Friday Yacht Rock

So...I turned up to Yacht Rock last night, and they'd closed the parking lot in front of Andrews in order to make a "beach" for a Fourth of July party. Hmmm. Where will our fans park?
The crowd rolled in late, but they all made it eventually. It turned out much better than we expected (numbers-wise). We had thoughts of everybody holding out for the party at Park Tavern today (we're there 8-11 PM tonight).

In the continuing saga of what can go wrong with my equipment...you may recall how my EWI has run out of battery at Andrews the past two months. This month, I put in new batteries before the gig. Predictably, my EWI died right in the middle of the first set. I don't know what happened. Maybe there was a bad battery in the group of four (they're rechargable batteries, so maybe one was old and had lost its juice). Anyway, that was not cool. I put in another four batteries and everything was fine for the rest of the night. What a pain, though...it messes with my head.

There were lots of weird things last night. I think we were all a little flat, and labored to get to the end of the gig. I didn't feel like I was there. Kind of like the gig was going on in the background, and I was paying attention sometimes, but sometimes...I don't know. I wanted to be awesome, but I couldn't get it going. Lots of "oops, I missed that" kind of stuff (in both corners of the room). It happens...we'd played really well the night before at the 10 High, but there wasn't much magic at Andrews. We tried, but it wouldn't come.

Fingers crossed...hopefully we can summon the spirits from Koko's Boat House. Hope to see you tonight at the Park Tavern.

Thursday!

I woke up today and both my arms were asleep. I was like a rag doll--I could barely roll myself over (one arm was in the way!). At least I hadn't metamorphised into a roach.
Between my arms not working and having no idea what time it was, I'm off to a weird start.

I am pleased to report that after several weeks of wondering, I have solved the problem I was having with my EWI. Namely, I was concerned about it not reacting to me in a predictable fashion. I got out my manual Wednesday night and tweaked my settings, and it's back to normal. I guess the thing gradually got off, and I'd never bothered to notice. I had to reset the pitch bend, because it turns out it was always on (probably half my problems!). The breath sensor I reset to feeling good, and then I padded it a little to compensate for the fact that I've been playing in hot and humid conditions (the 10 High and outside) lately, and if I don't take that into account, and starts to play on its own.

I am still interested in eventually getting a second EWI, due to the fact that I can't take it to just anyone and have it worked on, and at this point I'm using it on average two gigs per week. There's no running it to Bryan Lopes' house to have something fixed right before!

Last night at the 10 High went very well. We were at capacity before we got on stage, and there was a line snaked around the side of the building. Very cool. Playing for a packed room is an amazing feeling, and of course there's lots of love for the saxophone. Whenever I walk to the front of the stage, people (and by people I mean HOT women!) start cheering wildly. It's easier to really go for it when the audience is like that. It can feel a little silly playing something like Baker Street and trying to really milk it when the crowd couldn't care less. I become much more aware of my stage movements, and I feel stupid.

On the subject of equipment, I feel like both reeds I played (tenor and alto) are going a little dead, but it's a nice spot for what I'm doing--that is to say, I'm not playing in a quiet, acoustic setting, so the fact that they feel like cardboard at a softer volume isn't as important as their ability to take alot of air and not close up on me. The end is near for them, but I may be able to squeeze a few more notes out of them. Both have lasted about twice as long as usual. The reed gods are on my side these days.

Two Really Cool Flute Sites

I've been poking around the internet looking at flute stuff. Here's two interesting places worth checking out:

1. Larry Krantz has tons of neat articles about playing and teaching flute. There's something written on every conceivable topic--Larry obviously has a lifetime of experience as both a performer and teacher. All flute questions can be answered here!

2. There's lots of Irish flute stuff out there, but not much in the way of African flute playing. Fula Flute is a completely original (to me) way of utilizing the flute. It makes you realize how timeless the flute is...before the traditional silver flutes that everyone is familiar with, there were Irish flutes and Native American flutes and African flutes, plus Latin America was using flutes.

Sunday

Today was my last church gig at St. Ann's. The budget was slashed, and most of the contracted musicians lost their gigs (myself included). Big question...will anybody notice we're gone?

