Aquarium Gig!

Last night I did a House Live gig with Jeff and Wayne at the Georgia Aquarium.

The gig started with me playing solo saxophone for an hour in the main atrium.  About five minutes into the gig, they asked me to move one foot to my left--"closer to the table with the imaginary couple enjoying your music!" the guy said.

I answered "They'll soon be filling my imaginary tip jar, I hope."  No luck.  Our parking did get comped, though.

After that, I joined up with the other guys in the ballroom.  Not much to report;  it was kind of a dull, low volume gig.  I couldn't hear the track well enough to even know what key I was supposed to be in.  We had fun, though.

My soprano is officially in need of repair.  I was using one of my less favorite reeds, and it felt dull and resistant, so I carved on it with my pocketknife.  When that failed to do the trick, I tried a new reed.  Same results--dull and resistant.  So I tried my number one reed--same result!  Must be a leak.  My alto feels good, and my flute's happy.

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Sunday stuff

Yesterday was my usual pair of Sunday church gigs.  After a not too late Saturday night (asleep by 2:30 AM?), I was back up at 6:45 AM to get a move on.

The first gig is always a little "seat of the pants," but this time it bit the band in the butt.  We were supposed to allow the flags to process silently (in remembrance of September 11), and once they were in place, then begin the first song, but we forgot about the flags.  So in front of everybody, Rev. Randy whipped around and cut us off--like you'd yell at a dog or something.  Ouch!  Wake up!  The second song started, but the words did not come up on the screen, and Rev. Randy was hot under the collar again.  After that, there was a brief video to be shown.  One of the screens had only audio.  Rev. Randy was thoroughly pissed at that point (also because he was the star of the video?).  Anyway, that set the tone for the entire service--run away!!!!
Since this gig is a hard blowing situation, I used it to break in a few new tenor reeds.

As usual, I went home and slept.

My second gig was a little bit thin.  For some reason, most of the vocalists were missing, so it was just two girls, piano, hand drum, and me.  When we started, I had to dial in some of the stuff--I wasn't there last week (I was on the boat), and whoever had been running the sound board had been managing the volume by riding the gain instead of the volume fader.  The first song had some crazy loud drum and piano.  Once I got it under control, things were better.  The drum guy was actually putting out some sound (usually his mic picks up more of the piano than the drum), but when I soloed his channel in his headphones, he went back to playing like a pussy.  Such is life.
I haven't had much time to play flute this week, so I did lots of long tones during this mass to bring my face back to life.

It's not relevant to my music career, but Dallas needs a head coach who will bring discipline to the team.  They have great talent, but there were too many mistakes last night--not just on the final play.  I hope Jerry Jones made them walk home.

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Yacht Rock on the set of Die Hard

The Yacht Rock Revue played a benefit for the Mito Society.  The gig was on the eighteenth floor of the Terminus building in Buckhead.  Here are some pictures:

We played well.  I can't really think of anything horrible happening.  It was very nice to Mark Bencuya back on stage with us.  It's not the same without him!
The room, as you might imagine, was pretty horrible for listening.  Concrete and glass...hmmm...looked cool, sounded bad.
We debuted Reelin' in the Years last night.  It was a little rough;  maybe a little tense feeling.  We ran it at soundcheck and then played it during the gig.
My goal last night with the gig (other than to keep my mistakes to a minimum) was to try not to look at my hands when I was playing keyboard.  I've gotten much better about it, but I made a conscious effort to keep my head up and trust my hands.  For the most part, I was good.

We watched a really big thunderstorm roll through.

Here's the view over the back edge of the stage.  Right down to the disco Kroger parking lot!

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Neiman Marcus Trio

I played a trio gig last night at Lenox Square Mall in Neiman Marcus.  I have no idea what it was for;  they told us where to set up, and we played the gig.

