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I met singer Amy Earl at the Red Herring open mic, where she sang a really beautiful a capella version of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit". For the next several months we performed and recorded some vocal/guitar jazz duets.
In the fall of 1997 we added philosopher/bassist Craig Matarrese and drummer Dean Klinker and decided to call the band Mood Indigo. I started transcribing jazz arrangements from recordings, and we made a three-song demo at Rosewood Guitars' studio in Champaign.
(There's a bit of tape "wow" on these; I read 'em off an old cassette. They're free, deal with it!)
Over the next couple of years we played gigs and drummer Rick Compton joined. I transcribed over 50 arrangements for the band and practiced block chord soloing like a maniac. In June 1999 we played live on "WEFT Sessions" on WEFT Radio. Here are a few tunes from that show, which was mixed by Mark Elledge. Special thanks to the Red Herring for loaning us some sound gear for this recording.
| Straighten Up and Fly Right | (1608K mp3) | (This might be my best recorded guitar solo ever) |
| Corcovado | (1098K mp3) | |
| Come Rain or Come Shine | (1182K mp3) |
In late 1999, we decided to play one last gig at Zorba's, then call it quits. The gig was recorded by Paul Kotheimer, and later mixed at Studio 109 in Urbana. Here are a few cuts:
