David Freeman Music

Yacht Rock 's only got three more 10 High appearances.  We played last night to an OK crowd.  Almost there! davidfreemanmusic.net

the empty dance floor Obviously, you weren't there…I mean, NOBODY was there…but we had a pretty good salsa gig last night at Kat's Cafe in midtown.  For the most part, we got it right, and the handful of people (eight?) who did show up were genuinely appreciative and danced well.  We had fun, and played well for no full rehearsal!   Linda Chicana by David B Freeman See you next time! davidfreemanmusic.net

I had the pleasure of playing with Tito Puente Jr at the Atlanta Jazz Festival last night.  Leading up to the gig, I was really excited, then not excited at all, and then we got on stage and it was exciting again. Very cool…just the sound of two trumpets (Karl Liberatore and Paul Garrett), trombone (Eric Alexander), tenor sax ( Will Scruggs ), and me playing full blast mambos for an hour and a half was incredible.  Tito brought his rhythm section guys, and they were naturally awesome (and the keyboardist had a piano AND a suitcase rhodes…nice!). At one point, we stopped so they could introduce the band, and the music director handed ME the microphone to introduce the horn section.  I HATE TALKING ON THE MIC!!!!!  I was so petrified that I have no recollection of what I said.  It was horrifying, and it took me almost two songs to recover from the adrenaline.  I was informed by my son this morning that I was on the video screen while I was speaking...

I played two gigs today. Gig number one was a little salsa trio--a party celebrating the first communion.  Did I mention in an earlier post that we had a rehearsal?  We got together in a rather rough part of Decatur at the home of someone NOT playing in the trio (I don't know how that happened, but it made me think driving away afterwards that I probably should have told my family where I would be in case I didn't come back).  Anyway, we sorted out keys, transitions, forms, endings--you know what I mean. Yeah, well, fuck everything I just mentioned.  The transitions, the form, fuck it all.  Kind of frustrating.  What else?  Well, how about the gig was 2:30-4:30.  I got there at 1:50.  The second guy in the trio showed up at 2:26, so I sat in these people's living room for a half hour pretending to do stuff on my phone, occasionally assuring the homeowners that the band was "right around the corner."  Fun.  And hey, the gig's ...

this will make sense later The Yacht Rock Revue had a great show at the Park Tavern last night.  We had a really big, enthusiastic crowd--it was a lot of fun! I played pretty well…I tried the strings on Night Fever with a harmony underneath it, but I didn't like it at all.  The kinks of live performance… We released a couple of recordings at the show.   Yacht Rock Revue:  Live at the Georgia Theatre ( you can buy it here ), and our original songs ( Can't Wait for Summer and Good Thing ), which you can find on iTunes here .  Yay for us! In other news, I sucked real bad on Whatever Gets You Through the Night .  My reed could not stand the humidity, and I grabbed the mouthpiece too hard.  Boo for me. Peter Stroud sat in with us on Can't Wait for Summer and Still the One , and then snuck up on stage at the end of the night to duel with Dannells on Go Your Own Way .  Awesome stuff! davidfreemanmusic.net

Funny thing about being a sax player…my brain automatically thinks mouthpiece ( Otto Link ) whenever I say or hear the word link.  Ha!  I just made a (hyper)link for my link. Yacht Rock played a private party in Centennial Olympic Park for Georgia Link , which is a lobbyist group.  We played on the stage, almost across the street from CNN.  Usual easy stuff…no problems from the audience, and we played well.  We were fortunate to have the gig as an opportunity to run down the things from rehearsal again before the big Park Tavern show tonight.  With that said, I fared a lot better on the things I'd ruined the other day ( Sara Smile and Night Fever ).  Bring on the next gig! Anyway, this gig was a long one…three sets, so it stretched out from 7:30-11 PM.  We were there all damn day.  Still, I was home earlier than I would've been if we'd been stuck at the 10 High, so yay for that. Here's one of Dave's faves... ...

The Yacht Rock Revue played a gig for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce on Monday night, out at the Ritz at Lake Oconee .  Super sweet gig!  We played one ninety minute set (8:30-10 PM), and they set us up with rooms for the night (as in individual rooms at the Ritz).  Holy cow!  We also ate steak and asparagus and some kind of banana custard desserts.  Good stuff. the view from my room So…the Ritz has a dog!  A chocolate lab named Dooley who spends the day next to the concierge.  Awesome dog--I tried to bribe him with my apple core to come to 346 so we could hang out. Tuesday morning, we stopped at a McDonalds for coffee, and there was another cute dog parked out front who looked a lot like the Reggie Dog. my dog Reggie (picture for physical comparison) We straight to a rehearsal…me, not so great.  Ugh.  I sucked real bad on my big two measure string solo on Sara Smile . In other news… Yacht Rock has released a live...