David Freeman Music

I was really flat last night. Not flat pitch-wise, but just flat energy-wise. It was really hard to get in a groove last night. Thriller is tonight. It's sold out (actually over-sold by the promoters). It should be fun. I'll be glad to finish it. www.davidfreemanmusic.com

One of our regular Yacht Rock fans was so pumped by our performance of a few Michael Jackson songs last night, he told us "it's all free throws now!" to which Nick replied, "What if we're Shaq?" Last night was a strange one. We had two keyboardists on deck, so I was mostly just playing saxophone solos, as well as a handful of minor synth parts. I was also back in the corner of the stage, so most of what I heard was Mark Bencuya's keyboards, bass, and drums. It's a much different sound than the other side of the stage. A couple of the guys had off nights, and it affected the vibe on stage more than just "oops." Also, Nick is worried that he might have picked up a cold. He had a doctor's appointment this morning to try and see if he could hold off the plague until Sunday! Bencuya threw the synth solo for Love Will Keep Us Together at me. It's been a while since I've played that one. I did ok wandering through it, but I did...

Yacht Rock played a "blender" for Juice Studios Wednesday night at Magnolia Hall in Piedmont Park. It was a pretty low key affair--mostly people mingling and networking. We were the band on the other end of the room. It was a really easy gig. No problems (though I think we were all pretty underwhelmed by the sound company). I was standing next to the mains while soloing at the end of Reminiscing , and I checked after the song to see if my microphone was on. It was like that. www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Yacht Rock played an event for the University of Virginia alumni last night. Outside. In the cold. In a tent with almost no sides. We thought we would die. We were sure we would freeze and be left to die in the cold at the horse farm in Buckhead. But no! Although I did sit in my truck with the heat running for an hour before the gig started, we were ok once we got up and moving. The first couple of songs I was blowing on my hands, but beyond that we might as well have been indoors. A couple of cold weather problems...both saxophones were pushed in about a quarter inch past usual. Other than that, they felt good. I had no trouble with reeds, and once I got the mouthpiece in the right place, the pitch across the horn was not as way out as I thought it would have been. Even the flute (pushed all the way in) felt normal. The display on one of my keyboards was very slow in changing. The keyboard itself was fine, but the display lagged behind. Weird. Kip Conner (soundman for Shawn...

I had no gig tonight. No biggie. I played an early afternoon trio gig with Louis Heriveaux (keyboard) and Tommy Sauter (bass) at Stonecrest Toyota in Lithonia. I even drove a Toyota truck to the gig. Here's the audio if you want to check it out: I clearly had some trouble with my reed in the first couple of songs (the first tune we attempted was I Mean You ; the last was Cherokee ). Where's the first note? On Turnaround, I will eventually get the end of the head right. I can do it in private, but not in public, evidently. Also, the head on Ladybird ? What the hell? I don't know. I bailed on it pretty quick, that's for sure. On the way out I attempted to substitute Half Nelson , but I obviously haven't thought about that one in a while. No dice. While I'm criticizing myself, how about not playing so sharp, Freeman? Are ya deaf? It is strange to me to hear this trio play. On the gig I want to scream sometimes because the time feels like it goes t...

We cruised through Yacht Rock last night. I would say it sounded pretty good, but I'm biased. I think I played the piano part to for I'd Really Love to See You Tonight about three and a half hours Thursday afternoon. My fingers were sore, but I got it right at the gig. That and All Out of Love were my two biggies that I needed to spend some time on. All Out of Love got cut, so you can assume I would have nailed it. We played Thriller as a sneak peak of the Halloween show. It never fails to impress me how many people know all the words to every song. I'm getting to the point where I feels like I don't remember anything, but the people in front of me did everything but the frikin' dance! The soundcheck for last night consisted of Human Nature and P.Y.T. I think we're in good shape. I don't have much on either one. The last song we need to work on is Lady in my Life . There's talk about tucking a saxophone solo in that one. Sweet! All play...

