Luke Westbrook

About a month back I had the sincere pleasure of including Dayna Stephens on a weeknight hit at The Dawn Club with my trio featuring John Wiitala and Smith Dobson. I haven’t gotten to play a lot with Dayna over the years but we have known each other for quite a while. If I’m not mistaken we met at Ed Kelly’s First Stop jam session (Oakland) when we were about 16 years old (I also happened to meet John around that time). Hearing Dayna play the other night it struck me how true to his own musical/creative path he’s stayed from those early years to now. I tend to believe that regardless of what tradition you dedicate yourself to assimilating, or the scope of your technique, the measure of a really great musician is whether they’re able to impart something recognizable about their essential nature (personhood, voice) through their playing. To my ears Dayna upholds that and the gig was a good reminder for me to push myself to do the same. Smith and John are also extraordinary and original musicians who I happen to get to play with more frequently (both of whom I’ve also known for many years). Getting these great musicians together made for an all around fun night of playing and hanging and thanks to my good friend Kam Mobasser we were able to document the proceedings. Please enjoy our take on Thelonious Monk’s ‘We See’…