The trio for last night was Louis Heriveaux on keyboard and Evan Hodges on bass.  For the most part, things were cool.  It's always a pleasure to play with Louis, who brings his warm personality to every tune on the gig.  I'd never played a gig with Evan before, and was pleased to hear such a great bass sound  coupled with so much creativity.
We were all over the place tempo-wise.  The first set, everything except the final tune rushed, to the point where it was really starting to piss me off.  The middle set and most of the last set leaned backwards, and then the last tune was pushing again.  My guess would be that if we played more as a unit, this would all even out.  Both guys did a good job of sightreading more charts (except for for Guitar Song which evidently is quite daunting, and somehow ended up in five!, and someone's decision to make part of Cha Cha swing).
I played on the deadest tenor I've encountered in quite some time.  It responded ok, but the sound was pretty bland.  It needs to go, but that means I need to busy breaking in some new ones.

Anyway, here's my recording of the event.  Hope you enjoy listening!



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The Non-Bencuyas

The Yacht Rock Revue returned home to our usual Thursday night gig at the 10 High.  I guess our crowd didn't know we were back or something, because it was sparsely attended.  Maybe they thought we were the Main Street Exiles.

Due to a family emergency, Mark Bencuya couldn't make the gig, so we had Mike Bielenberg filling in as the other keyboardist.  As much as I missed, it was also kind of fun--Bielenberg knows lots of the same parts that I do, so I did my best to play some of Bencuya's parts.  More Than a Woman was alot of fun, and I was really pleased with myself for learning the tune that afternoon and playing it well that night.  I could have done Bencuya's rhodes part on Baby Come Back (I hadn't had a shot at it since Brandon and I covered a gig a few years ago), but it got cut.  I also enjoyed being "the man" on How Long and Hot Child in the City--in real life I just double Bencuya as best I can.  Last night I was Bencuya for those two.  I think I fared well!  Too bad Nick couldn't tell.

I guess singers are a necessary evil.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Exiles at the 10 High

I played with Main Street Exiles last night at the 10 High as part of our one month residency at the 10 High.  Last week's attendance was super sad...$75 split between seven guys!  This week's attendance was much better.  Too many dudes, but hopefully the women will come around.

The band is sounding better and better as we find our groove and get comfortable with each other.  I can't think of any crash and burn situations...instead there were lots of "we're rockin'!" moments.  Fred McNeal continues to amaze on guitar and vocals and persona.  I think he has some of Keith Richards' DNA.

Freddy told me I'm nailing the Bobby Keys thing (sax player for the Stones from the early 70s to the present).  That's cool--he said, "You don't understand!  That's the best compliment I can give!"

We added Rocks Off and Heartbreaker this week, and both went well.  Hopefully we can keep the momentum through the end of the month!
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Zac Brown Boat

I returned relatively unscathed from the Zac Brown Sailing Southern Ground cruise.  We left Tampa Thursday afternoon in a wash of free booze and loud country music bound for Grand Cayman, and floated back Monday morning, tired and ready to go home!

A recap of what I can remember:

Thursday:  we flew from Atlanta to Tampa, caught a cab to the port, and got on the boat.

Mark Cobb in flight.





















From there it was mostly hanging out and drinking.

As we pulled away from the dock, the Zac Brown Band played on the Lido Deck, while the artist VIP area was full of musicians sucking up the free alcohol.  Actually, they shut the bar down because we were going through it too fast!  It was cool to hang with friends old and new.

Here's Brandon Still (previous Yacht Rock keyboardist, now with Blackberry Smoke) and his girlfriend Tiffany Cosgrove.

Anyway...I drank.  I don't remember anything else happening.  I woke up in my clothes.

Friday:  we (Yacht Rock Revue) were supposed to perform at 1 PM on the Lido Deck, but it was moved so Zac Brown could give a cooking demonstration.  Our new time was 1 AM in the Candlelight Lounge. I got a little fidgety waiting all day, so I went and rescued my saxophones from the gear pile, took them to my room and practiced for a couple of hours (even found some good alto reeds!).  It was nice to have some normalcy in a weird situation.  Getting the horns in my face really helped get my head focused.  I played through scales and patterns on alto, tenor, and flute, and checked my EWI stuff to make sure everything was cool.  Everything was.

