Walk Tall

It’s a track by Cannonball Adderly and one of my all time favs. It’s a positive and uplifting philosophy that always helps me when I need it and I’ve been walking tall since Jam with Jeff on Friday night. No sleep but the sun was shining and I was in town by 9AM. He burnt me some savage tracks over breakfast and played me about five tracks of “The Return”. The Jean Grae and Musiq Soulchild ones are the bomb and there’s much more to come! As he explained in our interview, there is no point in finishing it unless he is entirely happy with things. I got some good exclusives and he even burnt me some samples of a 2 day session he recorded with jazz (and indeed hip-hop) pioneer Herbie Hancock! Jeff was eating breakfast and burning CDs but he was dead cool and we had a great chat about music. Check his studio set up in his room, complete with MPC!!!!! He was working on a track called “Cork” the previous evening! I got some radio drops off Skillz and Jeff and bid them good-bye, before I went back into town to buy new headphones and more music.

When I got home I checked my emails and got about 10 messages on Bebo saying how great Friday was at Jam. I was wrecked by 7PM but still walking tall and my show was enjoyable. I got loads of texts about the Jazzy Jeff gig and played loads of his new stuff, including a class remix he did of the Black Eyed Peas “Feel It’. A young sports fanatic called Alan Smith who I know sat in on both the sports show and my Black on Red show and we headed into town after for Rapture. I quickly showed him the Savoy before he got collected and then it started it all over again.

It wasn’t exactly Jazzy Jeff but Saturday was jointed again and I played a good and very varied set. The crowd were going crazy so it was all good and after a bit of unwinding I eventually crawled into bed at around 6AM. I would have loved Sunday off but I was doing my All Day Music Day with Bellyman and since I was still walking tall tiredness went out the window. United comfortably beat Arsenal so I was buzzing and playing some lovely jazz and soul before moving into reggae with the Bellyman. He owns Roots Records in Kinsale and is an old friend of mine but we haven’t spun together much in recent years. We used run a cool night called Expansions in Sir Henrys back in the day.

It was a nice evening and the tunes and nice crowd kept me going. I was well up for it and Bellyman played some absolute killers, a good few of which I ordered from his shop on the spot. I’m well up on my reggae but there’s always more you don’t have! He is really well connected and cutting edge so it was a pleasure! Got home by midnight and watched highlights of the game again before getting some badly needed sleep. Cannonball Adderly’s intro to “Walk Tall” was still racing though my mind as I finally succumbed to the inevitable and slept like a baby till 10!!!!