Here’s a record I almost forgot about, that had a big impact on the way I play the drums. From 1988-90, David Sanborn was the leading guy getting new and eclectic music to a (reasonably) mass audience, through his syndicated TV show Night Music. His record Another Hand came out on the heels of that in 1991, doing some different stuff than his usual New York R&B thing, and featuring some people who were on the show, like Bill Frisell, Joey Baron, Mark Ribot, Charlie Haden, the group NRBQ.
Here’s Monica Jane, a Bill Frisell tune. Now it sounds like “Americana”, at the time it had a distinctly Pacific Northwest vibe. Frisell had moved to Seattle a couple of years earlier, and Nirvana was just hitting, and the northwest was having a big cultural moment in music. I had just moved to Portland from Los Angeles, and I was really feeling it, anyway.
Joey Baron is on drums here, doing something very fresh then, with a new sound, making a big statement with single notes.