David Freeman Music

Things have slowed waaaaaaaay down since mid December, but I did play a few more gigs here and there. My church gig continues to chug along, and because Christmas Eve was during the week, I got an extra service out of it. I also got a call to play two services after that with some friends at another church, so three on the night, which was pretty cool. All on flute, which was good...and tiring! I made the mistake of doing a normal day's worth of practicing at home, then playing all the prelude Christmas carols, and then playing the mass, so by the second service, my face was starting to get pretty fried. I recovered by midnight mass, but if this happens again, I guess I have to either play more leading up to the big day, or play less and literally save face! On the Friday after Christmas, the Yacht Rock Revue played a show at the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham. What a beautiful place! Lots of places to explore... It's a really cool building--kind of rem...

This week of December is usually one of the busiest of the year, with Saturday usually being the pinnacle. There's even a term for this--#gigmas--which is slung around social media. In Atlanta, it seems to be a favorite of trumpet players, but my quick search of the internet indicates that it is also shared with oboists. Interesting. Anyway, beyond this date (this year it's the 15th), the calendar slows down for most musicians. For us at Yacht Rock, we were fortunate to have two mid week gigs before our big holiday special on the 15th. Tuesday: The Miller Theatre in Augusta. Beautiful room, easy load in, multiple dressing rooms, great acoustics. We played some sort of fundraiser that was not particularly well attended. Still, what a great room! I would love to come back here for a regular Yacht Rock show. Excellent on all counts. Thursday: Stamford, Connecticut. We had an early flight--9:40 AM--which meant that the carpool meet up was at 7:45, which meant tha...

I was fortunate to be available to play with Bumpin' the Mango Monday night, holding down the bari parts in a five piece horn section. The band is really good, the charts are great, and the song selection is fantastic--it's a thrill to take on a lot of the classic Tower of Power tunes and similar music. On top of the that, it's a good hang. Some of these guys I've known for twenty years at this point. It went well, I think. Everybody seemed EXTREMELY happy with my playing, which makes me 1. wonder what the other subs have been doing on the gig; and 2. hope that I never get called again, because I already feel the pressure to live up to whatever I did Monday night. Anyway, here are the two sets:

Friday night, we headed up I-75 for a show at The Signal in Chattanooga. We hadn't been here since the end of March. Good to be back! This was an excellent show--the crowd of around a thousand was fun but not obnoxious, the room sounded great, and we played well. Nick is still fighting his cold, so the setlist avoided most of his more difficult songs. Saturday's gig in Dalton was only a half hour away, so killed a lot of time in Chattanooga before heading there. For me, it was the usual combination of sleeping as late as possible, getting some exercise, and then finding lunch. Pete and I dined at an Indian restaurant on Market Street. This evening's show was a corporate Christmas party in the convention center. At the start of it, the most enticing thing was that were able to put the van and trailer inside the building, just behind the stage (making for a quick and dry load out). The first set was a snoozer. On the break, we were all thinking about wande...

Friday: We started the weekend with an early flight and crash landing in Indianapolis (slept the whole way!), meeting up with the van, gear, and crew just after noon. So...lunch. chana masala from India Garden buffet We still had plenty of time to waste, so we went ahead and checked into our hotel. I also went for a run. the Northwestern U. football team headed to the stadium Peyton Manning statue! This evening's gig was a joint 50th birthday party. Very tame. Nick was super sick with a cold and we drastically shuffled the setlist, but nobody seemed to notice. Saturday: Public show at the Murat! We've finally left The Vogue behind and moved on to a bigger room in Indy. The ballroom holds 2,000 people, and we sold it out. dinner at The Garden Table on Mass Ave Soooo...pretty good gig tonight! Nick was still sick, so the setlist was duly adjusted (though we did pull a soundcheck version of Elvira  off). One with the I...

Two Yacht Rock gigs this week--the day before Thanksgiving, and the day after. Wednesday night was pretty good. The only song that kind of bit me was Minute by Minute-- there's a tricky spot where I have one beat to change sounds and get both hands lined up correctly. Sometimes I need a little extra time. That was the case this evening. Everything else was fine. I never could really find my groove, though. Other thoughts: local jazz legend Kevin Bales was up front checking us out all night. It was cool that he was there checking us out, but I think it got in my head that I needed to impress him. Alyssa Olson (Pete's wife) guested on Islands in the Stream . She sounded great and looked to be having more fun than anybody in the room. Here's video of the gig. Friday's "Black Friday" gig unfortunately didn't Steely Dan's Black Friday (which would've been cool). In fact, with a couple of subs in tow, the setlist stayed much closer to so...

Two outdoor gigs this week...in mid November...what the hell? I'm sure it's fine when you're walking around (and can LEAVE WHEN YOU GET UNCOMFORTABLE!), but I'm sitting on a stool touching a cold plastic keyboard or a cold piece of metal, and I like the check, but my hands go numb and we need to stop this outdoor gig in November bullshit. Thursday: Off to Bluffton, South Carolina for a food festival thing. We played this gig last year ( you can read about it here ). I'm still not exactly sure who's attending this or why. Also, why does it have to be so late in the year? A month earlier would've been much better, temperature-wise.  green room boredom this is about twenty degrees too cold for me Fortunately for me, Kip had a heater brought to the stage, which we planted right behind me. My hands still got cold, but I was able to occasionally reach up and thaw them out when things got really dire. Basically, this was a nifty corporate g...