Category: Uncategorized

Third Thursday Manifesto: Come out to The Royale!

New for 2025, I’m starting what I hope will be a regular musical scene at The Royale: Third Thursday Throwdown! It’ll happen on the third Thursday of each month, of course. It’s an opportunity to do lots of good things: strengthen our music-making and music-loving community, experiment with music I’ve wanted to play and people…


Robert, where’s your sense of humor?

People far and wide send me accordion jokes, memes, etc. People far and wide wonder why I don’t ROFL. Here is my attempt to answer while being as nice and grateful as the truth permits. Let me ask you: How much do you laugh at the 647th time someone tells you the same joke? I…


Hammond Lesson Samples from PianoGroove now on YouTube

Just a couple of days ago, Hayden, the founder and head honcho at PianoGroove, posted three of my Jazz Hammond Organ lessons on YouTube. To get the full ten-lesson series you still have to subscribe to PianoGroove; these three will give you some idea of what the lessons are like. The three sample lessons are:…


Launched: My New Organ Course on PianoGroove!

In an earlier post, I announced that I had recorded a series of introductory Hammond Organ lessons for PianoGroove, and now I’m happy to share that Hayden and I finished post-production and the course launched a bit over a week ago! Anyone can check out some free material related to the course on PianoGroove’s site,…


Update from Behind the Scenes: Teaching. (Me? Teaching?!?)

I’m not much of an entrepreneur, especially in the web space, but I’ve recently gotten a really nice gig due to the entrepreneurship of others who are full-time small business owner / entrepreneur / operators on the web. A close friend of mine from college is the founder and head honcho of Literate Computing and…


My New (But Now Not So New) Organ Clone

[ Edit added in October, 2022 far later than I should have: Shortly after writing this post I bothered to read the instruction manual more carefully and learned how to make the tone wheel model selection stick across power cycles, so most of the post is invalid and mistaken. I’m leaving it up for history’s…


Charting Scrapbook

This page is a work-in-progress link farm with a record of all the chart appearances I can figure out how to link to. Closer to Home On JazzWeek Weekly Jazz Album Chart 22 January, 2018: on the most-added list 29 January, 2018: on the biggest gainers and most-added lists 5 February, 2018: appearing at #36…


Artist Pages on the Internet!

Most on-line services that sell or stream music try to have a page for each artist where that artist’s discography is represented and you can easily find all the artist’s work from one easy jumping-off point. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work all that well because of situations like mine. First of all, I have the…


Robert Kennedy Quartet on KPFA’s BAJABA Showcase

Last night I appeared with my quartet on the BAJABA Showcase, a monthly live music broadcast from KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California. Performing with me were Ben Torres on tenor saxophone, Mason Razavi on guitar, and Rick Rivera on drums. The show’s host, D Minor, and I talked repeatedly about how to get your very…


Closer to Home now available for pre-order!

I’m happy to announce that you can now pre-order my new album, Closer to Home, at my Bandcamp store! Order now and you’ll get instant download of two tracks, and when the release date arrives on January 12, 2018, you’ll get the entire album. Just like with Big Shoes, if you order the physical CD you…


Closer to Home: New Album Progress Report

Closer to Home is the title of my new album that I’ll release in January, and I’m happy to report that since my post about it last month I’ve made some progress! Mastering is done, and I’m ecstatic with the results Michael Romanowski at Coast Mastering created. It was a joy to attend the mastering session…


New Album on the Way!

It’s been a long time since my last blog post; I’ve been doing other things. One of the things I’ve been doing is recording a new album, and I’m finally ready to pre-pre-announce it! The players are top-notch: Cody Rhodes on drums, Terrence Brewer on guitar, and Ben Torres on tenor sax in addition to…


Robert Kennedy Trio, Live at the BAJABA Showcase!

On October 1, 2016, I had the honor of performing live on KPFA’s BAJABA Showcase with Felicia Bridges and Afrikahn Jahmal Dayvs. I had been on the radio before with Afrikahn, but just for an interview and conversation, not for a performance. This time I played my B-3 in KPFA’s beautiful performance / recording studio…


Stream or download tracks from the Big Shoes album release concert!

Free music you can stream or download! Here’s a playlist of selections from the live concert I did at Coast Recorders with my trio to celebrate the release of Big Shoes.


A Past-Due Post: April 16, 2015 KKUP Radio Interview with Afrikahn Dayvs

On April 16, 2015 I had the pleasure of being interviewed on KKUP Radio’s JaZzLine program by Afrikahn Jamal Dayvs, one of the Bay Area’s great public supporters of the Hammond Organ. Of course our main topic was my recent album release Big Shoes. I apologize that the audio is clipped in some spots; I…


Big Shoes album release concert success!

I’m happy to report the Big Shoes album release concert and celebration at Coast Recorders in San Francisco was a sold-out success. Cody, Mason, and I had a blast being able to hear each other on stage better than ever thanks to the room’s perfect acoustics and the attentive crowd.


You asked: So how’s Big Shoes going?

Friends and fans have been asking how the record release is going for me now that Big Shoes has been out in the wild for a few weeks. The executive summary: It’s going well and the process continues to be a lot of fun. It’s selling on CD Baby [ Ed. note: not any more, since…


Big Shoes CD Release Concert coming up!

Hi, folks! I’m really excited to announce I’ll be playing a concert in the live room at Coast Recorders in San Francisco on April 18th, 2015 to celebrate the release of my new CD Big Shoes. That room is one of the remaining intact rooms designed by Bill Putnam, and has hosted lots of historic…