Tisabel

My Story

I’m a jazz musician at heart. When I was 19 I had a conversation with a relative of mine from Memphis, Tennessee. His name was Maurice Bowers. He was an Airline pilot. He sang on a local hit song in Memphis. I can remember telling him " I want to play jazz and I will never sell out”. He said “ Wait till you have some mouths to feed” .

As some would say “Then real life came along” and I found myself going to school in Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee. I was a music major with a business emphasis. There I met a guitar teacher named John Pell. He changed my way of thinking. He said “You should be a session player”. With your knowledge of Jazz and your ability to play music by ear you can analyze what the “A team” players are doing and emulate their style. That way people will call you to play rock on a session one day and the next you play on a jingle and the day after that play a Country session. You can go play Jazz on the weekend. This made sense. So I became a “styles player”.

I grew up listening to RnB on WDIA in Memphis. My parents were listening to the likes of Al Green, Bobby Blue Bland, and of course Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and all of Motown. Then I heard Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. I started singing along with records and realized I had a similar voice. I started winning talent shows singing like Michael Jackson. A number of teachers told my parents “your son has a very high aptitude for music”. The city showed up and tested all the kids at my elementary school. I scored second highest. Then I met Terrydale Hart. He could sing like Michael as well. We sang for a music class. The teacher asked us to stay after school for a minute and said she wanted to start a music group. After the meeting we got mobbed by all these girls waiting for us to come out.😊

My best friend across the street got an acoustic guitar for Christmas. Of course it ended up at my house with the top 2 strings broken. Then I showed my mom I could figure out and play the bass line from her favorite record . This won her over.

Unfortunately for me, my dad was the antithesis of Joe Jackson. He was determined that I would not be a musician. It could be said that my musical talent came from my dad’s side of the family as my dad played some piano and sang in church and toured with a music group.

My dad's brother (Clarence Isabel) lived in Detroit and played bass on the first Supremes record. Although my uncle was far too gone in his dementia to be interviewed in the 2002 documentary film “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” , He got an honorary mention at the end of the film. His wife (Chubby Kemp) sang with Duke Ellington and was an accomplished pianist as well.

My dad wanted me to become a doctor or an attorney. Typical for any black parent in the 60’s. But then my mom outsmarted my dad. When he would not buy me my first bass, she said “get a newspaper route and buy your own bass”. And as they say the rest is history

When I was 18 I got a scholarship to go to UTC in Chattanooga. The Jazz Ensemble played the Montreux Jazz festival that year. While in Chattanooga I auditioned for a gig with jazz pianist Butch Cornell. They ran a “New York Trip” on me. They asked what tunes I knew and then proceeded to play them in some strange key. Unfortunately I did not know so many tunes when I was 18 but could play by ear. Subsequently out of the blue  6 years later he calls me up and says he taped that night and I was the only cat that could half way keep up. I said why didn't you hire me for the gig? He said he got an unexpected call to go on tour with George Benson but had recently moved back to Chattanooga and was forming a group. So I made the 3 hour commute to play with him. There was me and a drummer named “Samarai” who was with Sun Ra for a while. The people who owned a club in New York called “The Blue note” decided to open another one in Chattanooga. We played with guest Stanley Turrentine on opening night.

I lived in Nashville for 8 years. I had a Sunday jazz gig and people like Buddy Spiker (fiddle) and a fella named Lenny Breau (guitar) would show up sometimes and sit in. In retrospect, it was jazz players in Nashville that started hiring me for country gigs.

Harry Wilkinson (Drummer) hired me to play with Larry Strickland’s group Memphis. I eventually became the band leader for Memphis. This opened a lot of doors. I Played with a lot of Country music names like Jerry Lee Lewis and Louise Mandrell. I even auditioned for Lee Greenwood’s band personally at one point. He heard me singing and playing opening shows for Memphis at Cajuns Wharf.

After a time touring with Melissa Prewitt's (Dave and Sugar) band when she struck out on her own (Etta Brit) and a separate stint playing with the Jeff Allen band, I ended up playing bass with the Indian River Boys (Burt Reynolds project). Went to LA for the first time with them. I was sold after that. When the time came I made the move to LA. At first it was a real challenge. I did four gigs in 18 months. Then cruise ships came along and saved me. Terry Landry (saxophonist) opened the door. I was in a do or die situation and in the nick of time I got a call to sub on a ship out of San Pedro (Azure Seas). I was supposed to be there for two weeks and ended up staying for 18 months. The last seven of which I became the Musical Director.

