The Weekend

This weekend was pretty easy. Friday I taught a few lessons. Nothing in particular to say about it.
Saturday was also pretty straightforward. Jack had a t ball game. That night I had a wedding reception--jazz quartet plus a singer. It was a wonderful alternative to the usual "we exist to serve you" sort of ass-kissing wedding gigs to which I've grown accustomed. We set up, we played, they dug it, and it ended. A three hour gig. No big deal. Why can't they all be that relaxed? Also, the food was awesome.
Sunday brought a recording session...the new Platnumb demo. No big deal. I sat in the control room and played EWI (strings and synths) on some stuff, and saxophone on two tunes. Done in an hour and a half. After that, I taught a clarinet lesson and hit my church gig.
I tried to stay up and watch the football game, but I fell asleep at half time. I'll probably have no better luck tonight.

Branford Marsalis on teaching

Survival

I made it through Thursday night's double-whammy unscathed.

My first gig last night was a little trio hit at Neiman Marcus in Lenox Square Mall. I never understood what it was for--I think it was some sort of private party for high rolling customers. We (Tyrone Jackson and Tommy Sauter) were stationed in the men's department next to a bunch of extremely high priced Tom Ford clothes. Nothing much to report other than our self-amusement.
I need to learn some new tunes. The three of us have played these sort of gigs for years now, and so I know what tunes we know in common, but since the two of them are more "on the jazz scene" than I am, I'm not picking up newer tunes as quickly as they are. I usually bring charts of things I want to try, but I was traveling light due to the fact that I had to run out the door when the gig was over.
Speaking of which, when the gig ended, I boogied on out of there (I had a half hour to get from Lenox to Va. Highland, park, get in, pull my horn out, turn everything on, change clothes, and get on stage). Unfortunately, a security guy who looked like one of my cousins stopped me and said I had to check in with "LP" before leaving. LP? I was totally confused. All I could think was "Latin Percussion." Finally it dawned on me, so back down the escalator, back through the labyrinth to "LP" so some lady could look in my gig bag. Then they wanted me to go out through the employee's entrance, which would have put me in the tunnel (the tunnel faces where Tower Records used to be in the Around Lenox shopping center). Bad! I was parked right outside the front door! She finally let me go back out the front, so back up the escalator, past my cousin the security guard, and away I go. All that B.S. cost me eleven minutes that I needed.
I got to the 10 High at 10:22 PM. The gig starts at 10:30. I made it, but just barely. I could have used those eleven minutes!

The Yacht Rock gig was pretty sluggish. Both of our front guys are out this week, so Ganesh sang for Pete and Greg moved off bass and sang for Nick. We had Donny come and play bass and sing. He did very well. The feel of the show was pretty uneven...it felt like we had a bunch of subs. Personally, I had no disasters, other than I Just Wanna Stop, which was an audible that I didn't want to hear. If you follow this blog religiously, you may recall that we played that tune for two back to back shows in July (a 10 High and Andrews gig), and I never got comfortable with playing the string part. I was always a chord behind. So hearing "I Just Wanna Stop! ...two, three, four!" was not good. I did what I could but it was pretty much the same results as July. I did not fare well with the orchestra, let's say. So it goes. Live to play another day...
The crowd seems to be turning up later and later. For a while we were pretty packed before we started, and then it would thin out as the night went on. Lately it's been getting thicker right around when we go on break.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn't point out my love of curvy Italian-looking women. Viva Italia!

