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Stories, Tunes

Swing Essence – Jazz, Dance, & Party!

By Kevin Karrick Leave a comment

Swing Essence is a band I formed in 2004 in Colorado. We had a great run for 8 or 9 years and played many wonderful events. I so enjoyed arranging the music and leading this group. Here are a few demo tracks from rehearsals recorded in 2007. We did several of these sessions to try out new 7 piece arrangments. Here was the line up of musicians who played.

Vocalists: Colleen Crosson, Sally Herried
Bass: Michael Olson
Drums: John Olson (no relation to Michael), Oscar DeZoto
Keyboards: Dave Roberts, Chris Hatton
Trumpet: Mark Dorn
Saxophones: Andrew Vogt
Kevin Karrick: Guitar/Vocals

Let’s Stay Together (Al Green)
Jump, Jive, and Wail
Son Of A Preacher (Dusty Springfield)
Take The A Train
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Tunes

In The Studio – Sweeter All The Time

By Kevin Karrick Leave a comment

In 2003, I put together an album of my originals with this wonderful crew, recorded at the UNC studio in Greely, CO. Pictured (left to right) are Jessy Lucas (bass), Mark Raynes (drums), Greg Heimbecker (engineer), Mark Sloniker (piano), and myself (guitars). Byron Hamer (not shown) contributed on flute and tenor saxophone.

The Happy Guitarist

Here is one of the cuts from that album, featuring the crew in the photo.

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Stories, Tunes

Moody’s Mood – Featuring Chrissy Faith

By Kevin Karrick Leave a comment

This is a little piece of a demo that I recorded, featuring vocalist Chrissy Faith. Chrissy was a popular and highly employed backup singer in the 80s and 90s and nominated for best rock vocalist for a voice over she did in the movie, No Small Affair. She went on to singing jazz where we hooked up in Portland, OR in 2000-2001. This piece also features my good friends Gary Irvine on drums and Dan Davis on bass.

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Stories

First Guitar

By Kevin Karrick Leave a comment

In 1966, I started playing the guitar, inspired by my older brother Denny, who played bass in a local top-40 band. I was also accustomed to seeing Dan Fogelberg lead his band, The Coachman, at the time. (Dan and Denny were high school age – not at the same school). On Christmas eve that year I was gifted with my own instrument. It was destiny that it was an archtop, the instrument type I would return to later in my journey. This one was pretty rough, but I was thrilled! My niece Laurie is looking under the tree, I imagine to see what other surprises are looming. This photo was taken at our house on Jefferson Street in Washington, IL.