Each quarter some of the students would take it upon themselves to organize a jam session at one of the local clubs. We encouraged this. It was always a great party. My philosophy here, just as it had been with the Fangus show, was for EVERYBODY to get to play. Before long, Mike and I were putting bands together out of students. Some of the guys that came through the school were pretty good players, too.

I met James Dumaine while he was a student at the Art Institute.

James was a great keyboard player. Here you see him playing at a couple of jam sessions hosted by the school, sometime around 1989. I was fortunate enough to have a tape ready to record one day when James Stopped By*. On the clip accessible below, James is playing keyboard and (I think) keyboard bass. I'm playing drums and guitar.

*Play MP3

One of the exceptional students at the Art Institute was Bryan Norfolk. Bryan turned out to be a big fan of Steve Howe (the guitarist for Yes) and we played some of that kind of stuff.

It wasn't long before Bryan and I teamed up with a bass player Russ Davis and drummer Jason Sweatt to form the short lived "Three Good Men."

Dean observes the reactions of Good Men Jason and Russ as Mr. Hart (left) expounds. My house in Garland, sometime in 1989.

This photo was taken at one of the jam sessions. My goal was to get as many students and faculty involved as possible. This WhoJam video clip is a pretty good example of some of the music we played. Mike Musal is on drums. Two of the students are playing with us. David "Road Dog" Hanson is on bass, and Kimbal Snyder is on organ. In addition, there are several walk-ons in the back back there at any given time. The first tune was chosen so that Terry Pope, the director of the Music & Video Business department at the Art Institute could play along on trumpet.