a great weekend at the Lake George Jazz Festival in mid
September.
Shifting Sands continues to enjoy much airplay, with 28 weeks in the
top twenty on Jazz Week's TOP 50 Nationwide Jazz Airplay Chart as well as
terrific, insightful reviews.
Those
of you especially interested in gear, may like to check out John Heidt's
lengthy feature on me in the April, 2007 Vintage Guitar. I
will soon post a very comprehensive interview with Rick Holland on my
site. Rick's questions go to the core of my musical thinking and
experiences.
Late
2006-News:
Watch
for notes about the October 24, 2006 release of Shifting Sands on
Savant Records and the CD Release Performance at Live at J&R
presented and broadcast by WBGO Jazz Radio 88.3FM with host Eulis Cathey.
Scroll down for notes on what I am listening to and equipment.
2005-
mid 2006-News:
The
past months have brought many gratifying experiences. First, in
late October 2005 there was the great popular and critical success of An
Organ Summit Supreme, an all day concert that brought 1,200 fans from
around the world to Newark, NJ. I served as musical director and
guitarist, reuniting with Hammond B-3 Organ legends Trudy Pitts and Dr.
Lonnie Smith as well as tenor great David "Fathead" Newman and
drummer Rudy Petschauer. Scroll down to the Fall 2005 news for
a link to a special Organ Summit Supreme page. Carla Lilien's insightful review appeared
in the Dec. 2005 Jazz Improv and a link to the entire review is on
the Reviews page.
Nov.
2005, drummer Steve Johns joined Dan Kostelnik and me as part of my
group, The Bob DeVos Organ Trio. After playing a
terrific weekend at Cecil's Jazz Club, (We also had a sell-out return
weekend on May 5 and 6, 2006), I decided to compose and record
with these accomplished musicians in mind. We came together at the end
of 2005 at with Jack Kreisberg as co-producer. Tenor great Eric
Alexander and percussionist Gary Fritz joined us for three tunes. The CD,
Shifting Sands, was released by Savant/HighNote in October,
2006. The brilliant Tom Swift of Swift Kick Productions mixed and
mastered the CD, getting just the sound I wanted. More news about the
release will be posted as it develops. Please read about this
trio and our goals on my Groups Page. My trio also played at SMOKE
before Christmas and for the 4th of July.
December
and at various dates through the year, brought a few great Tuesday
nights playing with Mike LeDonne, Eric Alexander and Joe Farnsworth at
Mike's regular Tuesday Hammond Grooves night at SMOKE.
My group had a big night at Trumpets in June and will be playing
a big event at the NJ STATE THEATER on Wed. Sept. 20, 2006.
Please come hear us there and elsewhere, again see the calendar page and
watch for the CD RELEASE EVENTS to be announced soon.
2006
had started with my heading down to Miami Beach and the Van Dyke Cafe for
a series of January performances in many musical settings, all
including bassist Don Wilner. New Years at the Van Dyke with Don,
Rudy, and Doris Spears is becoming a tradition I urge many of you to plan
on sharing in the future, including four nights at the end of July
2006.
Other
news: a number of recording dates, especially with Onaje Allen Gumbs, due
out this year and a great Miami-based vocalist, LeNard Rutledge, with whom
I have performed at the Van Dyke Cafe and will again this year.
Fall,
2005-News
It
was a great summer playing at many festivals: Iowa with Eric Alexander and
Mike LeDonne, Rochester with the Swedish trumpet player Anders Bergrantz
and the Ron McClure Qt, Lake George, as well as with my own Hammond organ
trio in smaller festivals and a few weeks at the great Van Dyke Cafe in
Miami Beach. Trudy Pitts and I with Billy Drummond on drums opened
the 40th Anniversary Jazz in the Garden Series at the Newark Museum
and had over 800 people there enjoying the music.
The
big news is AN ORGAN SUMMIT SUPREME, a star studded tribute to
Hammond great Jimmy McGriff. I am musical director and really look
forward to playing with the line-up I put together: Jimmy, Dr. Lonnie
Smith, Trudy Pitts, Gene Ludwig, David "Fathead" Newman, Houston
Person and more. I have played and recorded with all of them. I will
be on WBGO Jazz88.3FM with event host Gary Walker on Tuesday Oct. 18th at
9am and hope you will tune in.