Our pool was closed all day today due to the presence of "fecal matter"...a little dookie, if you will.

World of Plastic Coke Bottles

I had a corporate jazz gig last night at the World of Coke. If you haven't seen the new World of Coke, I'd say it's about the same as the old World of Coke, except in a different location. Last night's thing was an awards dinner.
It's a real drag to watch the people at the event filling the water glasses for 200 people with Dasani bottles. I mean, come on...shouldn't there be a Dasani fountain at the World of Coke? We were playing in the hub, where's there's a nice display about recycling plastic Coke bottles, and right below are ten waiters creating more empty plastic bottles. Even worse than that--in between my quartet and the recycling display was a bar station, and when I walked by there I noticed their garbage cans were full of trash, including glass and plastic bottles. No recycling going on there either.
The World of Coke needs to get their act together with the recycling. What occurred last night was an embarassment. Is it really too much for Coke to insist on recycling at events held in their building?

Swim with the Fishes

Greetings. It's been a week. You probably thought I was dead.

This week was marked by Jack's transformation into a fish. About a week ago he figured out that he could go under water and not die, and since then he's been in the pool, swimming, more or less constantly. I think he's down there once or twice a day for hours at a time. It's a lot more fun to go now because of that, so I've been trying to be there as much as I can, so I haven't been putting in much time on the horn.
This week's Yacht Rock was a bit of a pressure cooker for me due to the fact that I had to play keyboard on a few tunes to cover Brandon being out. I am not a good pianist, so I really had to put in the time to try and approximate what he would normally play with ease. The biggie that I was concerned about was the rhodes part on "I Keep Forgettin'." I did pretty well. Actually, I wish I was more comfortable, because when I am playing keyboards and getting it right, I enjoy it.
One thing I noticed (again) about my playing is how I get lazy about breathing. At times I find myself not taking in enough air, and then I can't make it through phrases. This happened to me last night in a couple of spots--the first one that comes to mind being the solo on "Heart of Rock and Roll." I was thinking about my stage movements and the solo, and I didn't get a good breath in the solo, so then I was trying to make up for it in every hole until the solo ended. I guess I just need to be more aware of it. It's kind of stupid, actually. If you're talking, you never stop to think about the fact that there's no air in your lungs. I need to slow down a little, I guess, and not be so sloppy.
Yesterday I did some recording at Metronome Studios for a band called Attractive Eighties Women. Tom Gibson and I played on a tune about zombies. I played bari sax and alto sax.
After that it was to the pool!
Tonight I'm playing a private function at the World of Coke--a little three hour hit. I'll be home before midnight!

Thursday (night)

Thursday night was the premiere of Reagan Rock (a continuation of Yacht Rock into the early 80s). Highlights: the oppressive heat of the 10 High made everyone uncomfortable. Gina Niespodziani made some awesome 80s compilation videos that played in the background. Lots of NBC News clips, Dallas and Dynasty, Miami Vice, Knight Rider. some early 80s movies. Funny stuff. I remember it all very well. Peter and Nick brought a ziploc bag of "cocaine", which they cut and snorted on a big mirror they had.
The Reagan Rock set was pretty pressurized. We all seemed to be concentrating on getting it right, and when we came back with a set of Yacht Rock, everybody seemed to go kind of mushy (the heat also wilted us).
Speaking of the heat! For the past several weeks I've been thinking my laptop was dying due to the heat. It seemed like it would start fine, and by two-thirds of the way through the set, it would get weird. I can't say more than it would react differently to me. Last night I finally figured out that it was NOT the laptop, but instead the EWI itself. When the heat and humidity go up, the little diaphram inside that measures breath pressure changes slightly, and it was causing notes to stay on. Just barely, but it was still transmitting data through the MIDI. So, when I would then change patches or turn the EWI and off, there would be an interuption of the data, and it would cause the computer to do weird stuff. Ah ha! The solution was to turn down the sensitivity to breath slightly, and it goes back to acting like my EWI rig. What a relief to know what was going on!

Thursday (day)

Here's a recap of Thursday (day), in case you weren't here for all of it...

