27/03/2026
MjM this Friday 3/27 at Sola Violins 7PM.
A little over 3 decades ago I was playing with Denny Skerrett in his father’s world beat band Ya-Ya, and also with Dion Pierre in a power trio by several names... Fusebox, Tonic (every name we picked we found a month or so later was already another somewhat notable band.) After I graduated college in ‘95, Fusebox fell apart and Dion and I started questioning direction. We decided to pursue the jazz idiom, afterall Jazz is dead, and he asked me if I knew any saxaphonists. I sure did. Enter Denny Skerrett and we formed MjM sometime Christmas of ‘95, January ‘96. I suppose I was the thread but I’ve never taken sole credit for this joint endeavor. It was a transformative direction for all of us. We became our own support network. Dion learning upright bass, myself switching from left handed kit setup to right handed open playing, and the three of us immersing ourselves in the world of Jazz when there was no real scene in Acadiana. We were creating it. Within a few years we added Shin Ishida on keys and Jeff Martin on trumpet. The quintet played quite a few weddings, private events, Lion’s Tavern, a residency at Bisbano’s and Blue Dog, and we cut our teeth at Cornwell’s, and Cafe 101. We were so hungry to play, we got paid lunch at Cafe 101 and free coffee.
Out of the ashes of one project rose a phoenix of sorts. We created not only new music but some lasting friendships. We are now back to our trio form of origin.
This is one of the music projects I still perform with (outside of making La BackBeat drumsticks)... mainly because of the collaboration and friendship.
We’ll be playing a collection of those old MjM original tunes this friday at Sola Violins. It’ll be wonderful to see, visit and share this again with all of you.
You can get tickets at solaviolins.com
.violins
