David Freeman Music

I got paid (in theory) big money this weekend for all my cartage .  Not really, but it was a weekend of many, many horns (and my "bag o' crap" percussion). Friday:  I had two gigs.  The first was a quick quartet gig downtown at Ventanas, so I hired Louis Heriveaux, Kevin Smith, and Marlon Patton .  Awesome gig!  Those guys make my stuff sound like we play together all the time.  It was very relaxed, but focused at the same time. I was particularly impressed with Marlon.  I do way more trio gigs than quartets, so I really noticed his input the most.  He was super creative and read everything down without any problems.  Could he be the Mark Cobb of my jazz world?  I'm thinkin' yes.  Listen to his stuff.  Fantastic. The jazz gig was two horns--tenor and soprano. The second gig was Beatles ( Please Pleaserock Me ) vs. Rolling Stones ( Main Street Exiles ) at Smith's.  I played on both.  The Stones went first. ...

My Life practice rig! This past Wednesday, we ( Yacht Rock / Please Pleaserock Me ) had a big rehearsal--5 Beatles tunes ( I Want to Hold Your Hand, Back in the USSR, Ob-La-Di- Ob-La-Da, Taxman,  and Revolution ) and 2 Yacht Rock tunes ( My Life by Billy Joel and Thunder Island by Jay Ferguson).  The Beatles stuff was easy--I make charts and play them, plus it's lots of tambourine and clapping.  I was really pumped about playing My Life --not only is it a big song for me personally, but once I started listening to it, it sounded like piano PLUS rhodes (and synth on the main riff).  So…Bencuya plays piano, but I double him on the rhodes, which turned out to be a terrific challenge.  I have to BE Bencuya for a couple of minutes there. Pete's facial castanets for Thunder Island Anyway, I practiced it like crazy.  We played a couple of times at rehearsal.  I was fine. We weren't going to play it last night at the 10 High gig because Mark Cob...

I did my two church gigs. The first church gig was a circus.  The usual sound guy was not there, and we had all kinds of trouble with the headphone mix (except for me, of course, because I do not wear them).  Static, instruments disappearing, screaming acoustic guitar.  All there. We were asked to stay and play half of the next service, which featured the adult choir, the children's choir, and the "orchestra" (which was really the church's community band).  It was chaos.  We had so many tunes stuck in the music books, and some were for the second service and some were for the first, and nobody was sure what belonged to what.  We rehearsed everything (but without the adult choir, children's choir, or "orchestra") that morning, but not in any kind of order--more of "Hey, can we play through this one?" kind of thing. My second church gig began a half hour after the Super Bowl.  From my position, I counted sixty-eight people in attendance.  T...

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody party at the W Perimeter last night.  It was probably not the best venue for us and the event--we were jammed into a pretty tiny ballroom (I guess it's the only one in the hotel, come to think of it).  They had tables with local food samples lining the walls all the way around. Everybody was back for this gig-- Nick was fronting the band, and Mark Cobb was kicking it in the ass!  It was a really relaxed event--we were loaded in plenty early, soundchecked, and then hung out in a suite on the top floor until it was time to eat.  We ate, we played, we drank.  Gradually, we took over the party.  I don't think the local food people were too thrilled that we sucked all the attention away from them.  Before the end of the first set, it had become a concert.  In fact, it seemed like most of the vendors bailed before the end of the night. I played really well.  I'm (thankfully) still in a good groove. ...

Last night's Yacht Rock gig was a little different from the past month--no Nick (Kevin Spencer in his place) and no Mark Cobb ( Ganesh in his place).  It was still pretty smooth, but the banter is not of the same quality! Just like last week, I prepared for the gig like it was some kind of exam.  This week's big addition to my performance was playing all of my parts to Baby Come Back on keyboard.  Impressive, non?  Mais oui.  Bencuya's over there having a good time with the rhodes part, so I'm playing strings.  On the verse, I'm playing piano;  on the choruses, I'm playing clav (with the strings).  Then on the bridge, I'm playing the synth part, complete with the big pitch two octave pitch bend.  Who's the man!  I mentioned my newfound keyboard prowess at the end of the first set, and Bencuya mentioned that he heard everything I played, and it sounded great.  I think he was trying to make up for the fact that he repeatedly men...

Mark Dannells and I are unveiling our new flute and guitar demo!  You can hear it on my website . davidfreemanmusic.net

Here are a few videos from the Variety Playhouse show a few Fridays ago: Here are a few videos of me from last night: davidfreemanmusic.net