Jim Gross - Sandia Moment Release Party

On May 20th Rick and I attended the release party for Jim Gross's debut album, Sandia Moment! The party was downtown at the One Up! club. Several months ago we spent the day with Jim driving around in the desert - truck full of clothes, hats, guitars and camera gear in search of the perfect place to shoot the album cover. We found the most amazing location and it just spoke to all of us. The shoot itself was a little treacherous with the wind howling the whole time and Jim's hat constantly flying off his head. In addition, there was a dog hanging out, who was cute at first, but became steadily more and more persistent about being the center of attention. At one point I was laying on the ground to get a shot and the dog was actually standing on my back! Yeah, sounds funny now.... Anyway - skip ahead to about 6 weeks ago and Rick is spending the night at Jim's studio helping Jim and his daughter Christie with the graphic design for the album cover. Jim is a dear friend of ours and we were so excited to come and support him when the album was finally released! It is always a wonderful feeling to see your hard work turn your dreams into reality!
Jim was so inspired by this image, he wrote a song titled Cemetery Road.

Here are a few shots of the performance from the release party. I have been listening to Jim perform at wedding for the past decade, so it was quite a treat to hear him play with back up musicians.

On congas and latin percusion was Paul Serna.

On violin was Gloria Velasco. On Native American Flute was Andrew Thomas.

And of course, the legend himself, Jim Gross. For more information about Jim Gross and Carousel Of Music please visit his website http://www.carouselofmusic.com/