I still worried about my alto mouthpiece not being quite right. All the little chirps and reed issues I've had made me concerned that there might be some sort of trouble lurking there. I couldn't stand it, so for my own mental health I drove to Suwanee Thursday morning to have Will Grizzle check out my mouthpiece. He measured it and flattened the table a little bit. Not really much of anything. However, now I'm confident that whatever problems I may encounter, they're not the fault of the mouthpiece. As soon as I finish typing this, I'm going to run over to Bryan Lopes' house and let him look over my alto, so then I can be sure my equipment is operating at its peak.

Jack and I returned and hit the pool. He made HUGE strides yesterday in swimming. At the beginning of our time there, he only wanted to kick across the shallow end with a kickboard. By the end of yesterday, he was running and jumping of the side of the pool (yelling "CANNONBALL!!!"), and kicking (face IN the water!!!!) back to the steps. How awesome is that?

Michael Brecker Masterclass

Here's a cool mp3 of Michael Brecker giving a masterclass at Berklee in 1987. Lots of interesting stuff (click here for a link to mp3). It's over an hour, so give yourself time (or download it). I ended up staying up waaaaaay too late listening to it.

One thing that jumped out at me is the awareness that great players have about their own playing (and those who came before them). I really think that if you want to improve, you have to be able to objectively study your own playing and know what needs improvement. Not in a general "I suck" sort of way, but in a "everytime I'm in this situation, I play this, and I should fix it" kind of way. The closer you get to pinpointing your problems, the quicker you can get to the business of attacking them. It seems obvious, but I think too many players hide behind the false humility of "I suck!" and never go after what they don't like about their playing.

Saturday hurt me

Saturday hurt me. I was up until at least 2:30 AM Friday night, and then I woke up at 6 AM so I could get my butt down to the Georgia International Convention Center by 7:15 AM. We (basically my church gig at St. Ann's with Kevin Wyglad) played for what looked like a jillion people for the Eucharistic Congress for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. We finished just after 11 AM. I took Beth to Peachtree City, and then went home and ate lunch. Then I loaded the truck with my Yacht Rock stuff and headed to the zoo for the Brew at the Zoo.

I played with Y.O.U. in their set. They were, of course, awesome. Then we reset and played a long Yacht Rock set. We did well, and the crowd responded in kind. I didn't have much sax playing in the Yacht Rock set--mostly EWI. I do wonder how much I contributed last night--I was pretty wiped out.

Mark Cobb taught me about funk drumming--it's much funkier when you play backbeat on the snare and do the accents with the kick drum.

I got home around 10:30 PM, and I bet I was alseep within an hour. I needed it. I woke up with the lights and TV still on...with just enough time to take a shower, swap out gear, and head out to my next gig--12:15 mass at St. Ann's.

Friday-Prince

Friday was a big driving day.

I got up as late as I could and headed out the door to a rehearsal for my Saturday gig. It was down at the International Convention Center (down by the airport). I was down there for a couple of hours in an enormous exhibit hall.

When that was finished, I raced home and finished getting my book of music ready for my sax sub for a gig Saturday night. I had a few charts I needed to write out on the computer. When that was finished, I ran and dropped the book off.

Late Friday night, I got dressed and ran down to Little 5 Points for the Prince Tribute at the Star Bar. I played on Head with Y.O.U., and a New Orleans/Meters version of A Love Bizarre with Edenrage and Chanda Leigh (I'd never met these people before we played! The guy texted me once we both got there and I found him by his decription. They'd asked through a friend if I would join them). Pretty cool stuff. I was glad that A Love Bizarre went with a different feel, so I could avoid playing more or less the same sort of solo I'd played on Head. Mark Bencuya played an awesome synth solo on a tune they played without me. I think it's the best solo I've ever heard him play.

Afterwards, Mark Cobb hipped me to some really cool stuff I'd never heard--a band from the 70s called Cymande and the Headhunters album without Herbie Hancock. Gritty 70s funk. Awesome! We got into a discussion about whether it's better to approach a tribute situation like the Prince tribute by playing exactly like the record, or it's better to do your own thing with the song. I can see it either way, as long as the musical decisions are legit (i.e. don't decide to skip the bridge because you can't remember it).

I got home around 2 AM. Not good--I have to be at my next gig at 7:15 AM!