Hello,
I'm Jeff Shadley. My career is Computer Programming. My profession is Music. I have been playing Trumpet professionally in the heartland of America for the past 27 years. Tulsa, Oklahoma is a great place to grow musically. In Tulsa, Bill Basie first heard the Oklahoma Blue Devils which would one day become the roots of the Count Basie Orchestra. In Tulsa there are a many gigs for trained musicians but one has to be adept at a number of musical styles. I have had the opportunity to play with all three of the professional orchestras in the area and in connetion with these institutions have worked with Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra Jr., Ellis Marsallis, Vic Damone, Sandy Duncan, David Sanborn, Dianne Shure and many others. But musicians in Tulsa are also called upon to play casual club engagements, Dixieland (traditional jazz), Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Mahler, Rock and Roll, Blues. Also, when touring bands come through that need a horn section, we get "picked-up". I've played with The Temptations, The Lettermen, The OJ's just to name a few! Indeed, Tulsa is an exciting and eclectic place to work.
But music isn't the only iron in my fire. Although my Bachelor's degree is in Trumpet performance, my Master's degree is in Electrical Engineering. For years now, I have been using my Engineering "chops" to design embedded systems for products like SkyCam (the camera that "flys" over the stadium on all those dramatic shots you see on ESPN), Flight Simulators and a variety of industrial instrumentation and controllers. I also teach Digital Recording at the University of Tulsa. In fact the album you are hearing was recorded and mixed by lil-ol me. In my home studio I call "Caveman's Kitchen". You see, in college, "Caveman" was my "handle". When I designed the house I live in, I designed a special room to meet my acoustical control-room needs. This design includes a vaulted ceiling, minimized reflections and special support structure for high resolution studio monitors; it also includes my kitchen so you see, the album actually was created in my kitchen. Also, I was born in Akron Ohio. In Akron, the Cuyahoga river has carved a beautiful gorge and created many interesting geological sub-features. One of these sub-features is a large damp cavern formed by the uneven erosion of the rock in the area. This feature is called "Caveman's Kitchen"!
In the early 2002, the United States began falling into a serious recession. Just about everything I did to make money to feed my family disappeared overnight. I had cut back on my trumpet playing gradually over the years to concentrate on my business "Shadley Arts & Sciences, Inc." but I had three main areas of concentration. Aviation, Petrochemicals Exploration and Refining and Communication Technologies. Every one of these areas was simultaneously in a serious slump. I began to develop new products, subcontracting my labor to medical companies and looking for work in other areas that could use my skills as an embedded programmer but the market was flooded with out of work programmers. For six months, about the only work I could find was playing my trumpet. I could get gigs but my poor chops were taking a pounding and I needed to take some "pressure" off so I started doing something I hadn't done since Jr. High School when I lived in Chicago. I began singing.
Since I worked from my home, I could take breaks from new product development and work on my voice, then when I was 41, I went to a jam session and said "Can I Sing One?" Now, it's almost uniformly bad when a horn player asks that question but I had resolved to find some way to make it work. In fact, the singing got me a flood of gigs that continues to expand. At this writing, I'm 45, I've been singing for 4 years now and am releasing what I hope will be the first of many albums to come.
Please enjoy the album and know that it is the product of a child that has never stopped growing, changing and embracing the ever-surprising twists, turns and changes of life.
Personnel:
Jeff Shadley - Vocals, Trumpet
Alexandria Shapoval - Flute on Come Fly With Me
Ed Morse - Bass Clarinet on Under My Skin
Victor Anderson - Saxophones
Dave Johnson - Lead Trumpet on Have You Met Miss Jones, I've Got You Under My Skin, Come Fly With Me, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, Beyond The Sea
Rod Clark - Trombone
Steve Ham -Bass Trombone
Tim Shadley - Piano on Have You Met Miss Jones, Mack the Knife, Just In Time and Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', Trombone on Under My Skin, Come Fly With Me, Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Beyond the Sea.
Ed Garcia Jr. - Bass on Under My Skin, Come Fly with Me, Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Beyond the Sea
Matt Hayes - Bass on Have You Met Miss Jones, Mack the Knife, Just in Time and Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'
Jared Johnson - Drums
Recording, Mixing, Mastering - Jeff Shadley at Caveman's Kitchen
Cover art: Nicole McMahan (Look Ma! Creative, nicole@lookmacreative.com)
Photo: Rick Stiller Photoworks (www.rickstiller.com)
Duplication: Conference Resource, (myconferenceresource.com)
Music Librarian: Ed Morse
Jeff's Wardrobe: Ralph's Menswear - Tulsa Oklahoma
Additional Thanks to:
My Family, Chuck Cissel, Rick Fortner, Kathleen Kennedy, Ed Morse, Ben Sumner, Gayle Williamson, Shelly Wright
Dedicated to my daughters Zoë & Ruby
Read more...