In 2007, Jimmy Carl Black will have his 69th birthday. Dr. Eugene Chadbourne is happy to present his best friend and musical associate in a series of performances featuring Black's favorite musical combination, The Jack and Jim Show.

Chadbourne's knowledge of Black began the first time he saw the cover of Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, circa the second half of the '60s. Staring at the picture of Black and bandmates in a record store, the youthful Doc Chad was approached by an old woman who ran the music store. "Don't look at that record!" she warned him. "You're a nice boy."

Within a year Black's famous comment "Hi boys and girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black and I'm the Indian of the group" had become an in-joke among teenagers in the Doctor's hometown of Boulder, Colorado. Every day when the fascistic gym coach took attendance, someone would always repeat Jimmy's comment, totally irritating the coach who had no idea what it was all about.

Dr. Chad finally met Jimmy in the early '90s when he had a chance to invite 11 musicians of his choice to the improvisation project at the Moers Jazz Festival. When he found out Jimmy and his wife were moving to Europe, the Doc proposed they begin working as a duo, and so the Jack and Jim Show was born.

Eugene became "Jack" based on a painting Captain Beefheart had done of Jimmy Carl Black, at one point one of the drummers in Beefheart's Magic Band. The picture was of an Indian man and a jackrabbit, Beefheart entitled it "Jack and Jim." Having already stolen alot from Beefheart, Chadbourne decided stealing this title would be allright.

The Jack and Jim Show had toured in Europe, the United States and Canada ever since and has released 17 CDs of which the latest is "Hearing is Believing" , to be released in March of 2007 by the Boxholder label. A series of DVDs are also coming out on the New York City based Straw Into Gold series.

The Jack and Jim Show play a wonderful combination of styles associated with both players, inmost cases creating a transformation into something else. "Willie the Pimp" of Zappa becomes an oldstyle country blues, for example. Jazz, psychedelic rock, standards, blues, country and western, bluegrass, native American Indian music and folk rock are all part of a typical evening with Jack and Jim. Eugene plays guitar, banjo and sings. Jimmy plays drums and sings.