One topic that seems to come up fairly often in my messages and video exchanges here at ArtistWorks is our good old friend STAGE FRIGHT. It's a bit of a theme in the video exchanges, particularly, so I'm going to take a few minutes and discuss my experience with it and how I got rid of it.

One fine summer day in 1992, I had my first rehearsal with the Brecker Brothers.  I'd helped them produce "Return Of The Brecker Brothers" earlier that year, and to my incredible delight, they asked me to join the band for the tour.  But to my knowledge neither Mike nor Randy had heard me take a solo;  I think they'd heard I could blow, but hadn't heard me much in person other than doodling around on the recording sessions.  So, on this day, we set about rehearsing "Above and Below", a fast Latin burner.  And we played the head, Mike Stern took an extended smoking solo, Randy took an extended smoking solo, Mike Brecker took a VERY extended smoking solo, and then everybody looked at me.