Like father, like son
James Raymond readies a recording of biological dad David Crosby’s songs with his jazz quartet Lit By Fireflies
By Bliss 10/21/2010
Altadena resident James Raymond’s summer was fairly routine: working, grabbing downtime at home, hanging out with his dad. Only Raymond’s biological dad is Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer David Crosby, and they spent the summer touring with Crosby Stills & Nash. Now that their world tour’s finished, Raymond’s preparing a jazz album of Crosby material.
As has been well chronicled in the rock press, Raymond was adopted as an infant and grew up around San Bernardino; by his teens he was playing keyboards in R&B and rock bands. He was reunited with Crosby 16 years ago — an incredible event even within the sensational narrative of Crosby’s life. Their relationship’s been enriched by mutual respect for each other as musicians. According to Raymond, Crosby not only encouraged the jazz album, he helped hatch the concept.
“He heard a recording of me playing a few of his songs with my jazz quartet, Lit By Fireflies,” Raymond explains. “And he said, ‘Man, you should do a whole record of that. Not to sound like I’m tooting my own horn, but it would be really cool to hear you interpret my stuff.’ I thought it would be really cool to honor his music.”
Considering the deep trove of rock classics Crosby’s written and recorded since the 1960s, there’s no shortage of material for Raymond to sift through. Much of Crosby’s solo work, as guitarist and composer, seems rife for jazz interpretation.
“[His songs] really lend themselves to exploring,” Raymond agrees. “He’ll call himself a folkie or a folk-rocker, but he’s really got a jazz element that he’s not even aware of.”
Raymond’s initial choices include “Guinnevere,” “Déjà Vu” and the Crosby-Joni Mitchell collaboration “Yvette in English.” He’s also considering more obscure tunes like “Low Down Payment,” “Naked in the Rain” and the mostly instrumental “Tamalpais High (At About 3).”
That will be a solo James Raymond recording, albeit one likely to be made with LBF bandmates. After that, Raymond plans a formal Lit By Fireflies album. He and drummer Stevie D (Di Stanislao), bassist Andrew Ford and saxophonist Steve Tavaglione have been playing together in various configurations since the early 1980s, when not racking up individual sideman creds touring and/or recording with CSN, Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson, Joe Walsh, Michael Jackson, Oleta Adams and Whitney Houston, among others. Rock and R&B are their bread and butter, but they all found themselves wanting to explore jazz — and their own sound — in an unregimented “free kind of situation.” Raymond says they’ve been rehearsing originals they hope to perform at the Coffee Gallery Backstage.
“We haven’t recorded them yet; I’m hoping to maybe record something [there]. It’s a work in progress.”
Lit By Fireflies plays Coffee Gallery Backstage, 2029 N. Lake Ave., Altadena, at 8 p.m. Friday; Admission is 15.
For reservations, call (626) 794-2424. jamesraymond.com.
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