On the CD
Player - What I'm Listening To and Why
I
listen mainly to classical and jazz. When I listen in the car, it is
always jazz. At home, it depends on the state of the world, the state of
my own emotions, what I have just heard live.
When
I need to hear perfect order, I listen to classical.
In
periods of writing own music, I listen almost exclusively to
classical. Ten years ago, I studied composition with Edgar Grana.
During that time we analyzed the music of Chopin, Elgar, and Schumann to
explore thematic composition, expansion of elements of form, and harmonic
& modulation devices. It is natural for me, to return to classical
listening when I am writing.
Edgar
also introduced me to the playing of classical pianist Maurizio Pollini
and I have been listening to him off and on since then.
Pollini
has been on my CD changer almost exclusively for the past few months. For
one, I am actively composing right now and wanted to return to him. Also,
this October, I heard Pollini at NJPAC doing a brilliant performance of
Chopin and Debussy. This concert rekindled my interest in his recordings.
His interpretation transcended the written score and the instrument. What
I mean is, it wasn't as if Pollini were saying "I'm playing the
piano, I've memorized this canon of work, I've got great chops."
Within the stricter boundaries of classical forms, he was giving an
interpretation so personal, so profound, that the playing became pure
music.
This,
of course, is what I seek in the jazz musicians I want to play with and
hear: pure music, pure expression. I'm not interested in music or
musicians who are showing off technique. It has to be a given that you
need great technique, but as an end in itself, technique is empty.
This
is far from a comprehensive list, but I go to Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter,
Wes, of course, Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith
Jarrett, when I want to hear pure music.
(Top
of Page)
Equipment
Guitars
Both
musicians and people who come to hear me ask me a lot about the equipment
I use. Many people know that I work on my own amps and have built one
of my own. The guitar I play the most frequently often elicits a lot of
notice, so let me start with talking about guitars.
As
with most professional guitarists, I have many guitars. Most of these are
factory made: Gibson, Fender, Takamine nylon string and others. Of these,
I mostly use my Gibson Super 400, pictured in my web banner, for some of
my recording work. I play the Gibson L5 on duo and low volume gigs.
But,
my mainstay guitar is my Rob Engel custom archtop which you see in
all the website photos and pictured left. Rob is an old friend and a great
guitar maker. I've been playing this guitar since 1991 and use it on my
own recordings. A couple of years ago, I changed the pickups to Lindy
Fralin. The guitar fits me and my style. Rob and I worked
together on the measurements and the shape of the neck. I've tried
many custom guitars, and they all seem to have one problem: Feedback.
Rob's guitar never feeds back, even at Charles Earland volumes with two
Leslies! Write me if you want to get in touch with Rob. He is working on a
website, his email address is on my links page. Watch this space for
photos and news of my latest Rob Engel guitar; I am using it on my
November tours.
I
carry my guitars in gig bags made by Undercover Cases. They provide
great instrument protection and have some truly unique features. Check
them out, they're the best; their website is listed on my links page.
Amps
Generally
I like Fender Amps or "Fenderish" amps. If I had a roadie, I
would use a blackface Fender Twin Reverb that weighs in over 80
pounds. For my own recordings, I have been using a blackface Showman head that
I have modified. I used this amp on Shifting Sands along with a
Fender Tweed Bassman and my extensively modified Deluxe Reverb. However,
on my latest recording I only used my Deluxe Reverb. It seems to be my
best sounding amp at the moment. There are very few original parts left in
this amp, like the pilot light for instance.
I
have been thinking about building another amp. Watch this space for
developments. I recently pretty much entirely rebuilt my early 70s
Fender Princeton. I am always looking for a Tweed or Blackface era
Fender.
April
2007 update, I just finished rebuilding another Fender Twin reverb, sounds
great, still too heavy. More on this to come...
(Top of Page)
Write
me with any questions at
Deviousguitar@aol.com
Bob
