Album Notes

A note from guitarist Keith Howland:

During the summer of 2001 while on the road with Chicago, drummer Tris Imboden and myself (Keith Howland) decided to put together an album (CD I suppose) of instrumental fusion music that was to be called "The Howland/Imboden Project". We had already tracked one instrumental tune (Fallin' In A Hole) which was sort of the seed that became the forthcoming record. Into the studio we went that fall and calling upon all of our musician friends and also our Chicago bandmates we completed "The Howland/Imboden Project" CD and released it right here on CDBaby (where it's still available by the way) in October of 2001. Well, over the next couple of years we talked and threatened to play some of the music live but never seemed to put it together. Then one day in the fall of 2003 I received a call from a friend inquiring if the Project would be interested in playing a benefit concert in LA for a worthy cause. Well, we accepted the offer and decided to take the opportunity to play the benefit but to also book a gig the following night at the world famous jazz club "The Baked Potato" in North Hollywood. I've seen many amazing musicians in that little windowless club that seats about 75 people including Larry Carlton, Steve Lukather, Michael Landau, Allan Holdsworth, Greg Mathieson and the late great Jeff Porcaro just to name a few. We knew that bassist Lance Morrison was a lock for the 3rd member of the live band but we needed someone who could come in and really cover lots of musical bases and also elevate the improvisation side to a level worthy of The Baked Potato name. Well, we found him in keyboardist Steve Weingart who most know from his work with the amazing Dave Weckl Band. Now that the band was in place, we scheduled a rehearsal for the day of the benefit and each of us started working on the material on our own time. Leading up to the shows, I waffled on whether to bring along some recording gear to document the performances but decided in the end to go forward with the plan. Well, the rehearsal was decent, the benefit was better, but the Potato gig really had some magic moments. The band was still having to pay attention to arrangements as well as just remembering melodies and changes but everyone was listening to each other and the improvisation and interaction was inspiring. After listening to the recordings of that night, you could really hear the excitement and fun that we were all having as well as the sound of that tiny magical room. At that point I started to ask myself whether we should go ahead and release our first gig (well second I guess) as a live album or if we should do more shows and see if we could do better. Could we perform some of the Xs and Os of the tunes better? Sure we could. Could we recapture the magic of our first gig at the Baked Potato? Probably not. So with that, I present to you The Howland/Imboden Project "Live At The Baked Potato" and hope that you can feel the energy of that night in the recording. I know I sure can!