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Speaking of cool, I did a show at the Watertown Jazz Festival and Mr. Bobby Hebb joined me on stage for "Sunny"! It was terrific!! What an honor for me to have him there. The "full circle story" is at the bottom of this page. READ it! It is part of the dream and you will relate to it! SEE THE VIDEO with Bobby HERE! "Dreams Like This" hung on in the top 5 for 5 consecutive weeks! It has moved to #8 on the Smooth Jazz Indie chart . "this is what smoothjazz COULD be!" Brad Stone / KSJS
I just had a great review come out in Vintage Guitar Magazine (see my raves section) and a The feature story has been published in the October issue of the same magazine. Be sure and pick it up cause it's OUT!! Again I ask that you please call your stations and request the music. Also, request to your station or local music festival that we come for a concert ! You can also request on sites like Pandora , Sirius and XM radio! XM has added 3 tracks,smoothjazz.com has been great to me and is playing several cuts and we have even had several "straight ahead" stations add cuts! SIRIUS radio just added also!! Thanks Shirley! PLEASE write your own review and post it at Amazon, Itunes, and cdbaby about DREAMS LIKE THIS. Blog about it...get the word out! Your voice counts! Tell your friends and family about the CD. SPREAD THE WORD! It is available everywhere online including Itunes, Amazon, and of course right here on my website. Remember, this is an enhanced CD! That means it includes things that you only get if you purchase the cd. Included is a music video, an interview video with me, and an extended credits page explaining details of who played on each track. The video features the very talented and beautiful Kimber Manning , visit her site and support her music as well! It is available to view online at "I Am Roxane" please view, rate, comment and share! As always, I appreciate your emails. Thank you for your help in spreading the word about my music. Word of mouth is the best way for an artist to be discovered and supported. I love my listeners! Keep your Dreams alive! Denny I am hoping to really raise the bar on live performances for 2008! The new CD, "Dreams Like This" IS out and we are ready to PLAY! If you know of venues or festivals in your your area, please email me with details and we will do our best to see you in your city.  Sunny - Full Circle Chip Kay Media The summer of 1968. Its hot, school is out, and in a small, two bedroom - one bath tract home, in Huntington, Indiana, we find Denny Jiosa, hunched over the edge of his bed, listening to his pocket sized AM radio, trying to figure out the guitar part for Born to be Wild. Greg Fields, Darryl Walker, and all the other neighborhood ten year olds, fill their days with baseball, swimming, and riding bikes. Not Denny. Denny’s summer vacation is spent seated in his tiny bedroom, practicing guitar. Fred Rucker, the neighborhood “biologist,” shows up at Denny’s bedroom window nearly everyday after lunch, just to show Denny his latest specimen. Snakes, turtles, insects.. Fred loved them all. He could not understand why Denny would pass up the chance to fry an ant with a magnifying glass, or capture a live mouse in a shoebox, just to sit at home and play guitar. His was a cheap, no name electric, that his Dad had bought at W.T. Grant’s. He loved that guitar, and Denny would later learn that $29.95 was a small price to pay to follow your dreams. About the only time Denny left his small, non-air conditioned, bedroom, was to go to the Collins House of Music for his weekly guitar lesson. On his way out of the studio one afternoon, he saw a music book called Blockbusters of 1967. It contained many of the songs he had heard on the radio. Here were the chords and melodies for his favorite songs, the ones he had struggled with, plus a few he never even attempted. The Monkee’s I’m A Believer, I Think We’re Alone Now, by Tommy James and the Shondells, several of his favorites were in there! Denny was amazed when he saw that it also included Bobby Hebb’s Sunny! He plunked down his allowance money, and rushed home with his new find. Denny thumbed through the contents but went straight to page 46, where he found Sunny. No wonder he couldn’t figure this one out off the radio. It was a Jazz song. It had Jazz chords, and a Jazz melody. Sunny would prove to be the hardest song Denny would learn at his young age. He struggled with the chord changes for what seemed like weeks. His trials and tribulations gave way to musical enlightenment, though. Denny credits Bobby Hebb with changing his life’s path. For after learning Sunny, Denny knew he wanted to be a Jazz guitarist. In high school, when all his peers were playing and singing to guitar rock – Denny was playing and writing Jazz instrumentals. His love of Jazz propelled him to GIT, the prestigious guitar college in Hollywood. Among the thrashers and heavy metal slashers, Denny studied and wrote Jazz. In 1995, after moving to Nashville, he started his recording career with the release of Moving Pictures, a Jazz CD on Blue Orchid Records. Over the years, Denny has recorded five Jazz Projects, and sold millions of records worldwide. . A four-time Grammy nominee Denny has played with the likes of Herbie Hancock, B. B. King, and Earth Wind and Fire. Several major musicians appear on his records. Well known in the Jazz press, Jiosa is also a favorite among Jazz aficionados. He has even had a mention in Jazz for Dummies, where the author said he “makes challenging music.” In preparation for his sixth and newest CD, Dreams Like These, Denny came across his old music book. He opened it to Sunny, and knew he had to do a cover of his first and most favorite Jazz tune. After the tracks were completed, Denny was telling a friend that he was excited about how well Sunny turned out. His friend mentioned that Bobby Hebb lives in Nashville, and maybe he should invite him over for a listen. “So Bobby comes over to my studio, and I remember feeling like a little kid again,” shared Jiosa. “I was nervous, and excited, and I had giant butterflies in my stomach -- Fred Rucker would have been proud! Bobby listened to the track again and again, and he said he loved it! Bobby Hebb said he loved my version of Sunny … incredible!” said Jiosa. “I sheepishly asked him if he would like to sing a little on the track. And to my surprise he said yes!” Bobby told Denny that he would like to scat on the track. Which is incredible because it’s the first time Bobby has recorded his voice on Sunny since 1966. “I asked Bobby if he would like to sing a few verses, and Bobby’s reply was, ‘Naw, everyone knows the words,!’” said Jiosa. So, in a little recording studio in Nashville, 40 years and 500 miles from the tiny bedroom in Huntington, Indiana, the story has come full circle. The song and singer that changed a young boy’s life came together again to make Dreams Like These come true. Thanks again and please email us your comments, suggestions , or just to say "hi".
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