I heard the Wood Brothers play a set of amazing organic music.  If there was one thing I would download from all the bands on the cruise, it would be some of their stuff.  Amazing.  It sounded like jazz/blues guys playing a rootsy set--lots of interplay and listening.  You HAVE to check it out.

I heard Shawn Mullins play a set.  He's got some cool stuff, but the spoken verse, sung chorus formula has GOT TO GO!  He uses it too often.  Greg said, "but that's his thing!"  All the more reason to get away from it, I would say.

We hit the ballroom and did the fire drill half hour changeover.  When we finally got started, there was a huge wash of collective adrenaline from the entire band.  We're finally playing!  The crowd was there and we were there.  Perfect!  In our previous cruises this year (all on the same boat), we've never had a good set in this room, so we were pretty psyched to be playing well.  Everything was cool.  Mark Cobb was playing really hard--these high profile gigs always bring out the animal in him.  He was proving himself to anybody who would listen.

The soundman told me afterwards that my signal to the mixing board was super hot.  It turns out that in trying to reach back in the dark and turn up the volume on an unfamiliar amplifier, I'd instead been cranking the line out volume.  Oops.

Once we'd finished our set, we moved down the hallway to the Promenade stage and played a few tunes, including this new one.  Once that was over, I went to bed.

Saturday:  I woke up around noon and got off the boat in Grand Cayman along with 3Markable (Mark Dannells, Mark Cobb, and Mark Bencuya).  We had lunch on Seven Mile Beach and a quick swim in the ocean.

Mark Cobb!

Mark Bencuya!

Mark Dannells and Mark Bencuya.

I saw the Wood Brothers again.  Still killin' it.

Saturday night was our second set, once again in the Candlelight Lounge (11:30 PM).  We played well again.  Mentally, it took a while for me to get there, but we had no problems.  The gig went well.  Mark Cobb:  en fuego.

Afterwards, Brandon was extremely complimentary about what I have done as a keyboardist, which meant the world to me.  His opinion, along with Mark Bencuya's, are by far the most important on the subject.  I can't say enough about how awesome it was to hear what he had to say.

Sunday:  Sunday afternoon we played the Lido Deck at 2:30 PM.  This is the prime afternoon gig spot on the boat--the deck is full if the weather is nice.  We played well and everything was groovy.  At one point my laptop did crash, but what's a gig without an EWI disaster!  When we started Caribbean Queen, the sound was gurgly.  I hit the spacebar to clear up what I assumed was the processor getting maxed out by something.  The next time I looked at the computer, I noticed that Mainstage had closed/crashed!  Yikes!  I rebooted the computer and pulled up Mainstage again. Fortunately, the set list was such that I didn't use the EWI for several songs in a row and I could get it set back up.  It was a scary couple of minutes, though.

I can't say that I wasn't relieved to get off stage.  That kind of fried my nerves.  Other than that, though, I played well, got off some good solos, and didn't screw up my keyboard parts very much.

When we finished, I packed my stuff up and they put my horns, keyboard, and magic suitcase (full of sax stands, effects pedal, cables, keyboard pedals) in the hold.  I watched Blackberry Smoke play their set and ate.  Later on that night I watched Clay Cook play some really terrific solo stuff on the Serenity Deck.  People were hanging on every note;  they always do when it's Clay.

While watching, my one wish was this:  many people, particularly Clay, were huge fans of Y.O.U. and Nick Niespodziani, and Nick's stuff is just as good if not better than anybody else on the boat.  It would be cool if someone like Clay would be more of a champion of Nick's music.  He deserves to be heard just as much as these more celebrated singer/songwriters.

While I was listening to Clay and dreaming of Nick's success, someone reached around from behind me with a camera, showing me multiple pictures of people posing with my very relaxed body that first night of the cruise.  Oops.

We hung out the rest of the night.  I think I went to bed around 4:30 AM, and got up at 8:30 AM at the port of Tampa.  Hooray!  Home again!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Main Street Exiles

Tonight was the first night of the Main Street Exiles' residency at the 10 High.  We played the same set we played a few weeks earlier.

