BOSS Productions Volume One: The Beginning of an Era

Have you ever seen an old picture of yourself and become immediately horrified? It’s happened to me. But it happened to me most recently when I heard myself play.

I was searching for the email address of a local artist that I’m acquainted with. I couldn’t find his card and for some reason his addy isn’t in my address book anymore. After I Googled his name, one of the entries took me to a blog on NPR. Apparently, this DJ EGON is also acquainted with the artist I was seeking out, ROGER BOYKIN. Roger is a legendary jazz/soul artist in Dallas, TX. Legendary meaning, if any jazz or soul record was recorded in Dallas in the 60s and 70s, if he didn’t play on it…he knew about it. Thus he has an incredible collection of records as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of the music at the time. I always refer to him as Dallas Jazz Royalty.

Apparently, Egon was on his way to SOUTH X SOUTHWEST Music Festival in Austin, TX and stopped off in Dallas on the way. He went by to see Boykin and raid his record collection. When Boykin decided on which records to give him, BOSS PRODUCTIONS VOL. ONE was on the list.

BOSS PRODUCTIONS VOLUME ONE, is the sole recording of the 1983 – 84, OLIVER WENDALL HOLMES MIDDLE SCHOOL BAND under the direction of local pied piper/musician/educator S. DEAN HILL – the “S” stands for Sweetness…so he’ll tell you. DJ EGON critiques the recording as bizarre. But I will tell you it is an important point in history. First, it is the first wax recording of ME playing alto sax and secondly, maybe a tad bit more important, it is the first known recording featuring ROY HARGROVE AND KEITH ANDERSON on the same date. If you are a connoisseur of jazz, you know that Anderson became Hargrove’s wingman on alto and tenor saxophones for the dates that produced THE RH FACTOR and he also toured with this group. Okay, maybe "important piece of history" is a reach, but - you know.

The song featured on the NPR Blog is titled “Break Out”. The alto solo is me – thus my horror! HOW in the world did THAT end up on NPR and the WWW for the world to critique?

As I’ve gotten older and revisited that record it makes me laugh to no end how extremely out of tune we were as well as how rhythm-less the solo was. I vividly remember being scared to death of recording that solo. I wanted to do it again after we played the song the first time, but we didn’t have the time or the money to re-record any of the record…call us “One Take Masters”. The trumpet duet features Hargrove and Jesse Fudge.

Follow the link and listen to “Break-Out”. Remember, I was only 13…try not to be too brutal or amused too much.