David Freeman Music

Once again, Scott Glazer asked me to join him at Blind Willie's for his monthly gig there. This time, we were joined by Mace Hibbard (sax), Nick Johnson (guitar), Geoff Hayden (keyboard), and Justin Chesarek (drums). The band was in a good mood, and though I didn't feel like I played anything great, it was still fun. Mace's style is very different from mine, and I loved standing next to him while he unloaded long, creative lines. Great stuff! Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a crowd there to see us (though there never seems to be). We had an audience of maybe four when we began, and it grew to maybe ten at the most. Blame it on the rain, or blame it on Wednesday night.

No gigs to speak of this weekend, but check out the big article about the Yacht Rock Revue in this month's issue of Atlanta Magazine! http://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/confessions-cover-band-yacht-rock-revue/

Yacht Rock put up big audience numbers this past weekend, with a sellout in Nashville (600 people), and two nights at Conner Prairie in Indianapolis (4,350 and 5,580). Impressive, no? Thursday: We're still looking for the right room in Nashville. This room sounds great, but it's kind of small--we need a thousand seater with a good vibe. In the mean time, we play here--Top Golf in Nashville (they call the music room The Cowan ). Load in, soundcheck, and then we hit some balls and hung out with our Nashville buddy, Jerry Roe. We'd been off for almost two weeks, so things were a little rusty. I definitely had a few spots where I hoped that muscle memory would save me. For the most part, it was a pretty solid show, though. The crowd was so-so. The people across the front line were, by and large, unenthusiastic, which didn't help us with the energy. Maybe 'cause it was a Thursday? Lots of blank stares. Not sure what was up with that. Apparently, we broadca...

Three gigs this past weekend. Thursday: I had the opportunity to once again play with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra (under the leadership of Rob Opitz) at Venkman's. This month, I was back in the bari sax/bass clarinet chair. How many gigs have I played in this band? Eight? Ten? This one was, by far, the most comfortable. I've now played the charts enough that it only took a couple of times to bring each tune up to speed. On the bandstand, I felt very confident, and while my playing wasn't quite flawless, I was  really pleased with my performance. Friday: Beatles gig! A few years ago, Yacht Rock was playing a Beatles show around once a month; these days, it's two or three times a year. This evening's show was all of Abbey Road , plus seven or eight other Beatle songs. Things were a little loose, a little rusty maybe, but we had a good time. Video of the show: Saturday: Back to Yacht Rock. We had a show at a casino in Lake Charles, LA, so we flew to L...

Easiest gig I've had in a while: Yacht Rock played a Sunday evening hour-long set at Ventana's, fulfilling a raffle prize for The Giving Kitchen. I brought one saxophone, flute, piccolo, and some hand percussion, and we did the gig "unplugged" style. Piece of cake!

Five gigs in a row! Yacht Rock played a stretch of five shows that ran from Friday of last week through Tuesday of this week--very different for us in that we rarely play public shows on Sunday night, and never on Monday. Nevertheless, every show was very well attended, which maybe signals that runs longer than our usual Thursday-Saturday plans are now possible.  New fans (Myrtle Beach, Sea Island), and old fans who hadn't seen us in many moons (Raleigh, Charleston). Lots of people who'd never seen an EWI before.  Friday: Park Tavern in Atlanta. As I've said before, it's nice to play a big gig at home. This one was 1,200 people, and they were moderately rabid. I had a pretty good show except for Arthur's Theme,  which I completely ruined--for some reason, I started the string part on F major instead of D minor, played two more wrong chords, and threw up. Actually, I didn't want to throw up, but I just couldn't figure out why what I was playing didn...

Scott Glazer asked me to play on his Wednesday night gig at Blind Willie's, in a stellar band that included Akeem Marable on saxophone, Nick Johnson on guitar, Nick Rosen on keyboard, and Justin Chesarek on drums. In spite of the rain, we had one of the best crowds we've ever had on a Wednesday night (maybe 25 people?), and they were into it, cheering with enthusiasm after solos and songs. This rhythm section was slammin'--blow-you-away moments from Nick, Nick, and Justin, all night long. I did my best to keep up.