A Lotta Notes

Yesterday was great.  I went to the pool with everybody (I even brought Reggie and tied him to the fence).  Then I came home and practiced flute for a couple of hours.  Then I went and taught for a couple of hours (in there was a half hour of bass clarinet practice).  Then I came home and played with Jack and put him to bed.  Then I practiced for a few more hours.  I gave up at 1:30 this morning.  My hands are sore, but it was worth it.  Awesome, awesome day!

Messing Up

Bryan Lopes fixed my tenor. It's funny that I took it to him thinking that there were only a couple of leaks, and he went through and found a bunch of bad pads. How was I able to get the thing to play at all? I guess all those things happen so gradually, you don't feel them going bad. Lopes does an awesome job, and the horn plays really well.

One of the most common comments I hear from students and fellow band members is "You never mess up!" The truth is, I mess up all the time! I think the reason most mistakes go by without any notice is because I play them with the same conviction that I play the correct stuff, and I correct my mistakes quickly! Remember how your band director said to make loud mistakes? The idea was not that you would screw up at high volume...he's talking about playing all your notes (right and wrong) with the same confidence, so that even the bad notes sound like you meant them.

A Wild Friday

Yacht Rock set sail from Andrews Upstairs last night.  We did well.  A good cruise.  A few highlights...

I used my new reeds (the ones I'd frantically worked on yesterday) on both alto and tenor.  Both worked well.  Actually, I may have softened the tenor too much, because I choked off the high note in the riff for Who Can it Be Now.  Oops.  Got a little excited.  What can I say--I was going for it.

I'd like to hear what I played on the solo for Little Jeannie.  Jim Horn played the original, but he basically just plays the melody.  Sometimes I do that, but last night I augmented it a little more, and it felt good.  Hopefully it stands up on the recording!

In May, my EWI ran out of batteries in the middle of the gig.  This month, I made it almost to the end.  They're lasting almost exactly a month.  I've got to be sure to switch them out before the next gig, so my rig doesn't die in the middle of the Rosanna solo or something like that.

It was packed.  Insanely packed.  I have a feeling this is what Ruperts went through about twenty years ago. 

There was a chick fight right in front of us, but I missed it because I had my eyes closed during a solo.  When I finished, guys were pulling them apart and one had a cut on the bridge of her nose.  How crazy is that?

No encore last night.  Maybe we've peaked?

The first load of gear to go out the door witnessed two guys being held in handcuffs for the cops.  One tried to steal a bottle of vodka from the bar, and the second guy punched the bartender in pursuit of the bottle.

After I loaded out, a bouncer body slammed a guy right at the front door and held him to the ground be the throat.  Excessive force?  Jaco Pastorius, anyone?  Brandon (one of our keyboardists) was sort of confused about what to do, as they were almost up against the side of his car.

Whatever that street is...the cross street with East Andrews...is always clogged with cabs and cars, but last night was really bad.  I sat for four of five minutes in dead gridlock (at 2:30 in the morning!), watching in my rearview mirror with strange detachment as a county hoss and a frat boy tried to kill each other on the sidewalk.  Another fight!  Lots of wrestling involved in this one, but not many punches landed.  

I'm off to Calloway Gardens tonight for a wedding reception.   Hopefully there will no fighting!

Rickie Lee Jones (and some Gadd)

The usual Monday stuff...laundry, vacuuming.

I got a CD in the mail that I haven't heard in a while--the self-titled album Rickie Lee Jones from around 1979.  You probably know it by the first track-Chuck E.'s in Love.  Interesting how much this stuff I hear in the female singer/songwriters of Decatur, not to mention someone like Norah Jones.  I love it, though.  Some of my favorite late 70s stuff, including some great horn stuff by Tom Scott, Ernie Watts, and Chuck Findley.  Anything where the saxes are playing in unison really gets me excited (Steely Dan does this alot, and I thank them for every note of it).  Love that sound.  Steve Gadd is also on this one (ahh that fill in the middle of Chuck E.'s!!!!!!!), and I'm in love with everything from the 70s that has him on it, so this one does me good.  (Here's a great Steve Gadd clip from YouTube from some clinic--he seems pissed about having to demonstrate something yet again, so he starts off like he wants to die, but about 2 and half minutes into it, he's lost in it and going nuts!)

