David Freeman Music

I had the pleasure of playing the Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta awards dinner last night, as I have the past four of five years.  I'm getting the hang of it!  It's very cool for a corporate gig--the feed us, comp the parking, know their show, etc. This year, I decided to change things up a little and do an organ quartet instead of piano, bass, drums, and saxophone.  The band for the evening consisted of Randy Honea on guitar, David Ellington on organ, and Marlon Patton (with a broken left leg!) on drums.  We'd never played in this combination before. The quartet played a half hour for dinner, seven walk-ups for the big award winners, and one tune to send them away.  I didn't record the walk ups or the last tune, but here's the dinner part:   David Freeman Quartet - September 19, 2012 by David B Freeman Good stuff!  See y'all next year. davidfreemanmusic.net

I did both my church gigs--kind of a rarity due to other gig commitments. Senior audio genius Matt Sheren made me sound extra awesome on my AM gig.  We had our usual hymns this morning before the two big songs of the morning, one of which happened to be an instrumental featuring the horn section.  Within that, I had a big honkin' solo, and Matt made sure it sounded really good.  I hope that next time the church will hire a spotlight operator. In the second big song, the band was playing really well until we came back to reprise the song.  The vocalist went one direction, the rhythm section stuttered, and the horn section splintered.  The congregation just sat there.  Not what we were hoping for.  Oops.  Back to earth. NAP. The ol' PM church gig was lightly attended by both band and congregation.  Two singers, piano, hand drum, and me.  I had a good reed and good flute face, and played pretty well.  Actually, everybody did we...

After last night's abomination, Yacht Rock was back to normal last night for a wedding at Callanowolde.  Billed as Constantly Awesome , it's the same personnel, but the set list incorporates Beatles tunes, 80s stuff, Stones, Springsteen, Zeppelin--a little bit of everything we know.  It was fun, a nice break from the 70s stuff.  Plus I got to fool around on the gig--I played rhodes on Wonderful Tonight and organ on Sweet Home Alabama .  When else would I ever get to do that? Anyway, it was fun, and we all played really well.  Good stuff.  We played How Sweet it Is .  I've never transcribed David Sanborn's solo, but I can pull most of it out of my butt.  One of these days I'm going to nail it down. Things are starting to heat up, calendar-wise.  Stay tuned for so more jazz and latin stuff. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock played the Hope Flies Catch the Cure 2012 benefit at the Mason Murer Gallery.  I'm pretty sure we've played this gig before. Man…we were really sloppy.  Not a good gig by us, for sure.  I mean, the acoustics made for a difficult situation and there was a $60,000 picture of a horse behind us, but we sucked real bad.  It was the kind of gig you run away from. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock had a couple of outdoor gigs this weekend.  Fortunately, the heat of the summer is finally beginning to dissipate, so they were both pretty comfortable. Our first show was a wedding in Birmingham, AL.  Our set up was delayed by passing showers as the cold front moved through, but things eventually dried out and we soundchecked. The reception was easy--I'd guess 125 guests--and the bride and groom are big fans.  The evening was pretty nice, even though the mosquitos were pretty intimidating. We ended the festivities with Born to Run (one of the groom's favorite songs).  I hadn't played it in over a year, but it seems like that song is burned into my brain.   Born to Run sax solo by David B Freeman We drove back to Atlanta on Sunday, headed straight to Stone Mountain for the Yellow Daisy Festival .  More easy stuff--one ninety minute set in pleasant weather.  A week earlier, and we'd all have drowned in our own sw...

Please Pleaserock Me ( Yacht Rock plays the Beatles) was back at Smith's Olde Bar for the first time in a long time.  It's good and bad--yay because public shows feel like we're a real band (as opposed to a group of guys who make money at wedding receptions and corporate banquets), but boo because the load in at Smith's sucks real bad.  I'm glad I don't have to drag my Yacht Rock gear up and down two bouncing flights of rusty stairs. We loaded in really early (2 PM), but finished early (4 PM), so that Butch Walker could set up and play a show in front of our show.  Sounds like Atlanta music royalty.  His show was slammed, though.  I got back to Smith's a little after 9 PM, and I could hear the crowd from the bottom of the aforementioned stairs.  The whole room was a hot and stinky mess.    It took about three hours for it to finally cool back down. Our show finally got rolling around 10:30 PM.  The first set went pretty well.  We...

Weird…I had an entire week without any gigs.  I tackled a bunch of projects around my house--damn near killed myself--and got plenty of exercise and practicing.  I need to go back to work so I can get some rest! My AM church gig went pretty well.  Things were reasonably organized and actually went pretty smoothly.  No problems.  We even had a monitor! My PM church gig was also pretty easy.  No sweat.  Good flute face. Sorry I don't have much to report…stay tuned. davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday means church gigs! The AM church gig is headed back towards some sort of normalcy.  Rhythm section, horn section, and vocalists (though this week there was a choir instead of five or six people).  The charts worked without any problems.  It's a miracle!  The horns set up on the opposite side because the choir was on a riser in our usual spot.  Sonically, things were worse--not only could we not hear the drums, bass, or acoustic guitar, but stage right we could barely make out the piano.  Hmm.  In ear monitors can't make it to this gig soon enough. The PM church gig was a little better than last week.  Latest evidence I am headed straight to hell:  during the communion song, the pianist/bandleader played the same wrong note in the melody twice, so when she tossed me the solo, I incorporated her wrong note as a chromatic passing tone.  Did you catch that?  I did it again.  And again.  How about in the opposite dir...

Congratulations to one of Pleaserock 's finest, Esther, on her wedding last night! Yacht Rock played the reception.  After a good week of practice (and a couple of more "back to normal" gigs), I think I may be coming out of my funk.  I even got Africa right. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock had a private gig last night at the Ritz at Lake Oconee .  Nice…we spent the night there, and each got our own room.  Here's the view out of mine: Our gig was really, really weird…like a fall at terminal velocity from the Revival back to reality.  The event was pushed back a half hour, and once we finally started playing, nobody would come into the room.  For a while, it looked like this: In a desperate attempt by the party planner to bring people to her event, she brought a ping pong table in…uh, ok.  People began to come in finally, but they faced AWAY FROM US SO THEY COULD WATCH PING PONG!  Holy shit!  Then they broke out decks of cards, and people played cards and ignored us. We had two people on the dance floor, but they didn't even make it through an entire song before they gave up.  That's pretty much how it ended.  Someone went to a guest room and got a clock radio so they could listen to rap while they pl...

I left the Park Tavern around 12:30 AM with the clock ticking, knowing I had to run home, dump equipment, take a shower, sleep, and be at my next gig at 8 AM.  The ol' AM church gig.  This one was kind of a "welcome back!" service for the main minister and the  congregation--the first one since school started, so it was more full than the previous few weeks.  The band was back to full strength (plus the horns, plus some more horns to augment that, plus a couple of violins).  There were charts and transitions that had been considered beforehand--everything worked! We played both services…extra money.  Yes. The PM church gig was ok.  We were light on singers, and the piano pickup was busted, but we made it through without any disasters.  My soprano has a problem (the adjustment screws on the bar behind the right hand are out of wack, and so the F key and the linked key above that--the one connected to the bar--aren't closing together)...