David Freeman Music

On the road again...Yacht Rock was in Newberry, South Carolina Friday night for a show at the Opera House. Nice place! Also, loaders! Thank you very much. The pre-gig meal was a "Sunday dinner" style homemade buffet of chicken/turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, bread, fruit, and dessert. The cook was standing by, mostly (it seemed) to check out what we were eating. I got a whimper of disapproval for passing on the meat and potatoes in favor of doubling up on the green beans, bread, and salad. Nice crowd, though significantly older than our usual audience. They liked it all the same. Mark Cobb left me a nice a long time to go apeshit on the end of Biggest Part of Me , which I greatly appreciated. After the show, we packed up super quick and headed back to Atlanta, arriving at our hotel around 2:30 AM. It was a short night of sleep before Saturday's 7:25 AM lobby call. Ouch. Saturday: Off to Texas again! We flew to Austin (super damn early) to play a w...

Thursday night, Yacht Rock gave an encore performance of the Beatles Abbey Road  at Venkman's. For me, it's as easy as pulling the charts up on my iPad and running them down. I had a good night playing, and an excellent time hanging out with Rob and Rich in the horn section.

Sazerac played a show for Mardi Gras at The Vista Room Tuesday night. I was really looking forward to this one, particularly because of the horn section (Justin Powell, trumpet; Richard Sherrington, trombone; Gary Paulo, bari sax; and me, clarinet and tenor sax). Jeez..what a section! I played really well, too, so this gig was really fun.

Deep in the heart of Texas! Our first attempt at establishing a Texas run, with shows in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. It looks like it's going to be great. Thursday: Zach and Kip drove our gear out the day before. We flew out Thursday morning. The Great Bencuya has mastered the art of sleeping on a plane. First stop: lunch! This parking lot security guy followed us from the van to the restaurant, and then from the restaurant back to the van. I'm not sure if we were the threat, or if he was protecting us from some local menace. Even after lunch, we still had a few hours to kill before we could load into the venue. I went for a walk. Here's some stuff that I saw: Our first gig was at the House of Blue in Houston. The local crew took our gear up the freight elevator to the stage, and I thought I knew the other way to go up, but I did not, and we got stuck on the loading dock. This show had a pair of obnoxious DJs as the op...

Last Wednesday night, I got the call to play with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo at Blind Willie's. What a band! Mace Hibbard on tenor, Micah Caldwell on guitar, Brandon Bush on keyboard, Justin Chesarek on drums, and Scott on bass. The gig was fun--who wouldn't love standing in the middle of all those guys! I did the best I could to keep up...it was a nice hang, regardless!

Our now annual gig, the Sail Across the Sun Cruise hosted by Train, took us from Tampa, Florida, to Costa Maya, Mexico and back last week. Cruises are easier for me when I lay low, sleep a lot, and focus on playing each of our three shows as best I can. I'm also less prone to jump overboard. the view from my balcony Wednesday: Unfortunately, I'd caught a cold, and this day was the worst of it. Coupling how I felt with the embarrassment of being late for the meet up left me in a pretty crappy mood. I was glad that we weren't performing on the first night of the cruise, so I took a couple of naps around the lifeboat drill and dinner, and then went to bed early. Before we'd even left Atlanta: I was kicked out of the TSA Precheck line because "they use new scanners" and that my saxophones would not fit through. The TSA lady sent me to normal security (wait through another line, take my shoes off, take my jacket off, take my laptop out) only to find......

Greg Lee and I worked on a new original song with the local Atlanta band Moontower (G Lee producing and me writing a horn arrangement). The horn section is Rob Opitz, trumpet, Richard Sherrington, trombone, and me on tenor and bari sax. Here's how it turned out: If you scroll down a few posts, you can follow along on my chart!