In Los Angeles I met and played with people like James Gadsen and Phil Upchurch. Tom Gire hired me for a house gig at Monty’s Steakhouse in Westwood in the 90’s at the top of Westwood Center. It was a bit of a high profile place. Played Birthday parties for Muhammad Ali and Actor Forrest Whitaker. Met and performed with Tupac Shakur and Snoop there when Suge brought in the label for dinner one night. They got up and sat in with the band Freestyling and opened my eyes to what was then called “Rap”.

Monika Lewinsky came in one night and had dinner with her dad . This was right in the middle of her mishap with Bill Clinton. In retrospect I feel a bit bad because we were laughing on stage and I know she knew what we were laughing about.

Monty’s came to an end suddenly when the building was sold and the new owners did not want to honor the newly signed lease agreement.

I ended up at another restaurant called Banderas in Brentwood. With pianist Tony Michaels and guitarist Jean Marc Belkadi in a jazz trio.

A Jazz heavy named Milcho Leviev (Pianist) would sub sometimes on piano. With Milcho we eventually recorded a CD that was never released with Tony Michaels producing. I tried to hook up Tony with Rhombus Records owner Thom Teresi whose band I was playing in as well. To this day I think Tony is still sitting on the masters.

Then the divorce happened and it was back to Princess cruises for 8 long years. They gave me a 15 year loyalty award when I was only one year away from the 20 year loyalty.

I did a short stint working at corporate in Santa Clarita. They offered me the job but I turned it down. Princess was always a stepping stone for me. I asked to go back out.

I think what I brought to the table as a musical director at Princess was the fact that I spoke “audioese” (the language of the audio engineers and live sound mixers) as well as having been a lead singer in a number of top 40 groups, I understood the needs of the singers and guest entertainers in the shows and was able to translate. Not to speak of my experience and history with the company

On land I started to free lance with a number of bands. One being a corporate event band called “Chain Reaction” with trumpeter Jim Frengel and Vocalist Ralph Dudley.

Played NAMM a couple of years in a row with drummer Rick Latham as well as a group called “Open Road the band” with Ken Rice and Paul Pierce. Occasionally Blues Guitarist Tommy Metranga would play as well.

As life would have it, one January came along and there were no gigs so it was back to ships once again. I had a little vocal show I would do with the Showband and my good friend Douglass Tann was looking for a reason to pay me a thousand dollars a week. So he put together a horn band set featuring me singing tunes from Blood, Sweat and Tears and Chicago

At this point the “Music Manager” gig at Princess had become this huge Behemoth of administrative nightmare. So I said "why am I working so hard?" I stepped down to sideman with the agreement that if they needed me to step up to fill certain time frames I would do so. Still got a single cabin with my wife who played cello in a quartet on the ships.

Then I realized my mother needed my help as her mobility was lessening. So I took off 4 months and 4 months turned into 9 months because moms cancer came back a second time. Then as I was negotiating a return to ships COVID hit and Princess shut down operations.

Truth is I didn't start to write and produce seriously until I left Nashville and moved to LA. I went religiously to pitch sessions at LASS (Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase) as well as studying lyric writing with NAS (National Academy of Songwriters). Recently I took an interest in dramatic music and studied with Composers Mark Jovani, Anne Katherine Derne, Chris Young and production music specialist Dirk Ehlert.

The way I look at it, by the time I was born jazz had already happened and of course still is happening. Same with Rock, Country, RnB, Show music (Theater) and Classical. Hip Hop had yet to be conceived of.

When you tell people you are a “Professional Musician”, inevitably people always ask “Do you play in a band?" Sometimes it’s hard to explain to the layperson that there is an entire other side to the music business and I am not speaking of the Publishing and Record business either but as a player. There are a lot of us “Style Players” in the trenches. This is what John Pell was referring to. Playing a country rock gig one night and a RnB gig the next night and Dinner music gig the next night. As opposed to being a member of a band that has a record deal that you tour exclusively with.

When I directed a “Pit Orchestra” on ships. The sax player was expected to play clarinet and flute as well as tenor and alto saxophone. Rhythm players were expected to know and be comfortable with different styles of music such as Jazz (dinner music or Big band), Country, Rock, RnB, Classical or whatever walked through the door. We would have two and half hours to put together a 1 hour show for that night. Reading music was an essential requirement.