Alan is currently performing with a trio consisting of guitar, bass and drums, and as a solo jazz guitarist in the SF Bay Area. He has been playing guitar since 1965. Before playing jazz, he spent many years as a blues guitarist. Jazz however was one of his early inspirations and since the 80’s he has devoted most of his musical efforts in jazz. During the mid 60’s in Chicago Alan was deep into blues, jazz and r&b. In 1968 while aspiring to play blues with some of the local legends such as Sam Lay, Otis Spann and Sunnyland Slim, the bass player for Mitch Ryder asked Alan if he wanted to play some gigs with Otis Spann, one of the legends of blues piano. Alan started working with Otis soon afterwards. About that same time he started hanging out over at Sam Lay’s house, (the legendary blues drummer for many of the blues artists in Chicago). Soon afterward he became a member of Sam Lay’s Southside Chicago Blues Band. Other musicians in that band included Sunnyland Slim, Johnny Young, Jerry Portnoy, Eddie Taylor, Marc Brumbach and Irwin Helfer. Alan stayed with that group and recorded with them until 1974. During that time he also played with r&b singer Otis Clay and the Down Child Blues Band out of Toronto. Tiring of the road Alan left the band just prior to their 1974 performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Alan moved down South to further explore the roots of blues, and soon ended up playing six nights a week at various clubs on the Forida Gulf Coast from 1975 to 1980. During that time Alan found time during the day to study jazz, his main musical goal. In 1981 he moved back to Chicago. There he started playing in some local jazz groups. He returned to Tallahassee, Florida in 1985. There he hooked up with several local jazz singers and ended up with a full-time house gig at the downtown Hilton. He also formed a band with Welson Tremura, a Brazilian singer and guitarist. The band called the Brazilian Knights, performed at concerts, festivals and local clubs in the area. He was also a member in blues artist Charles Atkins band, who is a Kingsnake Records recording artist and teaches blues at Florida State University. Alan played many venues in the Gulf Coast area until moving to San Francisco in 1999 where he currently lives and continues to work on his career. Among recent clubs Alan has played in the San Francisco Bay Area are; Birk’s, Keton’s, Metropole, Enrico’s, House of Shields, Rasella’s, Catalyst Cocktails, California Cafe in Walnut Creek, Stoa’s in Palo Alto, the 2003 Tapestry in Art Festival for the South Bay Guitar Society stage in San Jose, Hyatt Regency, Monterey, CA, Pasta Pomodoro, San Jose, CA, Bandera’s in L.A. & frequent private social or corporate events.
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