Sunday

Today was my last church gig at St. Ann's. The budget was slashed, and most of the contracted musicians lost their gigs (myself included). Big question...will anybody notice we're gone?

Our pool was closed all day today due to the presence of "fecal matter"...a little dookie, if you will.

World of Plastic Coke Bottles

I had a corporate jazz gig last night at the World of Coke. If you haven't seen the new World of Coke, I'd say it's about the same as the old World of Coke, except in a different location. Last night's thing was an awards dinner.
It's a real drag to watch the people at the event filling the water glasses for 200 people with Dasani bottles. I mean, come on...shouldn't there be a Dasani fountain at the World of Coke? We were playing in the hub, where's there's a nice display about recycling plastic Coke bottles, and right below are ten waiters creating more empty plastic bottles. Even worse than that--in between my quartet and the recycling display was a bar station, and when I walked by there I noticed their garbage cans were full of trash, including glass and plastic bottles. No recycling going on there either.
The World of Coke needs to get their act together with the recycling. What occurred last night was an embarassment. Is it really too much for Coke to insist on recycling at events held in their building?

Swim with the Fishes

Greetings. It's been a week. You probably thought I was dead.

This week was marked by Jack's transformation into a fish. About a week ago he figured out that he could go under water and not die, and since then he's been in the pool, swimming, more or less constantly. I think he's down there once or twice a day for hours at a time. It's a lot more fun to go now because of that, so I've been trying to be there as much as I can, so I haven't been putting in much time on the horn.
This week's Yacht Rock was a bit of a pressure cooker for me due to the fact that I had to play keyboard on a few tunes to cover Brandon being out. I am not a good pianist, so I really had to put in the time to try and approximate what he would normally play with ease. The biggie that I was concerned about was the rhodes part on "I Keep Forgettin'." I did pretty well. Actually, I wish I was more comfortable, because when I am playing keyboards and getting it right, I enjoy it.
One thing I noticed (again) about my playing is how I get lazy about breathing. At times I find myself not taking in enough air, and then I can't make it through phrases. This happened to me last night in a couple of spots--the first one that comes to mind being the solo on "Heart of Rock and Roll." I was thinking about my stage movements and the solo, and I didn't get a good breath in the solo, so then I was trying to make up for it in every hole until the solo ended. I guess I just need to be more aware of it. It's kind of stupid, actually. If you're talking, you never stop to think about the fact that there's no air in your lungs. I need to slow down a little, I guess, and not be so sloppy.
Yesterday I did some recording at Metronome Studios for a band called Attractive Eighties Women. Tom Gibson and I played on a tune about zombies. I played bari sax and alto sax.
After that it was to the pool!
Tonight I'm playing a private function at the World of Coke--a little three hour hit. I'll be home before midnight!

Thursday (night)

Thursday night was the premiere of Reagan Rock (a continuation of Yacht Rock into the early 80s). Highlights: the oppressive heat of the 10 High made everyone uncomfortable. Gina Niespodziani made some awesome 80s compilation videos that played in the background. Lots of NBC News clips, Dallas and Dynasty, Miami Vice, Knight Rider. some early 80s movies. Funny stuff. I remember it all very well. Peter and Nick brought a ziploc bag of "cocaine", which they cut and snorted on a big mirror they had.
The Reagan Rock set was pretty pressurized. We all seemed to be concentrating on getting it right, and when we came back with a set of Yacht Rock, everybody seemed to go kind of mushy (the heat also wilted us).
Speaking of the heat! For the past several weeks I've been thinking my laptop was dying due to the heat. It seemed like it would start fine, and by two-thirds of the way through the set, it would get weird. I can't say more than it would react differently to me. Last night I finally figured out that it was NOT the laptop, but instead the EWI itself. When the heat and humidity go up, the little diaphram inside that measures breath pressure changes slightly, and it was causing notes to stay on. Just barely, but it was still transmitting data through the MIDI. So, when I would then change patches or turn the EWI and off, there would be an interuption of the data, and it would cause the computer to do weird stuff. Ah ha! The solution was to turn down the sensitivity to breath slightly, and it goes back to acting like my EWI rig. What a relief to know what was going on!

Thursday (day)

Here's a recap of Thursday (day), in case you weren't here for all of it...

I still worried about my alto mouthpiece not being quite right. All the little chirps and reed issues I've had made me concerned that there might be some sort of trouble lurking there. I couldn't stand it, so for my own mental health I drove to Suwanee Thursday morning to have Will Grizzle check out my mouthpiece. He measured it and flattened the table a little bit. Not really much of anything. However, now I'm confident that whatever problems I may encounter, they're not the fault of the mouthpiece. As soon as I finish typing this, I'm going to run over to Bryan Lopes' house and let him look over my alto, so then I can be sure my equipment is operating at its peak.

Jack and I returned and hit the pool. He made HUGE strides yesterday in swimming. At the beginning of our time there, he only wanted to kick across the shallow end with a kickboard. By the end of yesterday, he was running and jumping of the side of the pool (yelling "CANNONBALL!!!"), and kicking (face IN the water!!!!) back to the steps. How awesome is that?

Michael Brecker Masterclass

Here's a cool mp3 of Michael Brecker giving a masterclass at Berklee in 1987. Lots of interesting stuff (click here for a link to mp3). It's over an hour, so give yourself time (or download it). I ended up staying up waaaaaay too late listening to it.

One thing that jumped out at me is the awareness that great players have about their own playing (and those who came before them). I really think that if you want to improve, you have to be able to objectively study your own playing and know what needs improvement. Not in a general "I suck" sort of way, but in a "everytime I'm in this situation, I play this, and I should fix it" kind of way. The closer you get to pinpointing your problems, the quicker you can get to the business of attacking them. It seems obvious, but I think too many players hide behind the false humility of "I suck!" and never go after what they don't like about their playing.

Saturday hurt me

Saturday hurt me. I was up until at least 2:30 AM Friday night, and then I woke up at 6 AM so I could get my butt down to the Georgia International Convention Center by 7:15 AM. We (basically my church gig at St. Ann's with Kevin Wyglad) played for what looked like a jillion people for the Eucharistic Congress for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. We finished just after 11 AM. I took Beth to Peachtree City, and then went home and ate lunch. Then I loaded the truck with my Yacht Rock stuff and headed to the zoo for the Brew at the Zoo.

I played with Y.O.U. in their set. They were, of course, awesome. Then we reset and played a long Yacht Rock set. We did well, and the crowd responded in kind. I didn't have much sax playing in the Yacht Rock set--mostly EWI. I do wonder how much I contributed last night--I was pretty wiped out.

Mark Cobb taught me about funk drumming--it's much funkier when you play backbeat on the snare and do the accents with the kick drum.

I got home around 10:30 PM, and I bet I was alseep within an hour. I needed it. I woke up with the lights and TV still on...with just enough time to take a shower, swap out gear, and head out to my next gig--12:15 mass at St. Ann's.