Saturday, November 14, 2009

Wild Wing


Yacht Rock played the Wild Wing Cafe in Alpharetta last night. It was the smallest stage we've ever boarded. Mark Cobb took the night off, so Ganesh sang and played drums.

Everything that I crashed on last night went well tonight (i.e. Love Will Keep Us Together and Magic). I was also a little more comfortable with the transitions from instrument to instrument on A Lotta Love (I'm playing sax, flute, and keyboard on that one). I even got some strings happening on Lowdown with a little help from a sustain pedal. Yay for me.
Kevin Spencer fronted the band last night, and he was twice as good as the night before (though I guess he wrote down some of his schtick to say in between songs, and he was obviously reading it in some parts!). Ganesh played great--impressive that he can sing lead and play drums at the same time. Mark Dannells played well. He did something really slick in the middle of the second solo on Peg that made me stop in the middle of playing piano--it was that hip. I don't even know how to describe it, but I'd never heard him do it before. Fantastic lick. Alyssa came out and sang some with us, and she sang even better than the night before.

Unfortunately for Mark Bencuya, the sound man got confused about which keyboard was playing what at any given time, and I ended up louder than God for most of the night, with Mark's stuff significantly lower. I got so loud at the end of Doctor My Eyes that my organ covered up the guitar solo. Oops. I had ear plugs in...it seemed loud, but I couldn't tell what was going on out front. I guess it wasn't my fault per se, but I feel bad that his stuff didn't come through as well because I was hammering away on the other side.

There's lots of talk about the B band doing the Wild Wing the next time we play there. I hope if the main guys are available that we do it again. To me, it was not any different than playing the 10 High, and the money was just as good. I don't really get much (energy-wise) from the crowd in either place, so as long as the vibes on stage are good, I am not concerned about who's in the room. We'll see...

I have a Platnumb gig tonight. Time to reload!
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Friday, November 13, 2009

Thursday


I did two gigs yesterday.

The first gig was a quartet gig at the Botanical Gardens in Piedmont Park. The band included Louis Heriveaux on keyboard, Tommy Sauter on bass, and Wayne Viar on percussion. We played in the Day Hall, which could easily be mistaken for a high school cafeteria. Acoustically, not a good fit for a musical group and a bunch of people trying to mingle! I played the whole gig with a towel shoved into the bell of my saxophone. The crowd was loud, and we did our best to stay underneath them (and not be able to hear ourselves). Playing-wise things were fine, but it was a bad call to try and put a band in that room.

After that I ran over to the 10 High for Yacht Rock. Nick and Peter are out this week on a business trip--they're investigating a cruise ship thing for the band (like the Simple Man Cruise or The Rock Boat). At the helm we had Kevin Spencer and Ganesh Giri Jaya. They did a great job filling in. We also had Alyssa Olson singing a few with us.
We added A Lotta Love by Nicolette Larson last night. It went well. A couple of other songs she sang did not go as well. I had a brain fart on Love Will Keep Us Together a started the song half step higher than the band..."Why does this sound so bad?" Magic also kicked my butt last night.

I had two reeds die on me last night. The tenor reed I started the quartet gig on did not make it past the first few songs (much like the reed I started on last Thursday). When I got to Yacht Rock, I encountered a bad alto reed. I guess it's that time where my reeds are on the way out and I need to break in a few more.
I've tried multiple ways of breaking reeds: playing them out of the box; playing them in short spurts to welcome them to the new world until they're ready; soaking them for a little bit; soaking them over night. In the end, I'm not sure that it makes any difference. The soaking seems to settle them down--I get more keepers that way. My latest thing is to soak them for an hour or so, then let them dry for a day or two (I learned the hard way not to put them back in the plastic sleeves or the get really moldy). I then soak them again for a hour and let them dry for a day or two. Then I begin the playing and checking.

Yacht Rock is playing the Wild Wing Cafe in Alpharetta tonight. I'm not sure what to expect.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wednesday

I had a gig last night with a DJ and percussionist at a place downtown. The building had a helicopter pad. Not something you see every day. We went up and checked it out. Not much to say other than that. It was a pretty easy gig. I see sliders are the exciting event food of the moment, much like the grits bar was a few years back, and the chocolate fountain before that.
Anyway...some pics from my phone. www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday Sextet

I had a sextet gig at the World Congress Center yesterday--a closing reception for somebody. I don't think I've ever had a sextet gig before, but it turned out to be fun. We ended up playing my originals for the entire gig.
The band is myself, Dan Baraszu (guitar), Tyrone Jackson (keyboard), Joseph Patrick Moore (bass), Wayne Viar (drums), and Chuck Bithorn (percussion).

Monday, November 9, 2009

Sunday


Yesterday I did something I have not done in weeks...I warmed up before my church gig. It made a HUGE difference. The forty-five minutes I spent doing my flute stuff and the fifteen minutes on soprano sax completely changed the way I played. Lately it seems like I spend too much time adjusting my pitch as my face settles down through the first half of the gig. This time, I was able to play comfortably from the beginning. I was a completely different player.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

November 5 trio mp3s

Here are the mp3s from my trio gig last Thursday. It's me, Tommy Sauter on bass, and David Ellington on piano. As per Ellington's "suggestion"/throwdown, we ripped into all the Chick Corea tunes I have in my book. It made my head hurt. I think you can hear that.

Atlanta History Center


Yacht Rock played a gig at the Atlanta History Center.
It went ok. I had a difficult time locking into the time last night.
I played keyboard (along with my other crap), and I was a little uncoordinated in moving from part to part. Along with this was the fact that the stage was so small my horns were not on stage, and it kept me permanently out of sorts. At one point, Mark Cobb had already counted off the next song and I was still trying to get back to my spot across the stage.

Kip Conner ran sound again. He had my horn really loud a couple of times. I love that.

The load out of the History Center is pretty miserable if you have to use the loading dock. There's no ramp off the dock, so if you have anything on a cart (like myself), you have to wheel it to the dock, take everything off the cart and set it on the dock, reload your cart and continue. Also, there's always two or three other people (caterers, furniture people) trying to do the same thing, which makes for a mess. Couple that with the slow freight elevator, and it's a real drag.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com