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Story by Art Howard
Photos by Adam W. Gulledge
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You look like you've just seen a Ghost Trane.
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With many people saying
there's a glut of "jam bands" these days,
Atlanta's Ghost Trane may be evidence that "there's
always room for one more good one." Though the
average age of the members is 22 and the band is not even
a year old, they've already picked up a strong following
in their home city and are beginning to branch out to the
rest of the country. As Voyager
spoke with guitarist Alex Ginzburg the band was preparing
to play the Z-93/Unite Georgia stage at Atlanta's Music
Midtown festival. |
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Alex "Ginz" Ginzburg
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The sound is very
reminiscent of early Grateful Dead, with
a shade of Moby Grape and a bit of Joe
Cocker showing up in Will Gordon's
vocals. What does Ghost Trane feel sets
them apart from the average jam band on
the corner? "One stereotype of a jam
band that we don't want is of being a
bunch of hippies writing happy-go-lucky
kind of, like, ski bum music,"
Ginzburg (a.k.a. "Ginz")
explains. "There's something a
little bit sensitive about Ghost Trane.
And since blues is a big part of it, the
emotions we're trying to present in the
music are sorrow and pain. People can
hear a sad song and they get a certain
relief from that, something that helps
them get their groove on." |
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The group came together through a
short-lived weekly "hippie" jam called
"Mountain Jam" at Atlanta's Northside Tavern
(also home club to Mudcat and King Johnson). Ginzburg
recalls himself as a serious-minded music student when he
first went to the jam, "It was all these kids that
lived in the Homepark area of Atlanta. It was the
ugliest, dirtiest, smelliest, smokiest jam you can
imagine, and we all went there every Tuesday! I had spent
the three years before that studying music and English,
didn't get out too much, spent my time pining over
scales. Will (Gordon, harmonica and percussion) was
playing 'Spoonfull' with Alex (Picca, vocals and guitar).
They had been playing together for almost a year. So I
see Will singing 'Spoonfull' and I realized he had
forgotten one of the verses! He looked at me as if to
say, 'Grab the mic and sing this missing verse,' so I did
and that's how we all met." |
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