Spark up the flute

Los Angeles–based jazz-fusion flute player Tim Weisberg may not have ever resided in San Diego, but he credits the city as having had an impact on his career, at the beginning and recently. Appearing at Dizzy’s on January 17, Weisberg has performed in the area several times since his early-’70s debut. It’s the early gigs on the local college circuit that he feels were important.

“I practically begged, borrowed, and stole my way into getting a major-label deal,” Weisberg tells the Reader. Despite session work with the likes of the Monkees and Carpenters, and having been signed by legendary trumpeter Herb Alpert, Weisberg was still a new live performer at the time. His shows at SDSU’s Backdoor helped confirm to his then-label, A&M Records, that they were on the right track. “They saw this happening for an unknown artist — at least outside the professional world — they saw this kind of response. Since it was right in the beginning of my career, it was something for the first record company to hang on. So I will always have a soft spot in my heart for San Diego.”

Following the release of his 1999 anthology, Time Traveler, Weisberg took a hiatus from both recording and performing live. It was a one-off appearance at now-defunct Little Italy venue Anthology in 2010 that got him to tour again. “I’d never played in a place like that before, I didn’t know what to expect. I remember I talked to Herb Alpert about it and he was kind of blown away,” Weisberg recalls. “It was very classy, and they treated the bands really well…. Once I played the gig, that put a spark back in my touring ideas.”

Now, following his appearance at Dizzy’s this past September, he’s ready to release new music. An as-yet-untitled live album, recorded at Alva’s Showroom in San Pedro, is due this spring, featuring the same band he’ll be performing with at Dizzy’s, guitarist Chuck Alvarez, keyboardist Barnaby Finch, bassist David Hughes, and drummer Maria Martinez.

For his part, Weisberg was impressed by Dizzy’s and its audience, though he was initially taken aback by its location in the showroom of San Diego Jet Ski. “I came down really, really early. I pulled in and just went, ‘Okay, so this is not how I recall Humphrey’s.’” Since then, Tim Weisberg has become a Dizzy’s aficionado. “I was totally blown away how the place was turned into a performance space. It was almost like a Cinderella experience,” he laughed.