Jay Lundell
Friday, 26 June 2009 18:32
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Ellen Whyte & Reflex Blue is one of the Northwest's premier Blues bands. The band is loaded with remarkable talent from top to bottom. Ellen Whyte, with her incredible voice and lurid delivery, and Garry Meziere with his tasty guitar licks and gutbucket vocals are without a doubt the forefront of this upbeat local band. The rhythm section group is "killer" too. Bassist Sonny Boyardee is effectual and always "in the pocket." The anchor of the unit, sitting on his stool way back behind the drum kit is "The Doctor," Dr. Jay Lundell. And, The Doctor is one fine drummer — no doubt about it! I had the pleasure to see and hear the band several times this summer. I noticed how well Jay interacts with the band members. He stays in control, laying down notable rhythm support for each and every song. I observed one other thing about Jay — he always has a great time playing with the band. It shows on his face and in his total performance.
Jay is a local boy who has lived in the Rose City for most of his half century on earth. He went to high school at Central Catholic. His interest in music started in grade school. Jay and a friend both liked the same girl. One day his friend brought drums to school, set them up and played. When Jay saw the way that special girl looked at him, well, there was just no way Jay wasn't gonna try playing the drums. His grandma had an old drum downstairs in her basement. Jay made some drumsticks and cymbals. He played along with old 45-rpm records; the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Stones, popular music from the '60s. He memorized the songs note for note. Jay really felt the rhythm and the beat of those songs.
Jay was trained on the piano in grade school to please his parents. But, he had different ideas and by saving up his money from his paper delivery route job, he got his first set of drums when he was in the 8th grade. The next year in high school, Jay met some other musicians and they set up their first band. They played R&B-influenced cover tunes, stuff from groups like The Young Rascals. Jay made his first recording with that band. They played a party for someone who had connections at the KGW studios downtown. They got an hour of recording time at the studio as payment for playing the party. They had written seven or eight tunes. Their plan was to go in and record all the tunes in an hour. The engineer couldn't believe they were going to try to record all the songs in just one session. But, they did all the tunes, back to back, live, with no playback! It was like one long song — a medley.
When several of the players moved away, the band dissolved. Jay then hooked up as the drummer for a band called The Phantoms. They played at high school dances and The D Street Corral on Division St. on the east side of town. Jay states, "I made all my money with that band while I was in high school. We played just about every weekend. I remember my first nightclub gig well. There was this nightclub just down the street from my house. I used to go down there when I was in the 8th grade and just stand outside and listen to the band. We got to play there when I was about 16. It was a TOPLESS bar! Here I am, I'm 16 years old, I'm a Catholic boy in high school and my mom thought I was goin' to hell for sure. And, to cap it off, because I was a minor, and I couldn't hang out where they served alcohol, I had to sit in the girls' dressing room on the breaks. At that point in my life I thought, it just doesn't get any better than this!"
Jay played with The Phantoms throughout high school. He graduated and went one term to college, but he wasn't ready for that yet. He was having too much fun playing in the band. Music was a strong influence in his life. he was determined to be a famous drummer. So, he hooked up with a band from Southern California that was playing here in Portland called Billy & The Good Guys. Their drummer had just quit. He joined the group and moved to California. Jay recalls, "That was both a good and a bad experience for me. It was the early '70s and I was about 19 when I moved there with the band. I stayed for about two years with them. We played down on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood and one night The Righteous Brothers came in and sat in with us. Another night it was people from the band War who came in and played with us. It was quite a scene down there at that time — a lot was going on all the time. They were a fun group. With them is when I really started to get into more R&B and Funk-styled music rather than Rock. Down there is where I first heard groups like Tower Of Power and Cold Blood and all the Funk horn bands. That was it for me — I loved that stuff!
"After about two years I came back to Portland. By that time I had a wife and a child. I met my wife here in Portland and we were married just before I went down to California. She came down there with me and we had the child, but after awhile it got to be too much for her and she and the baby moved back to Portland. We split up. When I returned to town we hooked up once again. I needed to make some money when I got back, so I joined some Country bands. I played a lot of Country music in the mid-'70s, which I think was good for me, because it taught me how to play shuffles. A Country shuffle is a little different from a Blues shuffle, but they're similar enough. I got really good at playin' shuffles!"
After a couple of years, Jay got tired of the Country stuff and joined a Funk band called Rainbow that was pretty popular for several years from around 1976 through 1979. Rainbow was a strong band that tried to put a record deal together and promote themselves on to the next level. But for all the usual reasons, it never happened. Jay relates, "Around the late '70s, I started thinking, here I am in my late 20s and I haven't really made any progress with the music thing. So, I thought maybe I should really look at going to school. I enrolled at Portland State University and quit the Funk band and joined a group called Lisa Gayle & The Works, just to make my way through college. That was a great band. It had Glenn Holstrom on keyboards, Jim Solberg on bass and a guitar player named George Ross, who was a great player and singer. Glenn and Jimmy are two of the finest players around town, and it was a real treat to play with them. We used to play at a place called The Plank House and right next door was a place called The Hi Hat. We had a bunch of fun, because the people in bands at The Hi Hat were musicians like Linda Hornbuckle, Dover Weinberg and Mike Klobas and we'd go back and forth on the breaks and hang out with those guys. Actually, I took Lloyd Jones' place on drums in Lisa's band (Lloyd played drums at the time). He eventually played guitar and sang in the band In Yo' Face with Curtis Salgado and shortly after that formed the Lloyd Jones Struggle. Lloyd, of course, had come from the legendary Portland band Brown Sugar, a band which I had auditioned for at one time, prior to playing with Lisa's band."
