Always one of my favorite charts! This was written by my dear blood brother and section mate Chris Braymen in the run up to recording Live From San Francisco.
I just saw Chris recently in Ithica, NY where he calls home these days. It was the Sunday before the election, our last hurrah before the world changed. But I digress...
Chris and his wonderful wife Elizabeth are doing very well these days (43 years of marriage!) and it made my soul VERY happy to see them both. We had BIG fun reminiscing about these fine old days where we lived in a "jar" traveling the country on a groovy magical mystery grail quest tour DELUXE. Here is a shot of both of us from those years with our mentor in full swing:
At a certain point on one of our travels, Maynard had the idea for Fireshaker. He essentially sang a groove and a melody to Chris on the phone (land lines back then) Chris recorded his voice singing it (I wish we still had THAT) and put together the classic and iconic masterwork that you hear below. Beyond Maynard's cool ideas, this is ALL Chis: the orchestrations, and the STELLAR "MF Bridge."
Back in those days, we (Myself, Chris, and Denis DiBlasio) would always try to include a "romantic MF "release", or bridge-interlude to break things up. Usually there were sus chords that moved to altered chords or some-such 1980s sounding fripperies. SO much fun. I always felt that Chris's bridge on THIS chart was the best MF Bridge that I ever heard. It gave me chills to play, and it STILL gives me chills all these years later HEARING it. That is the arranger himslef Chris Braymen on the stellar trombone solo, the Bissonette brothers Matt on bass and Gregg on drums, Ron Pedley on keyboards and of course The One and Only front-and-center with one of the greatest trumpet voices to have ever graced this or any other planet.
As a pretty funny aside, the classic image on the San Fran album below is actually a picture of Maynard taken in Chicago across the street from the old Blackstone Hotel!
And now you know...the REST of the story!
Well done my friend! Here is Sir Braymen's CLASSIC and BRILLIANT bit of sonic wizardry: "Fireshaker."
"Fireshaker" is one of my favorite MF charts of all time! Check out this live version in the below link from 1983 in Japan, on which our webmaster Steve-O takes the reigns with a powerful bone solo! Steve, what's the backstory as this was typically Chris Braymen's solo,,,was their an exchange of cash for this particular gig? Or perhaps some other nefarious ongoings (aka bribery)? Inquiring minds ponder the head scratching thought...😁https://youtu.be/PRdCjIFOmyg
Below is some fun commentary from the great Denis DiBlasio from the old "MF Forum" blog, in which he provides some history about the 1983 "Live from San Francisco" recording session. Enjoy!