Fred Wesley Jr. Has a New Gig

Fred Wesley Jr.,  legendary funk, soul, and jazz trombonist, has a new, unlikely gig: klezmer artist. Wesley has joined Abraham, Inc., a collaboration between classical and klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer and DJ Socalled. The band was featured on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday. Krakauer calls the band, which also includes rapper C-Rayz Walz, jazz guitarist Cheryl Bailey, and bassist Jerome Harris,"a mash-up." Wesley was nervous when he first began playing klezmer because its Eastern modal scales are so different from what he usually plays. But he soon realized they had plenty in common. "It was a funky beat and I recognized [it]," Wesley said. To learn more about Wesley and his extraordinary career playing with James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, and the Count Basie Orchestra, read his autobiography, Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman.