With Alejandro

Monday evening, I got a random email asking me about playing a gig Tuesday night at City Winery here in Atlanta. I'd be playing tenor, flute, a little bit of piccolo, and some bass clarinet backing Alejandro Escovedo. Sure, I said. No idea who Alejandro was. The gig was a performance of his album A Man Under the Influence, and also an opportunity to raise awareness about Hepatitis B and C and the link to cancer (he is a Hep C survivor).

Here's the record. I guess you'd call it alt-country? Whatever it is, it's really good. This guy has a great voice and these songs are extra cool.



I met up with the music director and a local violist and cellist for a run through. After working through the music, we had soundcheck (I'd forgotten how long it takes to soundcheck with wedges, even with your own sound guy), a meal, and then the opener began.

I drew the unfortunate spot on stage between two guitar amps. Brutally loud. I didn't hear much of my flute. That's Mitch Easter on the left and Eric Heywood (HOLY SHIT he was good) on the right.

Alejandro's dog Suki was traveling with the band. She was really sweet. We had good games of tug-of-war and fetch while I was trying to change into my stage clothes.

This evening's set list. We skipped "Horizontal" and encored with "Rock 'n'  Roll" by Lou Reed

The gig was really cool for a variety of reasons. For one, it was interesting to be temporarily immersed in another band traveling by van and playing some of the same rooms that Yacht Rock has seen. I enjoyed the challenge of getting twenty charts to digest twenty-four hours before I would play them. I liked the band a lot, and the music was superb (and for the most part, the charts worked!). I even had one of those transcendental moments where the lyric ended and the part that I was improvising perfectly filled the rest of the phrase and I let go of it just right and the music flowed into the next section and I almost burst into tears because it was so perfect. I get that feeling maybe three times a year. It's magic.

One curiosity: for both sax solos I played on this gig, Alejandro asked that I channel Albert Ayler and give him as much of that angry/free jazz/screechy screaming thing as I could. Within the Yacht Rock camp, my explorations into this style are known as Primal Freem, and I would readily admit that I don't get it, and don't know what it's all about, but I went as berserk as could, as hard and as loud as I could, and everybody seemed to like it, so...this is a long way from Michael Brecker...I don't know, man...I kind of hope a clip from our show surfaces so that I can hear how it fit in with the music that was around me.

If you're not familiar with Albert Ayler, here's a representative clip. It sounds like King Curtis on acid.




Here's a Facebook video from the gig. Lots of guitar here.