Florida

The tour continues! This past weekend, Yacht Rock was in Florida for a few shows. This is the perfect time of year to be down there, because the heat will return in a matter of a few weeks.

Thursday: We left dreary, rainy Atlanta after being delayed for a couple of hours...

...and landed in sunny Tampa!

This evening's weather outlook was imperfect at best. The line of storms that had crashed through Georgia was still getting dragged out of the Gulf of Mexico. To try and fit it all in, the start time for our show was moved from 9 to 8:30 PM.

Pretty nice gig, though! I think some people stayed away because of the threat of a rain, but it was still decent crowd, and the breeze from the oncoming storm was kind of pleasant. We played alright--it took a while for everybody to relax and settle in, but for the most part, the night moved along quickly.

Immediately after the gig, I looked at my phone. Hmmm, tornado warning...is the warning the bad one, or is it a tornado watch that's bad? WARNING! I headed back to the stage and began packing in a hurry, and put the last piece of my gear in the case just as the blowing rain began.

Friday: Off to Ft. Lauderdale (the routing for this trip--Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando--is not ideal). This place reminds of me of a place we used to play in Atlanta called Andrews Upstairs. It holds the right number of people for where we're at in south Florida right now, but it's kind of a trashy-early-2000s--Buckhead thing (probably only makes sense if you're from Atlanta).

One thing I do like about this place--there is an excellent vegan cafe/store around the corner, and I had a wonderful meatless meatball sandwich. Fantastic.

We added in Lionel Richie's Running with the Night tonight--a new one for us. Other than that, it was business as usual. The EWI's batteries died and I had to swap them out over the course of three or four songs, and I sweated that, but yeah, everything else was same as ever.

I had the solo room on this night, and the hotel put me in some kind of crazy suite that was bigger than any apartment I ever lived in. I felt weird going into the other room and turning out the light.

Saturday: Up the Turnpike we go to Orlando, a drive I have made on more than one occasion.

This evening's gig sold out, which, according to the internet, was 2,500 people. Damn! That's really cool. Nice gig. Nice weather, too!

The keyboard stands made it to the gig tonight. I'm cool with them as long as someone else puts them together and takes them apart!

We brought Peaches, our lighting guy, for this show, and had some really good moments, such as this one during Baker Street.

For David--The Lady Wants to Be a Star

Here's a transcription I just finished of Michael Brecker's solos on For David from The Lady Wants to Be a Star (Martee Lebous, 1976). When else are you going to hear a diminished whole tone scale in a pop song?

This whole thing is great. It's largely major pentatonic, and it's slippery, but precise...his time feel really makes this an exceptional moment in a forgettable 70s pop song.

Paste and The Color Purple

Tuesday: Yacht Rock played a live session at Paste Magazine in downtown Atlanta. It's more record promo stuff. 

I finally feel like I'm getting a good handle on the originals, and all the stuff I've worked on is gelling into a cohesive part that makes sense in my head now. In short, I am finally getting it right. FINALLY! Jeez!

Anyway, here's the show. Nice mix by Kip.

Friday: Remember how last week I flew home and went straight to a rehearsal for The Color Purple? The dress rehearsal was tonight, and it went pretty well. The vocalists are fantastic! We're giving a concert performance only, so there's no staging, but dang...the actors are killing it.

There were a few things, though. First, the Roswell Performing Arts Center is about 60 degrees on stage, which is a little cold, especially sitting in a chair and not moving for a few hours. It also makes tuning a challenge. Second, the audio crew had a lot of trouble getting the three monitors for the band to work(!), and then getting the correct instruments in each. I don't understand why they didn't have everything checked before the musicians even showed up--and then to ask us to come in early on Saturday to help them solve this technical dilemma? Say what? Third, the layout of the band made seeing the music director a challenge--she was so far off to my side (like between 9 and 10 o'clock) that most everything I could see was peripheral. Since I had never played this show with these people, I was trying to go on every physical cue I could get.

Saturday: We played the show in Roswell. Still cold, but the monitor situation was a little better. My solution was to point the speaker away from myself and listen to the drummer's wedge instead (which was lots of piano), and I turned my chair towards the music director as much as I could without looking like I was sitting sideways on stage. Made it through just fine.