Thriller is killing me. I don't want to hear it anymore. Yacht Rock had a rehearsal for Beat It and Billy Jean Monday night. We also checked a couple of the ones we'd previously worked on. I spent tonight plowing through what seems like one million sounds looking for the right sound for a three measure solo in Human Nature. Fortunately (for my back and my sanity), I was able to find that obnoxious synth that I need for the chorus of P.Y.T. pretty quickly. I'm interested to hear what Bencuya came up with for the "Alvin" sounding vocoder thing at the end. Tomorrow night we are doing Yacht Rock as a seven piece--Bielenberg has a gig somewhere else. I'm back on keyboards. I spent some time earlier today going over parts, and I'll do the same tomorrow. The only one I've never played before is the piano part on I'd Really Love to See You Tonight . I feel like I've got it, but I need to play it about 650 more times so I can feel confident a...

What a weekend! Thursday was our usual Yacht Rock gig. We added two more songs to our Thriller project, and I think they both went fairly well. It's always hard to tell. You figure out your part ahead of time, but you don't really know if it'll work until you hear in the context of everything else; at that point, you really know if you need to change your sound, volume, or scrap something in favor of another part. With Thriller , it seems like there are more things that two keyboardists and the EWI can physically perform, and so you have to make sure you're grabbing the parts that will be missed the most. That cool part that you had never heard until you really started analyzing the track probably won't be missed as much as the big synth pad. Friday began waaaaaaaay too early (noon) with a studio call for Yacht Rock. We gathered at Open Sky Studios (in Avatar) to work on a Christmas tune--another mash-up of a Yacht Rock song with a Christmas tune. I don...

nothing happened. if you saw me there, you'd know. www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Here's the round up of this past weekend's Yacht Rock trip. I made notes along the way. Here they are. Thursday: We brought on Mike Bielenberg tonight as the new second keyboardist. He did very well. I think the band enjoyed hearing all the parts. Between Bencuya and myself, we have to drop parts from time to time (for instance if I'm playing a sax solo), so having the extra hands there keeps them going. I was back across the stage, tucked in between the bass cabinet and Mark Bencuya's gear. It's such a gift to be able to sit and watch him play. He has great command of the vocabulary of this music. It's awesome. I didn't have nearly as much to do, so I tried to steal anything I could from him. Mark Cobb had a good night. He was solid as a rock. I had a problem with the power supply for my MIDI wireless. I solved it with batteries. Trip to Radio Shack! Jimmy Fallon is having Christopher Cross on his show for a "Yacht Rock Party." We a...

Yacht Rock was supposed to play a pair of gigs yesterday--the Sandy Springs Festival and Jazzoo at the zoo (duh). The Sandy Springs gig got rained out. We showed up and it was pouring. Then the rain stopped. It's on, we thought. As we were loading our stuff on to a golf cart to take into the festival, the golf cart driver got a message that the gig had been canceled. So...back in the truck! We walked over to the stage to see what we would be missing. Twas a nice little ampitheater in Sandy Springs. By the time we got back to our vehicles, the rain was coming again, so I drove home in the rain. It kept raining for a few more hours. Two nice things about that gig getting cancelled: 1. We still got paid. 2. The squeeze of trying to pack up, sprint to the zoo, and set up again was eliminated. Instead, I went home and ate supper, and then left around 6 PM. I loaded into the zoo around 6:30. It was still raining, but miraculously we were able to drive through the back of the tent and un...

Thursday was another day that didn't look too bad when I checked my calendar. I went by Music and Arts to buy a new saxophone stand. I have a couple of Hamilton stands that I've been using, but the bumpers at the bottom don't cradle my horns well, and I've tried to bend them and get them to work, but it's never been what I wanted. The older ones have a V shaped bumper--the newer ones are pretty flat, and they don't work that well in my opinion. It started to bug me, so I moved on. I had a Hercules stand that was holding an old saxophone up at home, and so I switched one of the Hamiltons out for that. I went and got another one so I'd have two in my bag. While I was buying my stand, I overheard the clerk working say that he is now the manager. If my memory is right, that's the fourth manager in four years. Ahh, retail! I'll have to get the scoop on what happened to the other guy. Anyway, when he got around to me he mentioned that they brought...

