- Prospects

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Native New Yorker, long time studio musician and session guitarist Chris Juergensen is in constant demand as a sideman, front man and clinician. He has played sold out venues as intimate as the world famous Blue Note and as large as the Long Beach Auditorium.

As a studio guitarist, sideman, frontman, session player and clinician, native New Yorker Chris Juergensen's guitar playing has taken him around the world. After being invited to be a faculty member at the prestigious Musician's Institute in Los Angeles for six years he left the states to become the Director of Education at Tokyo School of Music in Japan where he currently resides.

His newest CD, "Prospects" has been critically acclaimed throughout the world. Chris has played and/or recorded with such artists as Lincoln Goines (Mike Stern), Richard Hartley and Soul Resurrection, Toss Panos (Steve Vai, Mike Landau), Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big), Keith Wyatt (The Blasters), Ralph Humphrey (Manhattan Transfer, Frank Zappa, Wayne Shorter), Kim Plainfield (Tania Maria, The Pointer Sisters), Jay Dibbs (Vanessa Williams), Steve Bailey (The Rippingtons, Dizzy Gillespie), Jennifer Batten (Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson), Mike Shapiro (Al Jarreau, Sergio Mendes), Jerry Watts (Andy Summers, Billy Idol), Russel Ferante (Joni Mitchell, Yellowjackets), Kevyn Lettau, Hussain Jiffry (Robben Ford, Michael MacDonald, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan), The Hideous Sun Demons.

"Prospects" was recorded in two days using a different set of players for each session. The whole thing went down pretty much live without any punch-ins so the CD has the vibe of a live record but maintains a crystalline quality throughout because of the fully digital recording. I mostly used my Warmoth run stereo through a Fender Dual Professional and a Peavy solid state amp.

1. Prospects - This song is based on only three chords; Emaj, Cmaj and Amaj. The first section is based on descending E lydian chords starting with the root on top; 1-7-6-5-#4-3-2-1. The head is all based on an A lydian theme with the exception of the one bar of 3/4 which changes to Cmaj for a brief moment before returning to the E lydian intro. The solo section is a vamp of Amaj-Cmaj-Emaj for four bars a piece.

2. When Love Greets You - A blatant love song. Took the name from a line in a poem I once read. "Love comes and greets you and the loveless have nothing to say", or something like that. The first three chords; Fmin9-C/E-Ebmin9 creates a nice chromatic bass movement to set things going. Dale James plays beautiful bass throughout the song and the solo by Touru Nakashima is soulful. I made Tetsuya Hoshiyama get out the brushes for this tune.

3. Extraordinaire - I wrote this song for Don Coen, the guy who got me started on the guitar when I was twelve. He lived in the same neighborhood as me and asked me over to his house one day after school. He took out this guitar and played some blues for me. It left such an impression on me that I asked him to teach me how to do it. He would eventually get me to go to lessons every Saturday with him. We would jam the blues after school everyday. It kept me out of trouble. He turned me on to Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Led Zepplin. Without him my life would be completely different today. People always ask me how I got started on the guitar and his name always comes up. I started thinking about him a lot and decided to look for him to thank him. What I found out is that he had died. I was deeply saddened because I never got the chance to to thank him. I named the song "Extraordinaire" for him because he had the habit of answering his phone; "Don Coen, Extaraordinaire !" He turned me on to the Jeff Beck "Wired " record which contains Jeff's version of the Mingus tune "Good-bye Porkpie Hat". I fashioned this song after that one as my way of thanking Don. It is basically a minor blues in C with the standard Cmi7-F9-Ab9-G7#9 turnaround bringing it back around.

4. Shepherd Moon - I used a tap delay for an unusual effect on my guitar. I liked the way the band opened up on my solo. They took my rhythmic cue and took off. I think I must have played for three or four minutes at the end so I had the engineer do a fade out because it was way too long. By the way, the Shepherd Moon is one of the small moons that orbits the planet Saturn. It keeps all the other smaller bits and fragments orbiting from floating out in space. Without the Shepherd Moon you would have a Saturn with no rings.

5. Absolution - Got the idea for this song from Miles Davis' "Nefertiti" record. Gotta be honest, even though I wrote it, this is a rough song to solo over. Its full of odd times and strange changes. E7#9-Bmin11-Gmin11-B7(#5,#9)-Bmin11-Eb7(#5,#9)-C#69. I like to drink Absolute vodka when I need a solution to a problem, that's where the name comes from.

6. Where Spirits Dance - Wrote this song for my wife. The band takes a big breath before my solo that lets me make a big entrance.

7. Papa Legba - Dedicated to the guy that Robert Johnson sold his soul to in order to become who he became. You know the story, you go down to the crossroads and all that. It is a vamp in A with the exception of the standard blues turnaround: A7-F#7#9-B13-E7#9. Dale plays some nutty bass that cracks me up to listen too. A fun guy to play with!

Chris Juergensen is also in the blues rock band Big Bad Sun.