Yay for us! The second gig ever by Sazerac, a Little Feat/Meters/Dr. John New Orleans-y kind of tribute band comprised of most of the Yacht Rock guys (Marks Bencuya, Cobb, and Dannells; me) and Ganesh Giri Jaya of the Yacht Rock Schooner. Also on this gig were Benji Shanks on second guitar, and Jordan Shalhoup on tenor sax (of Schooner fame) and Paul Poovey on trumpet filling out the horn section.
I really like doing this gig, especially because I had so much fun doing the horn arrangements. That was at least as cool as the playing (I played bari sax and clarinet in the section).
I'm definitely going to investigate using an iPad for charts in the future. Two big things are pushing me in this direction.
1. I had my basic arrangements written from when the band recorded almost all of these songs. My hand written charts with the horn voicings and form, but not good enough to pass out to other guys in the section. At the first Sazerac gig, Jordan and I played off my first computerized drafts of my hand written charts.
Once this gig was announced, I had to divide the voicings up from the computerized drafts and assign them to each horn, plus transpose them, add articulations, and make sure they were readable. After looking each chart over, I made more alterations.
Following the first rehearsal, there were more edits. After the second rehearsal, a few more edits to just about get the charts perfect.
Each of these five edits was a reprinting--paper, ink, and if they were multiple pages, tape to hold them together. Plus the time of printing and organizing. Twelve songs with three horn parts for each. If I could just send forth a new PDF, that would be better, quicker, and easier.
2. Playing on stage at Smith's, we were situated in a back corner of the stage. It was dark; the stage was too cramped for three music stands. Having charts on an iPad would've made the reading situation easier (it probably wouldn't have saved me from stepping a rest on Give it What You Can, though--that was just my inability to concentrate).
All in all, a great night. Hope we don't wait a year before we do it again!
Video!
