Thursday, July 3, 2003 | 8:40 a.m.
Whenever the popular guitarist performs, he presents each of his pieces to the audience with a brief, spoken introduction.
"I love painting these little pictures and then going into the music and seeing the way the audience internalizes it," Chaquico said in a recent telephone interview from his Ashland, Ore., home.
"Their imagination is tweaked more than it would be with you sitting up there just going, 'OK, here's another song. Here's a song of that album.' I've just given them a little bit of the story, and now they're filling in the blanks."
The 48-year-old Chaquico -- who headlines tonight's "Jazz Under the Stars" concert at Spring Mountain State Park -- certainly has plenty of great stories to tell his fans.
He can start with the tale of a 16-year-old high schooler whose guitar skills impressed the members of Bay Area rock giant Jefferson Airplane so much they invited him to join them in the studio.
"I was in a band with my English teacher, lying about my age and wearing a fake moustache that would drop off in my Coca-Cola halfway through the night," Chaquico recalled.
"Some of the Airplane members knew my English teacher and came to our shows, and when Grace Slick heard me play she asked if it would be OK if I played on some of their solo records."
Suddenly Chaquico found his name appearing on album credits alongside those of Jerry Garcia, David Crosby and Carlos Santana.
"While I was in high school, it was an interesting reality check for me," Chaquico said. "It was like, 'Wow, I'm on these records with all these musical heroes,' and then I'd still have to ride my bicycle to school and keep my grades up or my parents wouldn't let me play the guitar."
Don't be surprised to hear some material tonight from Chaquico's days as a full-fledged member of Jefferson Starship, later renamed Starship.
After graduating from high school, the Californian received an invitation to join up with Slick, Paul Kanter and Marty Balin on their post-Airplane project. Chaquico went on to spent 16 years -- from 1974 through 1990 -- with the band, longer than any other musician, including the three Airplane holdovers.
"I thought it was just going to be a little three-month recording session, and then I expected to go back to college afterwards," Chaquico said. "As it turned out, for the next 20 years that band ended up being my higher education."
Chaquico wrote his share of songs for Jefferson Starship, including singles "Jane" and "Find Your Way Back," during the early 1980s. He remained in the band during Starship's poppy MTV era, which produced No. 1 hits "We Built This City," "Sara" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."
Then in 1990, Starship called it quits, sending Chacuico on his new musical journey, the one that continues today.
Beginning with 1993's "Acoustic Highway," the guitarist has released a string of six studio albums that, collectively, have sold more than one million copies. He has become one of the top draws in smooth jazz, performing to enthusiastic crowds with his five-piece backing band.
"Lately, we've been calling ourselves the Harlem Globetrotters of smooth jazz," Chaquico said. "We want to make it fun, but we also want to make it skillful.
"We hope people who may be familiar with my music on the radio or records come away from the concert going, 'Wow, that was more than I expected.' "
archive