Sunday: Same show, different room! Our second/final performance was at Actor's Express, a small theatre in the King Plow Arts Center (many a wedding have I played at King Plow!). We had an afternoon rehearsal/tech run-through, which ended early because the audio guy had everything dialed in before we got there. Imagine that!

This show was on headphones. The band was in the wing overlooking the stage, set up in a line...in the dark, so no visual cues! The music director did have a talk-back microphone in our ears, though, so we got count-offs and stuff that way.

And that was that! Saw an old friend, made some new friends, got a little better at playing clarinet. It was a fun gig! And I made it home in time to see the second half of the Super Bowl, which was about as much as I can handle these days.

Last Week's Business

Wednesday: We played Fishcenter Live at Adult Swim. I'm not sure who watches this show (which seems to be four stoned guys hanging out, and the only thing on the screen is a live feed of an aquarium), but they now have bands come through and perform.

Here's a representative example:

Thursday: I played the lead tenor chair with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra at Venkman's. Love this band! Great music and a great group of people.

Check out these excellent photos by Emily Butler Photography.

The big challenge for this particular show was a clarinet feature called Lorenzo's Wings that scared me to death--I'm not the most electrifying clarinetist, to begin with, and adding an improvised solo? Yikes! Rob asked me about it at the beginning of the year, so I spent a lot of time working on it (22 of the 24 days I had available), and...I played really well!

Friday: Back to Yacht Rock--got up and flew to Utah for a gig for AMC at the Sundance Film Festival. It's our third year playing the event, and fortunately, they moved the gig to a ballroom with an actual stage and better acoustics.

The major downside to this gig is the fact that it's a long flight, and then an even longer time of sitting around. The show began at 10 PM local time (midnight for our Atlanta body clocks), which made for a loooooooooong day.

The party was well attended by good looking people who danced all night, which helped. All things considered, we played really well!

However, this gig did have a video screen on the wall behind Mark Cobb (and one directly across the room from us) that played 70s music videos and commercials and stuff. I'm pretty sure I saw the same clip of Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers six times.

Also, CeeLo Green was there! I think he only showed up for the last twenty or thirty minutes. I guess he dug it, though.

And then we drove an hour back to Salt Lake City and slept for four or five hours.

Saturday: Got up and flew back to Atlanta. I had just enough time to go home, drop my luggage, pick up some different gear, eat, and head out to a rehearsal for a show I'm playing this week--a concert performance of the musical The Color Purple. My brain, surprisingly, did not turn to mush. I do love the challenge of playing the book, too. Flute, clarinet, and alto sax on this one.

Sunday: Yacht Rock played the Giving Kitchen's Team Hidi 8 event--it's a benefit to raise money to help injured/uninsured restaurant workers. We've played every one of them. While I fully support the cause, this room is a pretty awful place to put a band. The load in/out is almost as frustrating as the acoustics.

Anyway...once we got into it, everything was fine. I was home by 10:30 PM, and it paid a lot more than my church gig would have.

Here's What's Up

Thursday: Yacht Rock played the Georgia Theatre in Athens. It was a very full house, which, for some reason, surprised me. I guess I was thinking that Thursday wouldn't be a big night, especially with a 9 PM start time. Also--ugh! 9 PM! That put us back in Atlanta around 2 AM. 

Kind of an average gig for us, playing-wise, though.

Friday: We played a private/corporate party at The Roxy. This one had a some things working against it--first, I think the room was too big, so when people left or walked off to the bars, it felt like there was no one there. Also, they had a long program (dinner, awards, band), and I think we'd lost a fair number of people before we even took the stage. The long day also affected us, as we had to get there really early, set up (and after hanging around, never get a soundcheck), and then hang around for three or four hours before it was time to play the show. I did squeeze in a lot of practicing and a run, so I got something out of this night.

We we kind of coasting through this one.

Saturday: We played Venkman's. It's sort of a similar situation--there's a lot of down time between setting up and playing the gig, which kind of drains some of the enthusiasm for playing.

Venkman's was packed, though, which helps!

There was a DJ after our set. That always inspires me to exit as quickly as possible.

Week One

The first week of the 2020 Yacht Rock tour is in the books!

