steve habib

Grew up as a kid in NYC. Lived as a teenager with Ruth Ellington,Steve and Michael James,Reggie Golson and with Elvin Ray Jones and his wife at the time, Shirley "DeFranco" Jones whose brother was from Elmont Queens where I grew up as a child. On Long Island, I also lived near Huntington where John Coltrane raised his family in Dix Hills and is buried in Huntington on route 110 in Pinelawn Cemetary. After spending years going to VanGelder's Studio in Englewood Cliffs, I met Lee Chester Marcus and Marvin Louis Smith,Buster Smith and so many others. Elvin was my first major influence on the drums and McCoy Tyner and Walter Bishop, Jr. on the piano. Jimmy Garrison was my mentor on bass and so the story goes that after being exposed to all these things and having the music planted inside of me, MARVIN BU GA LU SMITH, my friend since those early days, and I, started to go to FOCUS 2 on 73rd St. off Amsterdam Ave. in NYC and every Monday, we played with Walter Bishop Jr. Rodney Jones, George Coleman, Haasan Dawkins, Buster Williams,Herbie Hancock, Juan Quinones,Evelyn Blakey,Art Blakey's son young Art Jr. and so many others too numerous to mention. There are so many stories. Years ago, I played with Walter Booker Jr. and his wife Bertha Hope. Booker passed away several years ago and I miss him so much. He was also a major influence on my drumming and helped me channel my efforts into combining drumset and hand drums into one idea along with developing some compositions harmonically for drum only groups. One of my other influences was Bernard "Pretty" Purdie who I performed with on many occasions in his group and made a video with him,Mike Torrsone and Sal Giorgiani. I was a member of The Hugh Brodie Cosmic Ensemble and recorded on several of His CD's and can be seen in press releases and articles at hughbrodie.com and many other googled pages using my name,Hugh Brodie's name, African Drum Circle names and generally searching Jazz Drum Sites. Most recently after many years of recording and not releasing The Melting Pot Drum Group, I,along with Tom DeSteno and Marvin Bu Ga Lu Smith, are entertaining offers from some of the major Jazz Festivals to perform along with some of the original members of Melting Pot and some new,younger players that we have all been an influence on. The experience has been amazing and rewarding spiritually. I travel much and do record often. I can't listen to my own music for at least 6 months to a year because I can't stand the way