Not much happened in December. A couple of Yacht Rock gigs, a couple of church gigs…but first!
I had to learn some of this solo for the Yacht Rock Schooner gig I subbed on in November, and I thought that figuring out the rest of it would be a fun project. Check it out! David Sanborn's solo on the Carly Simon version of You Belong to Me. Making the backing tracks was as much fun as learning the solo.
Friday, December 5, 2025: Atlanta, GA to Seattle, WA. Kind of a mess. We flew west on Friday night with the band spread across several flights. I went on the late flight, but because of the way the tickets were booked, I didn’t have Sky Priority (meaning one free checked bag versus three with Sky Priority), so I had to drive my saxophones to Peter Searcy’s house on Thursday. He also did not have Sky Priority, but he was on the same flight with Kip, and Kip had Sky Priority, so he was able to check them at no additional charge. I brought my box of stuff (sax stands, flute, etc) and my suitcase to the airport. I checked the box, and gate checked my suitcase. Follow all that?
Through the magic of AirTags, I could wonder if they'd fallen out of the plane as they crossed the country.
On my way to the airport, I-75 was briefly shutdown (on a Friday at 5 PM!), and all traffic was diverted onto Northside Drive, and it took me an hour and forty minutes, and I wanted to turn around and go home.
Anyway, five and half hour flight. This big lumberjack guy slept for most of the flight, but he violently jerked in his sleep and elbowed me a couple of times. When that wasn’t happening, I wrote a bass clarinet chart for an upcoming project, ate a sub for dinner, and took a nap.
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| look at my old laptop go! |
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| Pub sub! |
The weather was wet and windy, and our approach into the airport felt like the gusts were pushing us around too much, and we were too fast, and I was pretty sure we were going to crash. In a way we did, I guess—it was the most violent landing I can remember. Even the lumberjack next to me said, “I fly every week—that was a really hard landing.”
A driver delivered us to the hotel in downtown Seattle, and I ran on the treadmill. There were a bunch of teenagers in the hotel, and a few couples were looking for places to make out--the exercise room, for instance. I'm glad. they didn't stick around once I started running.
Saturday, December 6, 2025: Seattle, WA. I woke up pretty early (thank you west coast time), had coffee in my room, went for a run, and had Indian food at a restaurant down the street.
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| "an odd but ingenious contraption" |
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| not much going on at the port today |
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| the place where they throw the fish |
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| a wall of old chewing gum |
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| this was good! |
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| ye olde back hallway noodling |
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| ye olde rice and beans dinner |
The gig tonight was some sort of corporate fundraiser, maybe cancer research at a hospital? I don’t remember exactly, and we were backstage, so I missed most of that. Guess who else was backstage: Rob Lowe! He was the MC for the evening. While I was standing around, he approached me, asking what we had on the setlist for the evening, and he said that he was very much a yacht rock afficianado! Our set list was approved!
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| Rob Lowe, just hanging out backstage, looking at his phone |
He didn’t stick around, in case you were wondering. He came off the stage after saying goodnight and went right out the back door of the ballroom with his handler.
For us, it was the usual thing. Van and I worked on my mix, and got it seventy-five percent better than it had been at the previous fly-date gig in Connecticut when I couldn’t hear anybody else on stage.
My trouble with the Africa solo hit a new low tonight—my hand was shaking so bad that I played a bunch of wrong notes and had to stop and wait for the next phrase to get back on track, and I was so destroyed that I messed up the beginning of the next song, too. Everybody got a good laugh out of that.
After the show, I sent one saxophone with Kip and one saxophone with Nick (both had earlier flights and Sky Priority), and I went back upstairs to my room to stew over my performance.
Sunday, December 7, 2025: Seattle, WA to Atlanta, GA. Our flight had a small delay, just long enough for me to eat an entire burrito before boarding. When I got back to Georgia, I swung by Nick’s house, talked to his dog, and collected my two saxophones.
Thursday, December 11, 2025: Marietta, GA. One of the churches that regularly hires me to play, the Catholic Church of St. Ann, had a mostly secular Christmas sing along concert. I played it last year, and this year I was again invited to participate. My friend Ed runs the music ministry and plays piano, and he was the leader on this one, and he hires good musicians and just lets them play whatever off of generic lead sheets. It was kind of weird--there were plenty of people on stage all filling in around the lyrics, so I mostly stayed out of the way--I felt like I played less than ever--but everybody still liked it. I guess it worked. We all just kind of chased Ed for ninety minutes. Pretty fun, though.
Friday, December 12, 2025: Atlanta, GA. I played a short gig with Blair Crimmins at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta (sort of). There was some kind of corporate holiday party going on in the Egyptian Ballroom upstairs, and we led a parade down to the ground floor, out the front door, and down the street to the bar on the corner, where I presume they must've been having some kind of after-party. We had prepared three songs, so each one went really long, and then Blair threw a curve ball at us and called a fourth song that most of us knew? I vaguely remembered it from previous gigs. Anyway, not too bad for a thirty minute gig. I think I played pretty well (it was just clarinet), and it wasn't too cold even though we stood outside on the corner of Peachtree and Ponce for a long time.