The weekend began in Lexington, Kentucky at the Manchester Music Hall. We played here once before, a few years ago--I remember it as the first gig with new equipment (after some of our gear was stolen in Louisville).

It's pretty decent for a Thursday night. The room looked to be a comfortably full--a good showing for our second time here in two and a half years.

Friday was night one at the Egyptian Room in Indianapolis. We've played here several times, and I like it, mainly for it's large stage and multiple dressing rooms. Also, we pack this place out, hence the two shows.

Here's my solo on the end of Biggest Part of Me. Thursday's version had gotten a bit harmonically abusive, so I tried to stay more on the bluesy side of things.

Saturday, I slept late, had coffee, ran on the treadmill, ate at the Indian buffet, practiced, and walked to the gig early (and got all my flute warmups done).

Night two in the Egyptian had even more people stuffed in there. After playing well on Friday, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to match the energy on this show, but we gradually relaxed into the evening, and everybody played equally well.

Biggest Part of Me was on the setlist again this evening, and I was pretty sure that I liked what I'd played the night before, and I thought there was a good chance that I would try again, but that I'd overblow and get uptight and all that, and the solo would turn into a bunch of rambling bullshit. HOWEVER! This night's attempt held together well, and I especially like the opening few melodic ideas I had before it got down to playing some fast crap. So...dig it!

Sunday morning, it was time to head back to Atlanta. Our hotel in downtown Indy used to be a bank--you don't see a lot of hotel lobbies like this!

Last One, First One

End of the year gig, beginning of the year gig--here we go.

Yacht Rock played two gigs around New Year's, both connected to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville.

New Year's Eve was some sort of VIP thing in a hotel ballroom.  There was a screen showing highlights from previous years on repeat. It went around five times. Interesting that Jimbo Fisher was featured as an FSU assistant coach, FSU head coach, and Texas A&M head coach. And that was the gist of the gig for me.

Mark Bencuya would want me to point out that over the years, our NYE gigs have ended earlier and earlier, and I would agree that this is overall a good thing. This night ended at 11:45 PM, when the guests were all sent outside to watch fireworks over the river.

New Year's Day was a day off. I slept late, ate overpriced french toast (and four bananas), went for a run, and worked on the Sonny Stitt transcription that I posted a couple of days ago.

After my run, I walked to a burrito place for dinner, which included (via Google maps) the directions to basically walk along what looked like an I-95 entrance ramp! I was cold and tired, so I did it.

January 2 was another gig day, this time at a pep rally before the game. Jacksonville has an amphitheater built right next to the stadium, and we set up there for a ninety minute concert for fans. I imagine that it was pretty boomy with all that concrete, but it was new and very comfortable, and...I didn't care.

Before we played, both marching bands came through and worked their constituents into a frenzy. I like the new band uniforms, IU.

And then we played...the weather was great, we played for an hour and a half, and my stuff was packed and stacked by 7:15 PM.

Time for one more run in Jacksonville! This place is DEAD at night. Also, flat. Easy running. Ate two more burritos.

I Can't Give You Anything But Love

I was at a jam session about a month and a half ago and got called up to back a singer on I Can't Give You Anything But Love, a tune I did not know, so I did my best to "ear" my way through it. Most of it is pretty obvious--it's one, two five, two five to the four chord, major two, that kind of thing. I think the only really weird thing is the second measure, which I think is often played as some kind of diminished three (in this case, Eb diminished for the alto), but Stitt is pretty clearly outlining E minor to A7(b9) in his solos.



The leader of the session reminded me of this classic recording of Sonny Stitt with the Oscar Peterson trio (with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums), and I thought it a good idea to write out Stitt's solo and see what he's doing. It's a beautiful example of the bebop vocabulary. Enjoy!

Church

I've finished out the year with two more church services--Christmas Eve and yesterday's regular Sunday mass, both on flute. It was great to end it playing well on a gig that I enjoy, with just enough space for me to be creative within the written music, and plenty of challenges to my musical abilities (thinking of dynamics and intonation here!). So I'll keep at it as much as my Yacht Rock calendar allows, stretching to become a more expressive flutist and a more empathetic musician overall. See y'all in 2020!