 Joe began his musical career playing trombone and studying classical music but soon developed a love for blues and swing/bebop jazz music. This led to dropping out of school (not recommended in this day and age) to play in touring rock bands in the early 70’ s one of which, Truck, shared the stage with world class acts such as Deep Purple and Canada’ s pre-eminent jazz rock band Lighthouse, amongst others. The journey led to full-time gigging in Montreal, Toronto and then New York City, therein including a year at Your Father’s Mustache, billed as the world’s busiest nightclub. After that came nearly a year as second and then lead trombone in the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. Various show bands came next with tours all over the Eastern USA including over a year in Miami, and three years in Las Vegas.
Going back to Canada in the 80’s brought Joe into a settled-down period to raise a family while performing in small jazz ensembles and earning a living as a solo entertainer, becoming known as a true pioneer in MIDI-for-live-performance. Then teaching and establishing a large successful music studio took the front burner for several years. In the late 90’s Joe turned once again to performance and experimenting with a mix of MIDI and live music, which ultimately led to deeper involvement in music composition based on midi and synth-based live performance and recording. It was during this time that Joe made the switch to playing saxophone and flute as primary horns, causing his fans some curious head scratching, but none-the-less proving with lots of work you can double on brass and reeds!
In 2005 Joe began a project to consolidate his many years of experience and unfinished musical works into a “smooth jazz” CD, this with the early guidance and production assistance of Skip Prokop, legendary leader, primary songwriter and drummer with Lighthouse, who like Joe, has turned to smooth jazz as a creative outlet. FXpansion joined Joe to discuss his CD and get an insight on the impact software and MIDI has had upon his approach to making music.
FX - How is the progress going on your CD?
 JE - The project has vastly evolved over the past months, not only with the development of a better understanding of the recording process but with the ever-improving quality of computer software and instrument plugins etc. Probably the single most important development has been FXpansion’s BFD drums and now even more so with the Jazz & Funk edition. The only downside is that I have been compelled to re-do all my drum tracks because of this incredible improvement in “synthetic” drum sounds. My CD is now receiving airplay on Canada’s national radio network, CBC, via Jim Craig’s, Expressvu “Galaxie” satellite jazz show, channel 922 and FM 101.3 in Tillsonburg Ontario. It is currently for sale at CD Baby and via my website…
FX - After concentrating on live performance for a long period what inspired you to record this album?
JE – I figured it was about time to get some of my ideas down on “record”. I’ve written music for years but never done a professional calibre recording of any of it. I think I was actually ahead of my time. When famed record producer Jack Richardson (The Guess Who, Alice Cooper) heard some of my stuff 15 years ago he said he liked it but it wouldn’t sell because it was too jazzy. Nowadays the “smooth jazz” stations are playing music eerily similar to what I was doing back then. Maybe my time has come?
FX - What first inspired you to use software to create music? 'I used to feel that as a musician/composer I was “faking it” on the drum parts but now I feel I AM a drummer'
JE – I found it easier to compose and record doing all the parts myself, as time consuming and sometime tedious as this was. This way I was not under the confines of studio and session musician costs. If I’d used a professional studio for the CD I’ve almost completed it most certainly would have added up to something like $100.000.00 or more by now!
FX - How have advancements in music technology like midi and software affected the way you perform and make music? 
JE - I have used midi to perform with on stage since it first was available. Remember the Atari 1-meg computer and Dr T software? It gave me the freedom to arrange looped songs with which to perform live without ever doing the same solos twice or being stuck with songs exactly the same length every time. Soft synths have even more expanded the horizons by allowing me to have realistic backgrounds with which to play and record.
FX - What FXpansion products do you own? How do you use them, are there any favourite techniques that you find you use over and over?
JE - BFD became my drums of choice when it first came out. I chose it because of the wonderful sounds and wide expressive possibilities and because it had the ability to play, record and edit grooves in Sonar. Now I have added the new Jazz & Funk pack and it’s all even better! The bad side is that I have re-done almost all my old versions with the new sounds. Not that BFD “basic” is not good. There are still some sounds in there like ride cymbals and a couple of snares and toms I use along with JnF.
I have found that I will use a groove from the library (which I have expanded with some third party products) as a starting point and once I have a song arranged fairly extensively I will go in and edit the parts to fit my phrasing and riffs etc. Much of the time I end up editing and adding so much that the drum parts are almost entirely changed from the original groove clips. I sometimes will do a drum part from scratch now that I feel more confident in the technique of “playing” them in through the keyboard.
I used to feel that as a musician/composer I was “faking it” on the drum parts, that it was good enough, but someday I’d have to get a “real” drummer to re-do the parts. But now I feel I AM a drummer, maybe not on a kit, but with a keyboard. All the experience I’ve had with world class drummers over the years is in my head, and now with BFD I can produce those sounds with my fingers. Instead of making excuses for my drum parts, I am now proud of them as an integral solid musical element of every song I produce.
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