This album is Bucky’s fault. I first met him at a guitar workshop at the Cape May Jazz Festival in 2000. 39 players showed up with Martin dreadnoughts (!), but I showed up with a Gibson hollowbody and a small amp. When Bucky found I knew some standards, he asked me to comp for him while he taught. When we were done, to my delight, after finding I lived near him, he said, “you’re not bad – give me a call.” A month later, I did. Bucky had me over and, in the course of an hour, did a virtual data dump of guitar knowledge, the first of many. It wasn’t long before Bucky said, as he does to so many other guitar players, “you gotta get a 7-string”. My wife insisted that I was having a John Nash “Beautiful Mind” moment, and didn’t actually know Bucky, but just wanted another guitar - she graciously relented anyway. I found that Bucky wasn’t just incredibly generous with his knowledge, but with the bandstand as well. When I asked him to play at my son’s school, he said “on one condition – that you play a number with us at the end.” (“Us” by the way, turned out to be Howard Alden and Frank Vignola). When I went to see him at local gigs after that, Bucky would sometimes spot me and say, “you bring your guitar?”, and invite me up. So, based on that encouragement, in 2014, I summoned up the nerve to ask Bucky if he would record some tunes with me, and, incredibly, he said yes. The result is the six tunes you will hear on the album. Since then, I had been telling myself I needed to build on these cuts for a full record, continuing with duets, but somehow life got in the way until now. How hard could it be? All I had to do was pick great tunes, and play them with great partners. Finally, with the aid of the likes of Ellington, Kern, Django, Mancini, Jobim, Thad Jones, and Leon Russell writing the tunes, and Bucky, Joe and Earl doing the playing, I hope we have done that here. But it all started with you, Bucky! Thank you.