About Jeff "Tain" Watts:
Jeff Watts, the drummer they call "Tain," spent his formative years with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and his compositional skills now command equal attention, earning Watts a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.
Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music. Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble: Black Codes From The Underground, J Mood and Marsalis Standard Time. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, McCoy Tyner and Harry Connick. Jr. (winning Grammy for the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack) he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989, winning Grammy's for I Heard You Twice the First Time and Contemporary Jazz....
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About Jeff "Tain" Watts:
Jeff Watts, the drummer they call "Tain," spent his formative years with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and his compositional skills now command equal attention, earning Watts a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.
Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music. Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble: Black Codes From The Underground, J Mood and Marsalis Standard Time. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, McCoy Tyner and Harry Connick. Jr. (winning Grammy for the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack) he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989, winning Grammy's for I Heard You Twice the First Time and Contemporary Jazz.
In the film and television industry Jeff has appeared as both a musician on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and as an actor, Rhythm Jones in Spike Lee’s "Mo Better Blues". Jeff joined Kenny Garrett's band after returning to New York in 1995 and continued to record and tour with Branford Marsalis as well as Danilo Perez, Michael Brecker, Betty Carter, Kenny Kirkland, Courtney Pine, Geri Allen, Alice Coltrane, Greg Osby, McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Harry Connick Jr, and Ravi Coltrane. Jeff has an extensive discography as a side-man, as well as ten albums as a leader.
About "Fat Boy Kanootch":
MTV’s Hip-O-Meter declared the accordion and the sousaphone to be the least hip band instruments, but Fat Boy Kanootch is here to prove them wrong.
The band’s setlist leaned heavily on the New Orleans funk that Brian Mitchell favors and Clark Gayton’s ska/reggae/rocksteady enthusiams. They threw in a little James Brown, a few of their original songs and, as always, included a salute to Levon Helm, in whose Ramble band both played during the drummer’s final years.
Decades of playing music together has afforded them a sort of musical ESP. Behind his shiny red Roland accordion, Mitchell handles the vocals in his growly fashion while Gayton provides the bassline (and sometimes the melody) on a gorgeous hand-painted sousaphone, so imposing that people on the sidewalk stop to stare through the window. In Gayton’s hands, the horn not only made a thrilling sound but also proved a good dance partner as Mitchell crashes into the familiar Professor Longhair number, “Big Chief,” followed by “Hey Joe.”
The Band’s “Ophelia,” and gave it all they had for their old mentor. The rocksteady beat of Gayton’s “Brooklyn Girls” brought in a cool Jamaican vibe and Mitchell takes it further south still with his dramatic “First We Tango, Then We Fall in Love.”
...excerpts taken from author Kay Cortdz Elmore magazine
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