David Freeman Music

David Ellington and I played a duo gig at JCT Kitchen on the west side of Atlanta tonight.  I think we've done about six or seven of these sax/organ gigs now. Good gig, though it was really hot for a while.  We were in the shade behind the fake silo, and then I was in the sun and Dave was in the shade (and my horn got really sharp).  Finally, the sun slipped behind the lofts across the parking lot, and then we were in the dark. Check out our sounds: JCT gig number four.  Next time I intend to order something other than the cheeseburger.

Yacht Rock played a run of the mill corporate party last night.  The optimistic plan was that after the dinner and awards, everybody would stick around to party and dance the Wednesday night away.  Worst case scenario, the awards end and everybody leaves the room.  For the most part, that's what we got.  It didn't help that the bar station was out in the pre function area.  We played to around twenty-five people (fifteen of which were seated around two tables in the back of the room).  Our handler was super cool about everything, though. Other random things...I packed my stage clothes except for shirts, so halfway to the gig I had to turn around and go home;  I was forty-five minutes late to load in, but still set up in time for soundcheck...the load in at the Intercon in Buckhead is terrible...we did the ice bucket challenge, and it got me, though my hat took the brunt of it (you can watch it here:  https://www.facebook.com/video.php?...

Monday night, I had another opportunity to sub on bari sax with Bumpin' the Mango at Cafe 290.  In case you don't know, BtM is a funk/soul band in the style of Tower of Power--five horns, rhythm section, and a vocalist.  It's awesome fun!  I love the music and the band.  Rarely do I get to hang out with a bunch of other horn players these days. It was a great night!  I got to stand next to John Sandfort all night--one of my favorite sax players in town.  Fantastic stuff. Can't wait to do this one again!

Yacht Rock was back at the Park Tavern a month after our triumphant Revival (July 19).   Pretty huge crowd!  Presales were just about a thousand people, so I think we came close to the maximum.  They were really into it, too, which made for a really fun show.  I was kind of lukewarm about playing this gig, but the energy from everybody made it pretty exciting.  It was really hot, particularly for the first set.  Even with my fan, I was soaked by the time we took a break;  so sweaty that it made playing flute on Lowdown especially difficult, as a I couldn't keep the flute in one spot on my face.  The second set was better.  Maybe the heat of the day had finally dissipated enough. My performance was mixed.  I played well in the first set until the end, when a few weird notes began to creep into some chords on Go Your Own Way .  Basically I kept hitting E instead of F, which made my Bb triad a #4 and my F major triads major 7th...

Uhhhh...Saturday evening, Yacht Rock played a wedding at the History Center.  I would rank this among my least favorite load ins--you either run everything up through the door off the courtyard (into the elevator), or you compete with the catering truck to get stuff through the loading dock.  Either way is a drag, with a cranky elevator in either situation.  I forget about it because we don't play here very often.  It's a beautiful room, but getting up there is a pain. We got upstairs only to find out that the stage was the incorrect size (I believe 16x16 instead of 16x24), so we were a bit snug, but it didn't really matter.  We were able to get everything on stage in our usual configuration. The gig was pretty good.  The bride and groom are big fans, and so everybody knew what they were getting into--captain's hats were distributed and away we went.  A lovely crowd, hats or no hats. The first dance shredded my throat--Sam Cooke's You Send Me ...

The Yacht Rock guys (plus Paul Poovey on trumpet) brought our Beatles tribute out to 37 Main in Johns Creek last night--our first time at this venue and one of the only times we've ever played the Fab Four beyond Smith's Olde Bar. Pretty good show overall.  The whole room felt acoustically controlled--the PA was loud, but there weren't a lot of reflective surfaces to bounce sound.  It felt like we were playing pretty hard, but the stage sound never got very loud.  It was fine with me--I could everything on stage without it getting washy. This is a new 37 Main (the other is on Main Street in Duluth).  Nice place!  Good size room, good food/hospitality, good staff, easy load in.  I'll take it!  The only weirdness I can think of is the air conditioning vent that was directly above the horn section, causing some tuning anomalies and a constant fight to keep our charts on the music stand.  The other peculiarity was that the hazer (fo...

Henry Conerway III, David Ellington, and I played a superb gig last night.  I brought a PA, but we didn't turn it on until the gig was over (I played music off my phone while we packed up).  We thought it would be a polite gig (dessert music), but the eight hundred people standing in front of us were loud, and they didn't care how hard we played, so we went for it. Check out the tunes!  This gig was only an hour long (seven songs).  Not too shabby for a Wednesday night!