I still haven't made up my mind as to whether Blair is using me as a sub because I'm doing a good job, or I'm just the only person available.
Oh yeah, and the traffic was hellacious. It took me forty-five minutes to travel the last mile to the parking lot, and then northbound traffic after the gig was terrible, too.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025: Roswell, GA. I got contracted to play with the Atlanta Pops, backing up John Driskell Hopkins for his yearly Christmas show. Nick and Pete were then asked to sit in on a song, and then the whole band was asked to sit in on two songs. So, three songs on saxophone (really!) and two songs on keyboards. So weird. I kind of wanted to ask if they needed a second flute or second clarinet, or a bass clarinet or something (just looking for something to do for two thirds of the show!), but it was a union gig and they'd have to pay extra money and it probably wasn't any benefit for them, so I just dropped it.
There was lots of hanging around, watching from the wings, and talking to my buddy Gary, who was there for the entire day to play ONE SONG on bari sax.
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| Kip and Zach on sound tonight |
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| Nick, working on a stage prop for our holiday show |
Anyway, the gig paid great--the full fee for three songs, plus they paid a fee because the concert was to be livestreamed (the livestream didn't work, but we got paid anyway), and I the concert went longer than anticipated, so we made overtime. Hooray for union gigs that have all these extra charges in place!
Ya know what was weird, though? I knew the five brass players behind me pretty well and I met Eryn, the bassoonist sitting next to me, but the horn players, and the flute, clarinet, and oboe in front of me completely avoided acknowledging my existence in any way. It was a very weird vibe. Even the string players were nicer.
Saturday, December 20, 2025: Smyrna, GA. The Yacht Rock Holiday Show at The Roxy. Great gig! I had fun, and I got through the Africa solo (barely). I was so nervous by the time the song started that I could barely play the thing I do in the intro.
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| I must've spilled something on my horn--there's this pink streak where something is reacting with the brass |
Let's take a second to talk about the things I have done to deal with this bullshit, all of which has been going on since I cracked at the beginning of October:
1. Practiced the solo a million times very slowly, like 60% of the tempo
2. Practiced the solo with a different rhythm to try and create a new neurological groove in my brain, since the old groove seems to be messed up
3. Practiced each hand separately, especially working on my right hand, since that's where most of the trouble is happening. At the worst moments, my right hand feels like it has no muscles in it--I can't make my hand form the proper shape, and I can't make my fingers move in time
4. Read The Inner Game of Tennis
5. Watched a bunch of Inner Game of Tennis videos on YouTube
6. Read The Inner Game of Music
7. Watched a bunch of videos about the golfing yips, which completely blew up my algorithm. Based on all the putting yips videos, I changed the rhythm of the second phrase, much the way the videos suggested that I change my putting grip.
8. Tried singing along with it to change my focus
9. Tried practicing the whole song, so that I could feel the solo within the context of the rest of the thing, but also to see if I could get a little bit nervous but also make it all the way to the end without disintegrating.
10. Looped the solo section over and over at a Yacht Rock soundcheck to see if I could either find out what was wrong or beat the nervousness out of me (neither worked). I could play it over and over without any issues at all.
I can't wait for this to be over. I wish that we could play Africa three times on every gig. I want to beat the nervousness out of my system.
Back to the gig: we're going to use several cameras on stage next year that project onto the video wall, and tonight we tried them out to see how it will work. Looks like it looks cool! Hopefully we don't get so caught up in playing with the new toys that we forget to engage with the people in the room.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025: Marietta and Atlanta, GA. It's church gig time! I started at St. Ann's in Marietta, playing the overflow mass at 4 PM. When that finished, I jumped in my car and drove to Atlanta to play the 6 PM mass at the Cathedral. That ended at 7, and I jumped back in my car and drove back to St. Ann's to play at 8 PM.
Thursday, December 25, 2025: Marietta, GA. Two more! Jan Smith, Briana, and I played the 9 and 11 AM Christmas Day services at St. Ann's. My flute face was super tired.
(also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CMAxo-1cO5g?si=1gPlpbJq_cBIX4u6)
Wednesday, December 31, 2025. No New Year's Eve gig this year, which felt kind of weird. With the exception of the year of COVID (when there were no NYE gigs for anybody), I've had a gig somewhere. I guess my streak has ended! It was just another night at home.
Another way to think of it: last year, we opened for Journey in Las Vegas, and this year we don't even have a gig! We've peaked! Game over, man!
Anyway, here's one more video to close out the year. A little arrangement I found online of Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Somebody else wrote this arrangement for flute, oboe, and bassoon, so I rewrote it for flute, clarinet, and bass clarinet. Dig it!
