July 27 2006 Jam

Where’s Doc’o? He’s somewhere between Missoulla and Missouri… on the road again…with a little help from a young friend who hooked him up to the worldwide web he e-mailed last week to let us know he is alive and well. On Thursday he called the jam to say “hi” to all you jammers, Thursday he was well beyond Missoula but lost in middle America… Donny we miss you, hurry on home to Alaska!

Lots of visitors this night hailing from all across America! A special welcome goes out to Rick and Edith, previous Eagle River residents who have relocated to the east coast but came to Alaska to vacation. Welcome, welcome what a nice treat to have them in our audience again.

Thursday night’s jam started with the core band: Matt on acoustic guitar, Gary Price on drums, Paul Schlomer on harp, and Pat Rat on bass. Dan, our masterful soundman, was busy manning the sound booth as our stellar bartendress, Jessica, was keeping everyone wet, because it was one hot evening in the ole’ Sofie’s North Slope Saloon.

A briney trio of Prine tunes started out the evening. Then our “Worried Man,” our own personal folk classic extraordinaire, John A., joined the band. His sis and nephews joined the audience, hailing all the way from Oklahoma. Ah, Matt thought they ought to have been here “sooner.” John sang, “Worried Man,” “Chilly Winds,” and “Greenback Dollar.” This night we had one lone clogger this set, new to the North Slope dance floor, was Laurie. Wow, you should have seen her feet move. Also, audience from Colorado… welcome to Alaska! Cuba, our perennial conga player, introduced us to his newly found daughter. More dancers with Laurie joined by Rachel Rae, one of our favorite North Slope voices and dancer extraordinaire.

Time for a quick change brought Matt Valley on acoustic guitar and Tre on drums, center stage. Valley Matt brought us unique fare with original flare with his own great original tune, “I Always Have to Steal My Kisses from You,” followed by a little “Folsom Prison Blues” and then a Sweet Virginish tune that I didn’t catch the name of, that had us all tapping our toes and the dancers still a’dancing and brought Jam Master Hammer back to the stage on flute.

Standing room only again, for the third week in a row, brought North Slope's Manager Pat Osborne and Jessica to work behind the bar. Both were working up a sweat. Hats off to Pat and Jessica, keeping our thirst quenched, as the first set came to a close.

Set two brought Kyle on sax main stage with two of his friends, a father/son team named Brad and JC. Brad and JC are new to the North Slope stage, welcome to both. Brad, the dad, plays acoustic guitar and siggs, and JC the son, of course, wants to plug in. Dad sang, “Love the One Your With,” “Angel from Montgomery,” and “Southern Cross.” Welcome, welcome to these two new jammers.

The Arment/Hammer reunion portion of the jam then began, bringing Loren and Penny Arment center stage, Special Ed on electric and the core band as backup. A crowd pleaser was the Pure Prairie League tune, “Amy,” in three-part harmony. Loren then launched into “Walking with My Baby”…which felt like he should be running with his baby as fast as this tune went. Penny stepped up to the mike and sang, “Papa Come Quick” and the group then played, “Fire on the Mountain.” Michelle joined in on tambourine and the boys and girls of summer launched into “Boys of Summer” as set two came to a close.

Set three brought a whole new line up of “North Slope stars” main stage. Mike, our favorite guitar fiddler on the roof on electric; Texas Jimmy D on electric; Torie on sax; Moe on keyboards; Kyle on sax; Michelle on tambourine; Cuba on congas; and Rachel on lead vocals. We asked Rachel what she called her new jam band… but of course…“Rachel and the Rachelettes.” The group played “Bobbie McGee,” with Rachel lending her Joplinesque vocals to the mix; “Give Me One More Reason” and ending with Rachel’s own tasty rendition of “Stormy Monday” with sweet licks by all the lick players.

Time for a quick change with Texas Jimmy D stepping to the mike. “Thanks Matt,” says Jimmy, “put me after the chick singer, she’s cute and I’m old and… well, thank you…” We all laughed…great hair, guy! Jimmy launched into a Freddy King shuffle and his own original “nasty, slow, quiet tune, minor key sharp kind of thing” called “Time Will Get You”. Sweet, sweet licks by Mike, Torie and Jam Master Hammer.

Jimmy’s own joke, “How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “One to change, and ten to say, I can do that, no I can do that, no let’s do it like that…” Lick players!

As you can see, Rachel's usual amount of Sax has now doubled.

Matt runs the show Jam Night, but this blog would not exist without the ever faithful efforts of his number one fan and backup vocals, his wife Lona Hammer, shown here recording the evening's events on her clipboard so you can read about them online (yes, here. Lona wrote 99% of what you read online here, but Steve wrote this paragraph.)

This last item is just one of the reasons that Matt's Jam Night is so special; when individual musicians perform so extraordinarily well - Here is a movie of Kyle (the Kid) doing a 30 second tenor sax solo - Incredible! To download this movie Click Here. The video is way too dark but the download is still worth it just for the listening. I'm surprised that a tiny still camera can record such good audio. (50 MB MPEG-4 version is available)