Jazz Monthly: And you make a great point.  I think I’ve noticed that this year more than ever before that a great number of artists are really striving to be different or to show a different side of their musicianship, their musicality, and I think that’s a beautiful thing because as humans, we can bore easily when it comes to music.

ED:  That’s true.

Jazz Monthly: And I think there’s always that door to be creative and to reach the next level, and I’m just totally excited, especially this year, that there’s so much great music, including your album, with a diversity of music, and I think that’s so rewarding for the fans and it’s a win-win for everyone.

ED:  Absolutely.  I mean, I think that’s the beauty of music, is to be able to do new things and to take people on different journeys that they’ve never been before, and as an artist that’s really my goal.  With every single album I want them to take them step by step through every single experience and I want them to hear the difference between every single album.  I want there to be this steady growth and I think, like you said, it’s exciting for the artists and exciting for the listeners.

Jazz Monthly:   Yeah, and I think the fans are going to really love the tenor sound on this one, man.  (Both laugh.)  You thought I missed that, didn’t ya?

ED:  No, you know, I know you don’t miss much, so I figured that you would.

Jazz Monthly:   Yeah, I was feeling that tenor, man.

ED:  You know, it’s funny because I have a lot of people come up to me and they’re like “You know, I really like your tenor sound.  It’s very distinctive, very soulful, and we think you should play more tenor.”  I’m like you know what?  It’s funny because alto was my main instrument growing up.  That was the horn that I started playing on when I was ten years old, and so that was just kind of my bread and butter, and then it wasn’t until high school that I started playing a little more tenor.  And people have been giving me a lot of great comments about my tenor sound, so I’ve been trying to play that a little bit more.  For this project, I think my sound on tenor has developed some and I’m trying new things on there and I’m really happy with it, so I’m glad that you enjoyed the tenor sounds.

Jazz Monthly: Yeah, man.  Yeah, that was a great approach too.  It really pumps up the project.

ED:  Yeah, it sure does because I think with tenor I have a tendency to be more melodic, I have a tendency to really just kind of focus in on the music, and it was a perfect complement to this album.  So “Breathe” is the last track on the album and it just kind of sets the tone for the whole entire album.  Even though it’s the last song, it just kind of says “You know what?  This is where I am, I’ve arrived and this is me.”

Jazz Monthly:   Yeah, and it shows the diversity and the creativity of Darren too because he was spot on with what you cats did with this particular song to round out the project, yeah.

ED:  And it’s funny because there’s a little story behind this song.  We had six days to finish this album.  Actually, you know what?  I take that back.  We had—I can’t remember.  I’m getting old.  (Both laugh.)  We had four days to record the album, so we had six tracks and we only really had five songs, and the sixth track we were still just kind of—it was incomplete and we were just still writing it and coming up with different ideas, so we kind of got into this really stressful time frame where we were trying to rush and hurry up and getting everything finished, and it was getting tough for both him and for me.  It was getting harder for me to be creative because I was coming under this deadline, and so it became really difficult, but finally we got to a place where we finished everything, we had one song left, and we had a full day to work on it, so it was kind of a sense of relief.  We’d been working really hard to get to this point.  We had one full day left and we had one song, so we just kind of took a step back and took everything in and just took a deep breath, and we just wrote this song together and everything just flowed just naturally, and that’s why we named it “Breathe” because it was just a relief from the rest of the whole album and it was just kind of that mind frame that we were in.  We just wanted to create that feeling that we felt when we wrote that song. When you listen to “Breathe,” it really has this reflective type of feel, it just kind of takes you away, and that’s what we wanted to capture in this song.

Jazz Monthly:   Yeah, and what a great change.  I mean, it’s sort of like a concert in that you start out with Track 1 with “Just Like That.”

ED:  Uh-huh.

Jazz Monthly: And at the end of the concert it’s like “Let’s just breathe.”

ED:  It’s like whew!

Jazz Monthly:   What a show.

ED:  And I think that’s important too when it comes to making a record, the constant flow from start to finish, taking you through a journey.  I think listening to an album should be a journey.  From the first track to the last one, there’s different flows and different moods, but in the end it flows together as one complete idea, and that’s what we strive to do on this project.

Jazz Monthly:   Yeah, and it’s great, man.  When I go back to Night on the Town and Just Getting Started, and now you’re Goin’ All Out, and you know how I am.  I’m reflecting on all this and I said “Okay, now, what’s he going to do on the next one?”

ED:  You know, it’s funny.  Everybody’s been asking me the same thing.  Like, you know, “First of all, you took a Night on the Town and then you’re Just Getting Started, now you’re Goin’ All Out, so what’s next?”  And my answer is “I don’t know.”  (Both laugh.)

Jazz Monthly: I didn’t think so (Laughs).

ED:  And I think that’s kind of the fun thing about music, is you never know what journeys or things you’re going to go through in your life, and we make our music based on those experiences, so who knows?  We’ll see what happens in another year or two when I work on my next project.

Jazz Monthly: I can see a live DVD working.

ED:  That’s definitely something I’d really love to do, because I think it’s hard to capture the amount of emotion and energy you have on stage in a studio recording project, so that’s definitely something I’d love to do.

Jazz Monthly: Yeah, man.  Mm, I like it, I like it.  It would definitely be cool.  Well, man, I am totally loving this record and I’m loving what you’re doing, and you’ve got a fan club that’s loving you too, right?

ED:  Oh yeah, definitely.

Jazz Monthly: Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about that.  And by the way, we’ll talk about your Web site in a minute, but I noticed you’ve got this fan club working and how’s that going for you?

ED:  It’s actually going great.  We’re still in the process of getting everything together, but I’m launching my very first fan club, so it’s very, very exciting for me.  I think for a fan club, it’s great for the fans and it’s great for the artist because it gives you that direct connection that you don’t get any other way, and I just really want to engage the fans, I want them to understand me as a musician, as a person, and I want to understand them too, so having a fan club, I think, people can really be engaged with everything that’s going on, so I’m really, really excited about launching my first fan club and I hope everybody joins and we’ll all be a happy family.

Jazz Monthly: All right, so how are you going to communicate to the fans as to how they can join?  I mean, how is that all going to work?

ED:  They can join my fan club by going to my Web site, which is www.ericdarius.com and you can click on the fan club link and it will take you to another site where it gives you all the information about the fan club, what it all entails, and you can sign up right there on that Web site.