The Easiest Gig I Ever Did

I had a duo gig last night that was supposed to be four hours long. It was a private dinner for about ten super VIPs in town for a business meeting. We were to provide the music during the cocktails before and after the meal.
Louis Heriveaux and I played the gig. Louis has become one of the finest jazz pianists in town, and is also one of the coolest, most laid back guys with whom you could ever hang out. Good thing, too. We played from approximately 6:30-7:05 PM, and then the crowd went in to eat. At that point, we were on break. Louis ran to a McDonalds to get some food to eat with the medicine he's taking. When he returned, we continued to stand by until the guests returned around 9:40 PM. When then played two tunes and they all got back on their mini bus back to the hotel. We were finished at 9:55 PM. I don't think we made it through ten tunes the entire evening.
So what did we do between 7 and 9:40? We hung out, talked, talked on the phone, text messaged the world. I guess Louis' medication made him sleepy, because for a while there while we were talking, he'd say something, and as I was responding to him, he'd fall asleep. In a minute or two, he'd wake up and we'd repeat (he speaks, I speak, he sleeps). This went on for a half hour, I'd bet, before he finally shook it off. While he was asleep, I took a picture of him.
Easiest gig ever.
I've got two gigs tonight (a jazz gig at Neiman Marcus in Lenox from 7-10 PM and then my usual Yacht Rock hit). Let's hope the race from Lenox to Virginia Highlands is an easy one.

Labor Day work

I had the weekend off (in other words, I didn't work Saturday night). It felt like it went by in about twenty minutes. I cleaned house Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning I got up and drove to Peachtree City to pick up Jack. Then we went to my parents' house and got my baseball glove and fishing pole. All of the sudden it was Sunday afternoon and I was trying to keep Jack occupied for the couple of hours before my church gig. We went swimming--I felt like I was jumping over the side of the Titantic. When I came up from underwater, I expected ice chunks to be floating around me. We swam for a little bit (and I did get used to the cold water) and then we walked across the street and tried fishing. I threw the line out and it settled, and Jack declared "This is taking FOREVER!!" We crossed back over and went swimming again (still cold).

I went and played my church gig. Nobody was at church. Nothing else to report. I wore my other new suit. I looked good.

Sunday night I watched Quantum of Solace and Frost/Nixon. Both were pretty good. I'm not sure what Quantum was about, but it sure looked cool. Frost/Nixon is one of those where I think it was good, but I could easily be persuaded that it was merely average.

I woke up late in the morning today (Monday). After some standard computer stuff (reading the news), I took Jack and Reggie to my parents' house. I then headed into Buckhead for a recording session for a guy named Jesus (not like "Hey Zeus", but like "Jesus Christ"). I played flute stuff on a very somber tune. We (Jesus, me, and producer Greg Lee of Yacht Rock fame) worked on it for about an hour and a half. I'm not sure what it was about, but it was in G. I played some pads and some real basic ideas that kind of floated along.

I went back and hung out with Jack, Reggie, and my parents. We ate hamburgers. We went for a walk.

I'm watching the Miami/Florida State game. It's a shame how these programs have changed. When I was in high school (in Florida), both teams had some of the fastest, most freakishly athletic guys in college football. I'm talking about Jimmy Johnson's teams, and Deion's stretch in there. Now they look like really good high school teams. Weird. I think Florida State will win.

I love you Erin Andrews.

I'm thinking Slumdog Millionaire tonight. Maybe.

It's Gotta be the Shoes

The dressing room for Andrews Upstairs is up above the stage, and you can look out and see how the room is filling up before you go on. It's a small, hot room with a couple of couches, a mini fridge, and a restroom. We sat up there last night, worried because there was nobody on the floor in the twenty minutes or so before we started. It turns out that we were ok, though, because the bar in the other room was full and people were steadily filing in. By the time we got moving, it was pretty good. Not the most packed ever, but pretty thick. We have noticed that lots of our regular fans have been missing in action, but there are still plenty of new ones turning up, so that's cool.

