Musician With A Day Job

Musician With A Day Job

Track Listings

1. The Boss Says: "We the Best!"

2. Song for Sister Sandra

3. Ebony Beauty

4. Blessed I Am

5. Too Soft

6. All I want is some Damn Respect

7. The Self-Expressive Dance

8. Funky Mood in a Blue Mode

9. Rahman

Editorial Reviews
About the Artist
Musician With A Day Job was concieved by Akbar Muhammad and his wife, Malinda Muhammad while they were living in an apartment. They wanted a good house to call their own and often thought about what they could do to make enough money to get started. This was in 1992, the year that the band leader of the Louis Burke Jazz Band died at the age of 72. That band had played in the Southern California Area for all of 15 years at many banquets, parties, night clubs, political functions, weddings, birthday parties and many times, for free at parks and recreation halls for the City of Los Angeles. Akbar was the 1st Alto and band leader assistant to the Mr. Burke. He was in charge of rehearsals and directed the band whenever Louis was forced to be absent because of sickness and poor health. Louis Burke was a beautiful man and much beloved by his band members and rarely did a member move on to other things. They were very loyal to this man. When he died, Akbar took over and guided the band for two years. He grew to understand the great patience that Louis possessed in trying to keep the band together, but it was not his calling. Soon, he announced that he was disbanding and planned on placing the music charts in storage. He offered to surrender the books to any of the original members, but no one was ready to take over and that was the end of the Louis Burke Band.

It was several more years before the urge to resume playing started grinding in his guts and he worked long hours at arranging some of his own music and recording it on his home studio equipment. He used the formated drum programs on a Yamaha electric piano and played the bass, piano parts on seperate tracks doing all of the parts himself and then overdubing the sax parts. When he was ready, he withdrew some of his 401k money and started looking for the right musicians to play those parts.

The first one contacted was Harold Land, Jr. Harold plays keyboards on the album and is the son of a legendary tenor saxophone player from the early 1950s. His father played with all the great jazz players, including Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Gerald Wilson's Big Band and Bobie Hutcherson among many others. Harold has played with Nancy Wilson, Freddie Hubbard and many other fine musicians of this era and has traveled throughout the world, only recently returning from Japan with another well-known vocalist, Barbara Morrison. Akbar has known Harold for at least 20 years and used him many times when performing at casuals around the city. That is when he was available! Harold was extremely important to this project, because it was he who pulled together the other players, many of whom had played with him on gigs with Nancy Wilson and Freddie Hubbard.

The first one he picked to play on the record date was Gerald Brown, the percussionist/drummer. A key was to find a drummer who could play the R&B sound as well as jazz and latin and some rock too! It was an excellent choice and Gerald brought all kinds of instruments to the studio with him. Gerald also provided key technical advice while the session was under way to help meet the deadline and budget constraints.

The last piece was provided by the choice of bass players and this was not as easy. The bass player that was preferred was John Williams, but he was on tour with Nancy Wilson at that time. Then, "The Skipper," Henry Franklin was thought about, but they knew that he would not play the fender bass as he only played upright bass. Finally, Harold remembered that Jeffery Littleton was in town. Akbar did not know Jeffery, but later found out that Jeffery knew him. It turned out that Jeffery had sit in as a sub with the Louis Burke Band while rehearsing. It was a real pleasure to have guys come together and that they all had something in common to share with each other.

Another key provision was that all of the musicians needed to be members of Local 47 and that contracts had to be filed and retirement benefits paid on beha

Product Description
A & M Enterprises, Inc.(AMEI)is the registered name of a business that is owned and operated by Akbar and Malinda Muhammad from their home in the City of Gardena, California and in the County Of Los Angeles. The company specializes in Consulting and Training in Job Safety and Driver's Education (and Behind-the-Wheel Training). Another one of its services is in entertainment, hence, during the early part of this year work was started on the CD, "Musician with a Day Job."

Akbar is a well recognized musician who has traveled extensively throughout the United States with various bands. He plays saxophone (and other woodwind instruments) and for the last 15 years, played the first alto chair in the band of Louis Burke 18-piece orchestra until Mr. Burke passed away in 1992.

Also during this time, he worked at Cardinal Transportation as the Safety Director from 1987 up to the this present time and is still working there. He is not interested in the trails of touring because of his many committment to various other enterprises he is involved in locally. He does moonlighting for several other businesses and is often guest speaker at safety seminars across the State of California.

He started his own business out of necessity to account for the extra money that needed to be reported to IRS and found that it was also a form of tax shelter to make investments. Now he and his wife have operated at a marginal profit for the last 10 years. With this new album, they expect to become very busy trying to get exposure for what they both believe is a very good effort by Akbar and the musicians used on this work. This is the very first attempt by both at recording original compositions by Akbar who has retained all rights to the music all these years. It is a dream come true.

Musician With A Day Job,Akbar Muhammad,A. & M. Enterprises/Zairejazz Records,Smooth jazz sounds to: listen to, comtemplate, and dance to, with a provocative narrative that is guaranteed to make you think and reflect on whatever is important to you at the time. ( Sorry...no sound clip to narrative&.

Jazz Music: Musician With A Day Job

Jazz Music: