Interview With Detroit Funk Legend Demo Cates and The Cates Fomin Project
Earlier this year my web strategst Eric Hebert had the pleasure of interviewing Demo Cates, and he had some interesting insight from his 40+ years of being a professional musician. Eric asked if he could share this interview here for my readers.
Tell me a little about your early years and how you got started in the music business.
I was born in Detroit Michigan. My mother bought me an Alto Sax at age 9. Private lessons came with the horn, and I started performing professionally at 15 years old with The Fabulous Counts, one of Detroit’s many legendary R&B funk bands. We recorded one of our largest albums “What’s Up Front that Counts” here in Toronto…some years after that I decided to make my home here.
Read MoreFree Christmas Music – Christmas Wishes by Chuck Anderson
Once a year we all listen to Christmas music. If we don’t choose to listen, we listen anyway because it’s all around us.
The album “Christmas Wishes” is my contribution to the Christmas season. It’s packed with twelve Christmas classics and two new originals.
The instrumentation varies and the arrangements range from traditional to anything but traditional. For example, Jingle Bells has been transformed into a jazz waltz featuring, no surprise, the jazz guitar. A Latin Rockesque treatment is taken on another song while four acoustic guitars provide the texture on still another track. Virtually every song has a different sound and a different twist.
Read MoreHow to Listen to Music
Listening to music is as individual as you are. There is no “right” way to listen but there are some guidelines that might help you get you started.
Music is divided into two large categories: Vocal and Instrumental. If you have a strong preference for either category, that’s a place to start. My personal preference has always been Instrumental. This explains to a degree why I’ve always been drawn to Jazz and Classical. I have never personally been interested in Broadway or Opera or Pop or Folk or …
Read MoreA New Approach to Rhythm
Modular Phonetic Rhythm represents a significant advance in the teaching and application of rhythm. Eliminating many inefficient aspects of rhythm education, Modular Phonetic Rhythm streamlines the traditional educational approach, resulting in a reflexive reaction to rhythm.
Jazz guitarists have never had a way to organize the subject of rhythm in a way that would systematically benefit their solos and their comping. Modular Phonetic Rhythm offers a solution.
Read MoreTwo Jazz Guitar Legends Team Up – Free Download!
Jimmy Bruno and I have been working on a new original recording project. Our goal is to explore new musical territory with both the compositions and the instrumentation of each piece. Each track will find its own direction and require unique instrumentation. Don’t be surprised to hear a cello and oboe on one song and a funk bass on another. As I jokingly said, “It’s not like we’re putting a band together and going on the road”. We have the full resources of great musicians and a recording facility.
Read MoreDiscovering the Link Between “Jam” Bands Like Phish and Jazz Guitar
Jam bands are musical groups whose albums and live performances relate to a fan culture that originated with the 1960s group Grateful Dead and continued in the 1990s with Phish. The performances of these bands often feature extended musical improvisation (“jams”) over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns and long sets of music that cross genre boundaries.
While the seminal group Grateful Dead were originally categorized as psychedelic rock, by the 1990s the term “jam band” was used for groups playing a variety of genres, including those outside of rock such as funk, progressive bluegrass, and jazz fusion.
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