Hitting the Note with Jaimoe

There's no formula for a magical show. Monday night in NYC, I was lucky enough to be on stage for one — sharing it with the last surviving original Allman Brothers member.

Sometimes it just all comes together.

There’s no better way to describe that makes a magic show happen. There is no formula, plan or guarantees. If there was, every show would be magical.

Monday night at City Winery New York, magic happened when Jaimoe took the stage with Friends of the Brothers. We raised the spirits, created the vibe, rode the wave, felt the love, made more love.

I’m in the band. I was on stage. I am by definition an unreliable narrator. That’s all true, but I know what happened. You can see it in the pictures of all us smiling so widely. Hear it in the crowd reaction. Ask anyone who was there. Watch the videos and hope to feel the vibes.

Writing this feels very vulnerable. But as my friend Maryanne Asta, who was manning our merch table said when I told her that, “It was definitely magic. And magic feels fragile.”

Photo by Barry Goldenberg

Having Jaimoe on stage with us is inherently special. If he did nothing but walk out and wave at the crowd and give us his blessing and seal of approval it would be huge. What more could an homage band want? What we do works because we play the catalog with vigor. It is alive and breathing, not a museum piece to be ossified, but a template to be celebrated. And when I asked Jaimoe two years ago why he wanted to play with us, he said, “Because you motherfuckers play those songs like you wrote them!”

But Jaimoe did much more than just be there. He sat down on his new old Gretsch drum kit, picked up the monster tree trunk sticks and played his ass off. He played with passion, vigor, intent, humor. He lit a fire that we all caught and everything else faded away. At 82, he is not only playing great technically but with a love of music that is absolutely infectious.

Here’s the drum trio >bass solo > end of IMOER if you think I am exaggerating. This was the next-to-last song in a 2:15 set, of which he only sat out one tune. You think Lee Finkelstein and Dave Diamond were having fun playing with the master?

Jaimoe and I are working on his memoir together. We are speaking for hours every week and I am spending many more hours immersed in his story on my screen. To suddenly be immersed in the story, to feel the history flowing out of him and through all of us, added a 5th dimension to an already out-of-body experience.

The thing about hitting the note is you enter the zone. Time stands still and nothing exists except the stage and what’s happening there. As Butch Trucks once told me, “It ends at the lip of the stage.” That’s not exactly right, though, because the crowd is a huge part of it. it’s more accurate to me to say nothing exists except the room you’re in. The energy, love, attention, emotion coming from the crowd is felt, received, returned. It’s a huge part of the equation.

Dick Griffin and Jaimoe, friends for 64 years. Photo - Barry Goldenber

All of us had a lot of friends in the house, including many people who made it feel more like a family reunion than just another gig. Dick Griffin, the trombone player who often played with the Allman Brothers Band and has been friends with Jaimoe since 1962. The legendary promoter Ron Delsener and booking agent Jonny Podell, who were responsible for most of the best shows you ever saw, drummer and percussionist Ricky Gordan, a Beacon backstage regular, Martin Lemansky, who worked at the Beacon for years, Kim Williams, everyone’s friend and favorite Georgia driver, brought Macon to the house. Jaimoe’s wife Catherine and daughter Cajai, my wife Rebecca and sons Jacob and Eli, our manager and longtime ABB agent CJ Strock and his son. Maryanne. Photographer Barry Goldenberg, who’s shot Jaimoe and the ABB for decades. What did all these people being there have to do with what happened? I don’t know, but it all adds up, and we were conjuring the spirits, feeling the ancestors.

And then Dick, who played with Jaimoe heroes like Rashaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus and Sun Ra, walked out and joined us for “Dreams,” a song perfectly suited for a jazz horn. As Jaimoe told me in the upcoming book, “‘Dreams’ is basically Coltrane’s ‘My Favorite Things’ with lyrics. I played the exact licks and fills on there that Jimmy Cobb played on Miles’ ‘All Blues.’”

Craig Privett, our monster bass player who has been performing for decades, said it was one of the most memorable gigs of his life. A friend took the photo below mid-song. You can’t fake that radiating joy. We all work all our lives, put in the 10,000 hours, preparing for these nights. It’s the payoff, in ways that are hard to explain but I think you’ll understand.

Ray Glenn, a hardcore ABB fan, posted this: “What a special NYC evening ! An Upper West Side Brothers vibe made its way downtown to City Winery’s main stage . Without Jaimoe, this band cooks . With Jaimoe supporting the back line this band reaches new heights .

Having legends Ron Delsener and Jonny Podell in the house to witness the show validates the importance of The Brothers to their own successful careers. My wife who is a tough critic and understanding of my passion for The Brothers saw the constant smile I displayed and really understood what it all meant to me . What a night!”

What a night!

We’re doing it again with Jaimoe August 7 at Infinity Hall in Hartford, CT. Can I guarantee the magic will be in the room? No, for all the reasons I just laid out. But I can guarantee that we are going to be laying it on the line and conjuring the spirits and that it would be great to have your help.

-August 7 Infinity Hall, Hartford, CT. Click for tickets

Friends of The Brothers w/ Jaimoe
07-20-26 City Winery NYC
Statesboro Blues
Ain’t Wasting Time No More
Stand Back
Stormy Monday
Whipping Post - Jaimoe out, Mark Bell on drums
Midnight Rider
You Don’t Love Me
Blue Sky - Lee Finkelstein out, Steve Finkelstein, drums
Dreams - w/ guest Dick Griffin, trombone
In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed> Drums > Bass > IMOER
One Way Out

Band: Junior Mack (gtr, vox) Andy Aledort (gtr, vox), Alan Paul (acoustic gtr), Mike Katzman (keys, vox), Craig Privett (bass), Lee Finkelstein (drums), Dave Diamond (drums)

Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s was my third straight book to debut in the New York Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List, following Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. My first book was Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about my experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band. It was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions. I am also a guitarist and singer who fronts two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.