December 19, 2025

The  process of going through the old to get to the new is still underway.  I have been playing a lot of guitar lately and writing a bit. There is some  scuttlebutt about new projects taking form, but my main focus lately has been on work (in the theater and in the studio), more than performing live. New releases are out and coming out, so check 'em!

Jill Butler - Live at AcA
November 29, 2025

I just finished mixing  and mastering a new double album's worth of material for Jill Butler. Most of it will be used for EPK and video promotion, and I'll post links when I have them.

The live show, recorded at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, was spectacular.  This was Jill's BIG band, which included back-up singers, percussion, guitar, 3-peice horn section and some special guests.

The AcA was made for recording. Its main room seats around 250, but it's completely noise isolated, with sound and air locks and a slab that's decoupled from its surroundings. While the recording retains the "live feel" complete with audience response, the room itself hasn't colored the recording with any nasty tendencies, transients or reverberations like so many other rooms do. 

I really enjoyed the musical selection by Jill. She revamped and covered some of the tunes on her debut release, Joyride, but also added some new tunes, which were decidedly more straight-ahead and/or trad jazz.  I played sax on the gig, and will be on her next major performance in Lafayette, part of the PASA series taking place in the Theatre at Baranco. <<<Tickets available at the link.

[Sidebar: I got to consult on the AcA build project at its inception, and I was their technical director (for hire) on opening night with Lyle Lovett's Large Band. I've also enjoyed mixing their jazz series there from time to time, engineering for internationally acclaimed jazz heroes,  so it was a real honor (and a kind of homecoming) to work with these tracks, and to really do them justice.]

Unfinished Business - Greybeard Records, LLC
July 21 , 2025

I've rebooted Greybeard Records, LLC and begun mixing and mastering for hire. The home studio received some treatment and some new monitors, and the results are fantastic. There's improved efficiency, with mixes better translating to other systems right out of the gate.

Additionally, I've been learning how to bake reel to reel tapes and preserve some of my father's life's work. That library includes some of Louisiana's best known artists, many of whom recorded with him before they were as renown as they are today. Early Beausoleil, Sonny Landreth, Bas Clas, works by Larry Sieberth, Rickey Sabastian, Dickie Landry and more.  Early Zydeco recordings of Fernest and the Thunders, Sam Bros Five, Sampe and the Bad Habits; and, rumor has it Clifton Chenier's last recording is in there somewhere. 

On the commercial side, most of the masters for his Jingle business are still intact, with some multitrack still available as well. Those include most everything created under the Greybeard banner, but also nearly everything created under SRS (Skerrett Recording Studios), mid-1990's forward. 

It's a monumental task ahead to digitize these works, and some of the tapes are probably worse off than others... so each time one is played, it needs to first be baked, and then recorded digitally. There might be only one quality play left in each of the reels.