Rickie Lee Jones has some cool things in her blog.  I can relate to the idea of bringing the music to life at the gig, and how sometimes you want to share it with the audience, and sometimes it's more of your own thing.  I think it's safe to say that most non musicians think that you show up to the gig and the magic happens, when in fact some nights you just can't get it there.  The notes are right and nobody's messing up, but it just isn't happening.  I bet on half my gigs I drive there worried about it not happening...what if I can't summon the spirit?  What if I try as hard a as I can, but the notes just don't connect?  I dread those rides.  It's a kind of fear of failure, but not failure like I'll play wrong notes;  more like the failure that I'll play the right notes, but it still won't be right.  What do you do then?

It's Saturday Night!!!!

So it was.  After a nice day at the pool (and tuning up my lawnmower and leaf blower), I headed out to a pretty reasonable Platinum gig.  The crowd came to party.  About the only thing I could say bad about it was that the sound in the room is pretty terrible due to the acoustics.  Looks nice, sounds bad.  A night for ear plugs.

I played alto tonight for something different.  Mainly it was because we opened with a David Sanborn tune (Chicago Song).  Maybe it's because I almost always play tenor on that gig, but alto sounded weird on some tunes like Respect.  It wasn't as difficult to shift gears to a fifth away like I thought it would be.  

Stars and Stripes

Yesterday was pretty rough, evidently.  I worked in the yard yesterday (along with the usual phone calls and emails and a random saxophone lesson) for a good chunk of the day.  After that I edited and uploaded a piccolo sample to my website (go to davidfreemanmusic.net and check the "instruments" page--click on "piccolo", or just click here).  A funny thing about recording...I recorded four passes of piccolo, and the first one was the best one!  First one was pretty good;  second one was a little worse, third one was a little worse;  fourth one, I really tried to nail it because I had a student walking in the door--technically it was good, but my face was starting to tire.  The first take ended up being the keeper.

I read stories to Jack and put him to bed around 8:30.  Thinking I would watch to see if he got up and wandered around, I laid down for a couple of minutes...and woke up at 7 this morning!

Bari Sax

I added some baritone saxophone samples to my website (davidfreemanmusic.net).  They're not meant to be anything mind boggling, just some quick stuff I recorded in between lessons yesterday.

The funkier one is four tracks of bari sax.  I laid down the bass line first (Chameleon?), and then I got the jones to stack some more stuff on top of it.  Just me screwing around.

The classical thing is the high school All-State etudes.  I downloaded them, played through them, and recorded them.  Perhaps they could use more polish, but I really doubt anybody will be hunting me down for a classical bari sax gig anyway!

That's Doc Kupka from Tower of Power in the picture.  Bad dude.

Wedding Weekend

Last night (Friday), I played a wedding.  Sunday night I am attending a wedding.  Due to my attendance, I am unable to play someone else's wedding.  However, I have no gig tonight (Saturday)!  Everybody's getting married on off nights to save money!  Weird, weird, weird!

Steve Cunningham filled in for our regular guitarist, Dave MacDougal.  I've probably known Steve around twelve years--we used to teach at the same music store.  The last gig we played together was probably one of mine at Sambuca about nine or ten years ago.  He's even better than I remember.  If you get a chance, you should check him out!  Wow!

Hittin' it Hard

After several days of messing around with my website (davidfreemanmusic.net or davidfreemanmusic.com), I've finally got the horns back in my face for some good practicing. I'm preparing for a big wedding this weekend in North Carolina, in addition to my in town stuff (practicing for certain lessons and keeping the Yacht Rock stuff under my fingers). Things are in good shape, I think.

It's the last few days of the school year, which means many of my students will be taking some time off. My gig calendar looks pretty good through the summer, so I think things are going to be ok. I've also got multiple things that I'd like to achieve by August, so here's hoping that everything lines up.