John Bain
I grew up in Floyd County and moved to Roanoke, where I joined the musician's union while working as an instrumentation specialist for an environmental company.
I began playing the guitar at the age of 13 and was self-taught until the age of 27. I dabbled with a variety of musical styles - some classical, finger style, blues, rock, whatever seemed to move me at the time, even a little jazz. Once I started taking lessons, however, I wanted to kick myself for not having done that sooner. It became clear that I had cheated myself out of some very beautiful music up until then. My instructors include Mike Kirby, Shawn Lane and Flip Shoemaker - all excellent players, each of whom was responsible for taking me to new heights of understanding.
My exposure to jazz music happened very gradually over time. When the Dave Figg quartet was playing around a lot I would go and hear them every chance I had. Another friend of mine introduced me to Miles and Monk, all great stuff. Another sparked my interest in be-bop. I loved the idea of using a variety of different extensions at any given moment. Although I didn't know what was happening at the time, I knew that I loved that sound.
Eventually I ended up at Wit's End on Tuesday jazz nights where there are a lot of really great players - totally awesome stuff. This is where I got the idea for Epitome of Cool. I wanted to produce a broad spectrum jazz release from southwestern Virginia, including standards as well as original material, and featuring some of the region's finest musicians.
The whole thing took about a month to record and mix partly because we couldn't get everyone together at the same time. Everyone involved, musicians as well as engineer Harold Thompson, realized that we all had to preserve one of the most important aspects of jazz music, its spontaneity. So, there weren't any rehearsals and most of us met for the first time, right there at the studio, just ten minutes before the tracks were laid down. 95% of the album is first takes. I can't thank everyone enough for their efforts. At the studio, I would tell whichever musician was going to solo to "Take your liberty and dig in.", and they did. I am immensely pleased with the final product. I've probably heard it 5,000 times and I still love it.
In the future I plan to study composition and improvisation. Like all musicians, I suppose, I want to keep getting better, finding new ways to say things. I turn 30 this year and it feels like a whole new beginning.
If you have a lead on how to reach John, please contact both me here at bob@peckmanjazz.com and also Tim Thornton at timt4@hotmail.com, or call Tim at 540-344-1607. And if you know where to get a copy of Epitome, which I really enjoyed playing on, I would love to get one.