Jay continued his education while playing in the band. He was studious during the day and played music at night. He'd even study during the breaks between sets. He completed college and got his Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. At that point he decided he'd had enough playing drums. He got burned out playing Top 40 around town six nights a week while going to school. He ended up splitting up with his wife and after a year off from college decided to go to graduate school at The University of Washington in Seattle. Jay felt a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology wasn't going to do anything for him. He decided to pursue a Doctorate Degree in Psychology. He graduated with a Doctor of Psychology degree in 1988. He'd come a long way since playing gigs at a topless joint at 16 years of age in the late '60s!
Jay majored in Experimental Psychology, with a minor in Computer Science. He received a call from Hewlett-Packard in Ft. Collins, Colorado asking him to come work for them making computers more user-friendly. While in graduate school, Jay married a girl from Portland, his wife Debbie. They moved to Colorado and he took the job at Hewlett-Packard. Jay continues, "I still wasn't playing drums when I went to Ft. Collins. One night I walked into this Monday Night Blues jam at this club and there was this great band playing. I heard those guys and I said to myself, I gotta start playin' drums again. I got up and sat in and that was it. I'd jam on Monday nights when I could. About three years later, I went to Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis. It was there that I joined a band again; we used to play the Peacock all the time. We played Blues. In 1995, I left HP and went to Intel in Beaverton, basically doing the same kind of job for them. When I got back to the Portland area, in the course of about three months, I met Ellen ,Garry and Sonny all on separate occasions. I sat in with Ellen (without Reflex Blue) at the Gemini one night. I filled in down in Corvallis for Garry in a group he had in which his drummer couldn't make it one night. Then I had a gig with Jim Wallace one night at Kelly's downtown and Sonny walked in. I'm not sure what happened to Reflex Blue's original drummer, but they needed a new one. Ellen said, 'I met this drummer named Jay' and Garry says, 'I met a drummer named Jay too' and then Sonny popped up and said, 'I met a drummer too and his name is Jay'. After they figured out it was the same guy, they gave me a call and I went and played with them and I've been with them for most of seven years now. I left the band for about a year, but came back.
"The band is very flexible. They are several renditions. Ellen has the trio with just her, Garry and Sonny. There is a duo format too. Garry and Sonny both play gigs on the side and Ellen plays from time to time with Sonny Hess in a duo called Jane Doe. With Reflex Blue sometimes we do a four-piece, lately we're a five-piece. Ellen and the band are understanding of my work and my schedule. It's been really great! When I first joined them, I really wanted to join, because I knew how great they were, but I had to be honest with them. I said, 'Hey, look I've got a 40-hour a week job, I can't take off for weeks and go on the road. I've got a family.' And, they said fine. When you can't make it to the gigs we'll find someone else. And, when I can't make it Ellen does she's just great about that! Ellen is the best bandleader I've ever worked with, the best singer and a wonderful person as well. Garry is a super guitar player, who, I think, sometimes doesn't get quite the recognition that other players get. I'd say on any given night that a third of the audience is there just to hear Garry play. He always puts on a great show and is an essential part of the band. Sonny's a fabulous bass player who can play great bass solos. But his real strength is in his ability to play very solid time. Sonny and I always lock in together. He has sensitivity and feeling and we trade things back and forth. I've played with some of the top bass players in town, but nobody is as easy to play with as Sonny, because he's always right there with you all the time. Along with Alex Shakeri on keyboards, they make my work easy and make me look good."
Jay's goal with this band is rhythmically providing different feels. They do a lot of variations on the Blues, mixing it up with shuffles, Funk, Soul, New Orleans, Latin and many other styles. He's also been able to attain one of his longtime goals: to record a first-rate CD, and he's done that twice so far with Here and Gone and Standing at the Sunrise. He adds dynamics by changing the emotional intensity of the band at times. He likes the variety of different textures which he can bring to a song. But his first and foremost presence is in providing, along with Sonny on bass, a solid foundation for the band. And Dr. Jay is a master at that! Jay feels it's a great privilege to lay the groundwork and to get to listen to the band play. He's learned to complement each artist he plays behind. Not all drummers can do that like Jay. When this great band performs the audience notices. Jay says he gave up the idea long ago of being in a band playing the big stadiums — it's just not important anymore. What gives him real satisfaction these days is to go out on Friday or Saturday night and play to 50 or 100 people and get those people up on the dance floor and make them feel the rhythm and make 'em smile for a little while. He loves that aspect of playing in the band, and he's thankful that his wife Debbie and his three kids at home are so supportive and understanding about letting him loose on Friday and Saturday nights to pursue his passion.
In closing, Jay states, "The CBA is such a great organization, the Board members and all the volunteers do a fabulous job of promoting Blues around the town. And we as musicians certainly appreciate that effort!"
According to bandleader Ellen Whyte, "Jay Lundell is, without question, the best drummer I've ever worked with. It's rare to find that special combination in a drummer who plays with heart, finesse, and razor-sharp precision. His artistic and technical skills are an added dimension as he creates just the right feel for each and every song." Tom Peterson (saxophone player and former member of The Tonight Show band) said that Jay plays with "a lot of personality. I'm mystified and amazed at how he makes it all look so effortless! He's wonderful to work with, a great friend, and I feel very fortunate to know him."