The answer? I DID IT! A few minor flubs here and there, but I had a fantastic time (I texted Bencuya: "Being you is AWESOME!") and played really well. Frampton was impressed; the band was impressed. Everything worked. How about that!
Eric Frampton wants a cupcake THIS big.
The only disaster was that I volunteered to sing Lowdown, and I bombed miserably. I was Linda McCartney-esque pitchy. Yuck. I was laughing; the band laughed at me. I was terrible. First attempt singing a solo in public: no good! I (of course) have a million excuses/hypotheses, but it came down to missing the first note, and then I panicked and couldn't hear the melody, and the lyrics just flew by. Oops. It didn't go like that in my preparation!
The keyboard stuff went well enough that the singing didn't bother me much. I was disappointed that I didn't sing as well as I did when I worked on it, but oh well.
Saxophone-wise, I am in one of those zones where every idea that I'm playing sounds great. We stretched some tunes out Saturday night so I could rip on them a little more, and I never ran out of gas. Same thing happened at my church gigs Sunday. I wonder why the creativity comes and goes? It's not like I discovered a new way of thinking about any of this stuff--it's the same musical vocabulary I have been using. The ideas have meaning right now. I don't know...maybe it always sounds the same on the other side of the horn, but I believe myself more.
davidfreemanmusic.net