This is not a huge gig for me, playing-wise.  There are some horn parts--I guess you never really think about the Rolling Stones having horn parts, but Bobby Keys has been playing with them forever!  (the current band also has Andy Snitzer on saxophone).  There are some things to play.  That said, I probably have more responsibility as the percussionist.

Here's the solo on Miss You.  It's a typical chart for this gig--wait, wait, WAIT!!, eight measure solo, and you're done.

The crowd was horrible!  Or should I say, "What crowd?"  I don't think there were ever more than ten people in the audience.  Because of that, we played kind of a low energy/rehearsal kind of show.  It was sad.

I personally didn't have a bad night (none of us did), but I did step on the wrong pedal for Bitch, so all my stuff was a fifth apart instead of a fourth.  Oops.

I'm leaving this morning to go on the Zac Brown Sailing Southern Ground cruise, on our way to Grand Cayman. I'll have a blog update early next week.
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ARB

In my continuing quest to find an alto mouthpiece that can get me closer to David Sanborn's sound, I have mingled with many hunks of metal, but today I think I found a winner!  The ARB metal (#6) fits the bill.

I have played approximately one dozen Dukoff 8s in the past two weeks.  None of them were great, but I did pick one that was pretty good and had Will Grizzle reface it (along with the D7* that I've been using since the Vegas trip).  The D8 has been on my desk, and I've been playing the D7*.  What I've noticed is that it starts out fine, but somewhere during the gig things change--I don't know if it's my reeds drying out or warping off the table, or if the mouthpiece is heating up and changing shape, but the thing never feels as good as it does for the first couple of notes I play.  Regardless of the reason, I've got to keep looking--I can't deal with a piece that is never the same thing twice!

Saxophonist fans of David Sanborn know that before the Dukoff, he played a Brilhart Level Aire--this is from the late sixties up until some time in 1975, when he made the switch.  I don't think he sounds that different, so I started investigating the Level Aire.  At some point, Arnold Brilhart was working for Beechler, and put out the ARB mouthpiece (his initials) for them--but it's really just the Brilhart Level Aire.    Ah ha!  I ordered one, and it plays great (I played along with Young Americans a few times), and it's made out of stainless steel so I know it's not going to morph the way the silverite Dukoff is.  I won't know for sure until I play it on a few gigs, but I played on it this afternoon and it did everything I wanted it to do.  I got the sound I was looking for, the range, the volume, and the articulation was good.  It's bright and edgy, but stable.

Is the mouthpiece search really over?  Maybe!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday Zzzzzz

Sunday was a killer.

I went to bed around 2 AM, got up at 6:45 AM, and got to my church gig at 8 AM.  Somewhere in the down time at that one I took a nap.  I played lots of clarinet on this one--we kind of slid from gospel/soul to more of a New Orleans/soul thing.  Maybe it was just me--I probably played pretty much the same thing I would have played, but on clarinet.  Anyway, they asked for clarinet, they got clarinet.

I took a nap as soon as I got home.  After I got up, I hung out with Jack for a while, practiced, and then rolled on to my second church gig.  I played mostly flute on this one.

I got home, ate, and fell asleep watching the football game.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Saturday

I had two gigs today.

The first was a Yacht Rock gig.  We played a wedding (ceremony and reception) at the Aquarium.  Mark Dannells and I played the ceremony--flute and acoustic guitar.  It was never clearly stated to any of us, but it turns out we played the gig for free.  Booooo.  It was all connected to some sort of radio program--I guess the bride and groom won a free wedding on the radio, and all the vendors (band, photographers) traded their services for promotion from the radio and the Aquarium.  We'll see.  I think we got screwed.

Saturday night was a smooth jazz gig at Londzell's with Madoca and Company.  It wasn't too bad, though I did have the thought at one point that it was two and a half hours of watching "your local weather."  It was difficult reading, though!  Here's what the charts looked like:

The solos were always wide open--one or two chords.

Whew!

davidfreemanmusic.net