David Freeman Music

I played a great trio gig last night with Kevin Smith (bass) and Kenny Banks Jr (keyboard) at the World of Coke.  It was some kind of corporate dinner, so we did about two hours, had an hour break during the awards ceremony, and then played thirty to forty minutes to get them all back out the door.  Easy stuff. I felt good, playing-wise, and Kenny and Kevin sounded great.  Here's audio: Usually I record with a stereo microphone on top of my music stand, but for this gig we went through a PA, so this is a board mix.  Hence the lack of background noise. Super awesome gig.  Check out Kenny's solo on Guitar Song when you get a second.  Also, my apologies for having no recollection of the form for Red Clay .

Church day!  I had two in at the AM and one at the PM. My AM church gig was pretty good.  It ended up by sheer luck that I really didn't need to play any tenor.  I mostly played soprano, with one song on flute and one on clarinet.  I played the preservice music (for five minutes on tenor) before the first service, and that was the last time I picked up the horn. My flute felt great, clarinet felt…like clarinet.  I worked on my soprano (tweaking the right hand adjustment screws with the help of my leak light), and I think I fixed my leak.  The horn is fine in that regard, but I had trouble playing in tune (the story of my life).  Left hand was flat, right hand was sharp.  It took me most of the service to find the magic spot on the neck where I could pull the low stuff up and push the sharp stuff down. I played the 1-2-3-6-5 "I'm lovin' it" McDonalds riff all over the main song, much to Matt the sound man's enjoyment.  In the second serv...

Yacht Rock had a one night stand in Grapevine (Dallas/Fort Worth) Texas last night at a place called the Glass Cactus.  Pretty cool!  It's a nice room (holds maybe 1,500 people?) attached to the Gaylord Texan, which is a humongous hotel and convention center kind of near DFW Airport. Fun gig!  We flew out of Atlanta Friday morning…early.  This was my first time flying with my Battle Cases sax case--the idea being that instead of lugging two saxes and my EWI, plus my laptop and all the pedals and crap around, I'd check my horns and let somebody else carry the weight.  Before I bought the case, I called Delta twice (since we almost always fly out of Atlanta on Delta) to see if I could check a case like this without paying extra charges for size and weight (total linear dimensions of 81 inches and sixty-three pounds).  The answer was yes.  After I got the thing, I called Delta twice again, asking the same question.  Still yes.  Thursday ...

I was eager to wash yesterday's bad taste out of my mouth.  Fortunately, Sunday turned out to be a big gig day.  Check it out: Gig #1:  AM church gig.  The usual stuff.  Very lightly attended--spring break has sprung here. Tommy Dodd showed up to play pedal steel, which is cool but always makes me wonder what I'm supposed to do when he's playing fills between the vocals.  It turned out not to matter because the jack on his guitar died and he did not play at all.  No Matt running sound. Gig #2:  I left straight from the church to the Renaissance Waverly over by the Cobb Galleria for a brunch gig for the University of Michigan (one more Final Four gig!).  This was a lot of fun for me.  It was a flute/guitar/bass trio, which I haven't done maybe ever (I have done some flute/guitar duos in the past). We attempted my originals.  It was totally weird because I'm used to transposing everything for saxophone, so for a while I had ...

Yacht Rock had a pretty nice weekend of Final Four gigs lined up.  One good, one not so good. Our Friday night gig was for coaches and athletic directors--lotta dudes.  Bonnie Bernstein was there interviewing people.  The gig was easy--two sets--and everybody there was really cool.  It was at Puritan Mill (great looking room) with Rick and Mark running sound (sounded good).  I think everybody in the band was in the mood to play, too, so the gig was really good and enjoyable, and I was home around midnight.  Yes! Saturday was a mega gig--we were the opener for the big concert in Centennial Olympic Park.  Huge stage--the kind you see on the Palladia channel.  Biggest stage I've ever been on.  The big time!  It was us, then Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, then Ludacris, then Flo Rida, then Muse.  The crew loaded our gear from the trailer all the way to the stage.  Nice.  I went and set my coffee free in our dr...

It's been a while… After finishing the AM church gig revival, I've done very little.  Easter weekend is not a good weekend for gigs (unless you've got an awesome Easter morning gig lined up), so I've been working in the yard and sleeping and watching YouTube videos.  I've also been working on horn arrangements for a funky New Orleans/Little Feat studio project.  Also, I fixed my EWI antennae. Speaking of Easter gigs, my AM church gig did not want me there Sunday morning, so I slept in.  My PM church gig DID happen.  My mix was pretty bad, partly because the pick up on the piano has a short in it--it finally kicked on about two thirds of the way through the service, so we suddenly had lots of volume.  Beyond that, I haven't much to say. This coming weekend, I return to a more normal playing schedule--two shows related to the Final Four stuff, including a big show in Centennial Olympic Park on Saturday.  Woohoo! April 6, Centennial Olympic Par...

Last night of the big revival… I heard a few giggles about me and a chair from the night before.  The soloist for the revival used tracks Monday night for part of the performance.  When the first track began, I thought to walk off stage, but nobody else in the band moved, so I just stood there, clarinet in hand, staring at my shoes.  I thought, "One song and then I can go."  That song ended and I started to walk, and then a second tune began.  Agh!  Stuck for two songs of shoe gazing!  Halfway through the second song, someone came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder:  the pastor brought me a folding chair.  The second song ended and I looked for a sign that we'd all be leaving, but a third song began.  At least I had a place to sit for that one. So…evidently I looked kind of uncomfortable.  It even came up in the sermon that the chair offered to me was an act of compassion.  Jeez. Our last night was similar to S...