Musically, it was a pretty solid night. For some reason, other people in the band actually put me in their monitor mixes last night. Usually I am ignored in that regard, but everybody threw a little bit in there, and that was cool. From my perch on the stage, I'm kind of isolated from the overall wash of stage volume, and you really can't hear my speaker except for where I am and where Greg is (more or less right in front of me).
I think the second tune we played was a C major scale. Just for the silliness of it, we played a two octave C major scale. I made it all the way to the end with no mistakes. I don't think the crowd appreciates our humor.
I had a couple of mistakes on the keyboard stuff--nothing major. At the end of Don't Go Breakin' my Heart, I accidentally landed on a sharp 11 chord (a Freudian jazz slip?). Oops. The sound gets so loud in there and it kind of swirls around the room, and it's hard to hear things like strings. On the other hand, I could look at my hands and see my finger on the B natural...
I picked up my alto for Reminiscing, and the first note I tried to play didn't come out at all. I guess my reed had kind of dried out/potato chipped on me, and it didn't vibrate at all. Not good! I desperately drooled on the sucker and it got going again. That sort of freaked me out--I wondered if the tenor reed was doing the same thing.
On The Biggest Part of Me, the headstock of Greg's bass smacked my microphone right at the start of my solo. I think he was more freaked out about than I was--he thought he might have knocked the horn into my teeth. No sweat. It was cool. Once again, I got excited and overblew, but I did play some better stuff than Thursday night (where I overblew and my horn crapped out a little, but I didn't play as many good ideas).
I also had a better flute solo on Lowdown than Thursday night, although the Thursday one wasn't a bunch of crap. In general, when I can hear myself really well I play better (and don't overblow), and playing flute on the front corner of the stage, I can hear the mains so well that I can clearly know what I'm doing.
We have a history of adding a bunch of breaks on Somebody's Baby, and Mark Cobb has been delaying the downbeat coming out of each break by a little bit more. I got to laughing about it so much that I screwed up some of my piano parts.

Things did come to the breaking point with the volume of the room. The constant complaint we hear from friends that come see us at Andrews is that the sound is DEAFENING. Greg finally went back to the sound man and ordered him to back the volume down (I think the demand was thirty percent less), and it made a huge difference. The room volume gets so loud that the front line mics start to pick up the noise and create a feedback loop. And really, overall it's just too loud even before that starts happening. This isn't KISS, it's smooth 70s, and too loud isn't cool--it's uncomfortable. So the second set was not as violently noisy, and we played better. Hopefully it will stay that way in the future. I've said it before--the sound guy can kill the band.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but Yacht Rock as an official endorsement. We are somehow hooked up with Sebago! Our free boat shoes arrived yesterday. Mine are the old school brown with the white soles. What's next? A cocaine endorsement?

The Captain is Drunk

Yacht Rock was weird last night. We added Hot Child in the City, which was cool--nice to add a new tune, and it went over well. We'd worked out the ending (the full length version, not the version that ends with just voices), but when we tried it on the gig, somebody tripped and it all went to hell for about five beats and then Mark Cobb counted us back in. Woah!

The on stage sound last night was kind of weird. It was like there was no bass and very little highs, so there was just this midrange-y thing. It's not that we were playing poorly (in the first set), but it just felt weird. I don't know what else to say. Some nights the sound is really full, but tonight it seemed kind of empty.

On the break, several band members shared a round of "car bombs"--liquor dropped in a beer (like a sake bomb). Let's say that the second set did not go particularly well. Lots of random (and bizarre) stuff going down. At one point (about three or for songs in), Ganesh called it over the mic--"ladies and gentlemen, we are drunk." And that was how it went from there on it.

It's hard to say how it sounded overall. I played pretty well, and Mark Dannells played some terrific guitar stuff, and past that I really don't know. It was hard to hear the bass. Mark Bencuya's keyboards are always fine--he's one of those guys who might mess up, but you never hear the mistakes. Mark Cobb was all over the place--some good and some out of control.

We're at Andrews tonight. I'm hoping for some magic! We (Yacht Rock) are always making excuses for the crowd--it was full because school's back, it's not full because all the summer people went back to school, it's full because nobody wants to come see us at Andrews, it's not full because everybody's waiting to see us at Andrews. Last night was a little thinner that usual, so that must mean it's going to packed tonight! I'll really be fine either way. I'm more interested in having some really good musical moments. There's some boredom seeping into our show.