It's been pretty wild the past two days. Yesterday (Wednesday), I played a duo gig with Louis Heriveaux. It was a three hour gig, but we probably only played an hour's worth of music. If that. Super easy. The rest of the time, we just sat there and talked (while some guy gave a presentation). Super easy. Now for the bad news...in the process of opening the door to my truck and switching hands, I dropped me tenor. In the gig bag, but it got a little messed up--the right hand is not sealing and the bell got bent (easy enough--I bent it back). Nothing that can't be repaired. Mostly I'm just feeling like an ass for being casual and dropping my horn. Today was another two gig day. I played a trio gig with Tyrone Jackson and Tommy Sauter in Gwinnett from 6-9. The toughest part of that was the traffic (which was terrible with all the rain, and trying to be out there at 5 PM). After that, I jumped in my truck and boogied down 85 (again in the rain) to the 10 High fo...

I made it through Thursday night's double-whammy unscathed. My first gig last night was a little trio hit at Neiman Marcus in Lenox Square Mall. I never understood what it was for--I think it was some sort of private party for high rolling customers. We ( Tyrone Jackson and Tommy Sauter ) were stationed in the men's department next to a bunch of extremely high priced Tom Ford clothes. Nothing much to report other than our self-amusement. I need to learn some new tunes. The three of us have played these sort of gigs for years now, and so I know what tunes we know in common, but since the two of them are more "on the jazz scene" than I am, I'm not picking up newer tunes as quickly as they are. I usually bring charts of things I want to try, but I was traveling light due to the fact that I had to run out the door when the gig was over. Speaking of which, when the gig ended, I boogied on out of there (I had a half hour to get from Lenox to Va. Highland, park, g...

The dressing room for Andrews Upstairs is up above the stage, and you can look out and see how the room is filling up before you go on. It's a small, hot room with a couple of couches, a mini fridge, and a restroom. We sat up there last night, worried because there was nobody on the floor in the twenty minutes or so before we started. It turns out that we were ok, though, because the bar in the other room was full and people were steadily filing in. By the time we got moving, it was pretty good. Not the most packed ever, but pretty thick. We have noticed that lots of our regular fans have been missing in action, but there are still plenty of new ones turning up, so that's cool. Musically, it was a pretty solid night. For some reason, other people in the band actually put me in their monitor mixes last night. Usually I am ignored in that regard, but everybody threw a little bit in there, and that was cool. From my perch on the stage, I'm kind of isolated from the ov...

When it comes to performing, I am of the belief that you prepare (practice), and then you go out there and go for it.  If it works, great;  if you crash, hopefully you recovered.  Either way, you accept it as was you've got at that moment, and when the moment's over, it's time to start thinking about the next one.  I play around town quite a bit, and adopting this philosophy has really helped me to avoid spending useless time analyzing what when wrong on any particular gig.   I play a steady gig with several volunteer musicians, and as soon as the last song has finished, everyone is chirping about who screwed up and why.  It seems very amateurish to do that. Last night Yacht Rock had alot of finger pointing after the show at the 10 High.  Things got a little tense.  Let it go.  

I'm sure I'll be crashing soon.  Beth is out of town from Wednesday to Saturday, so it's just Jack and me right now (and Reggie, of course).  I fell asleep in Jack's bed after reading stories Wednesday night, and then he woke me up around 7:30 Thursday morning.  Thursday night I didn't get to bed until after 3 AM due to Yacht Rock, and then I was up again this morning at 7:30 trying to get him ready to go to school.  I'm probably already asleep and just don't know it. Yesterday might have been one of the best in recent memory.  I helped out a student by transferring/transposing some music to Finale and emailing her a PDF, and then I got busy practicing.  I managed to find time to hit all my horns.  I think my self worth must be tied to how much I can practice;  yesterday was a high point!  Even after all that, I still had time to get outside with Jack for a little over an hour.   Last night's Yacht Rock was pretty good, though I think we're ready to ...