David Freeman Music

I've finished out the year with two more church services--Christmas Eve and yesterday's regular Sunday mass, both on flute. It was great to end it playing well on a gig that I enjoy, with just enough space for me to be creative within the written music, and plenty of challenges to my musical abilities (thinking of dynamics and intonation here!). So I'll keep at it as much as my Yacht Rock calendar allows, stretching to become a more expressive flutist and a more empathetic musician overall. See y'all in 2020!

Friday , Yacht Rock played a corporate holiday party, bracketed by bad catering and awful DJ music. We finished around 10 PM and were able to load out before the end of the party, so I guess that's good. Saturday  was the big Yacht Rock Holiday Special at The Roxy. I love playing this room. this is a giant captain's hat cake, 20 inches in diameter, given to us because we almost sold out Anyway, good gig. I felt pretty well prepared, and there were no disasters caused by my incompetence. photo cred: Zach Wetzel

The guys in Yacht Rock Revue headed up to NYC last Wednesday for a private/corporate gig, and we managed to secure an opportunity to perform on SiriusXM that morning. The performance was at 9:20 AM, but it felt like 5 AM--our hotel was over by LaGuardia, and we had a 6:30 AM lobby call to ensure that we made it on time. Therefore, at 9:20, all the benefits of the the coffee I'd consumed had worn off, and I was falling apart. Sirius has a cool set up with a nice sound-isolated performance room right in the lobby, and they mostly knew what instruments we were bringing, so things were mostly setup, and they had an engineer (and assistant) who knew what he was doing. Anyway, we played three songs-- What a Fool Believes,  or original Step,  and Last Christmas.  Right off the bat, I crashed and burned in my attempt to cover the What a Fool  synth part on flute--I had it together at home, but I just got a little off, completely fell apart, HAD TO FUCKING STO...

Sooooo...I'm a little late delivering the blog. Things have been busy! It's the two week crush at the beginning of December, and though I didn't gig a lot, there's been a lot going on at home (interior and exterior renovation stuff). Anyway, here we go... I almost had ZERO gigs for the week, but over Thanksgiving, I got a phone call from a bass player in New Jersey who needed me for a jazz gig at some house north of Atlanta--someone else passed on the gig and gave him my name. Five hour gig, jazz quintet (quartet plus vocals) with people I don't know, some house in Milton, GA--I'm in! It turned out that I'd played at a jam session with the drummer Jonathan Mills a few years ago, and played with the pianist Mason Margut at a jam session a few months ago, so it wasn't a completely random grouping, but the bass player drove down for the gig, and I'd never met the vocalist even though she is local to the Atlanta area. Here we go! please step away f...

Wednesday : I came screaming back into town Wednesday afternoon, leaving myself just enough time to drop my suitcase, pick up my stage clothes, and head to Venkman's for our annual Turkey Eve gig. Pretty damn good show, if I do say so myself. I quite enjoyed it. My big fun for the four days leading up to this shindig was learning/relearning Don't Go Breakin' My Heart . We kind of used to play this song in the first year or two of Yacht Rock, but I had even less keyboard technique and less ability to zero in on the details of the string part--so basically, I started from scratch. It was fun to conquer it, though. Pete's wife Alyssa sang the Kiki Dee part and Nick sang the Elton John. Friday , Yacht Rock played a short show at Criminal Records in Little Five Points with the intent of showcasing some more of our original songs. Unfortunately, it was a bust. We had a very small crowd (I'd bet that if you eliminated friends and family, it was around twenty ...

What's been going on? Let me explain. The day after Thanksgiving, Yacht Rock is playing a short set at Criminal Records in Atlanta--it's scheduled for thirty to forty-five minutes of music, and we're going to play several of our originals. Because there's a TON of keyboard stuff on our stuff, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were marathons of programming and practicing to get ready for Wednesday's rehearsal (plus, there was a fair amount of apathy which drug the whole process out). Anyway, Wednesday, big rehearsal on little sleep. We survived--Bencuya and I were, I think, pretty pleased that we were somehow able to cover pretty much everything that needed to be there without any sonic holes. Wednesday night, I totally switched gears and practiced music for my Thursday big band gig. I worked through everything enough that I felt pretty comfortable. Luckily, I was playing the same book (tenor 1) that I played last month, so a big chunk of the music was somewhat familia...

 Last week was light--just a Wednesday corporate gig in Atlanta at the Hyatt downtown. I'll be honest...I know nothing about who hired us, what they do, what the event was for--nothing. We played ninety minutes, then packed up our gear and split. It was easy and mindless. The only musical moment that I can think of is that I quoted Wayne Shorter's Footprints  in I Can't Go For That.  I want to think that the audience really dug that. Friday , I got called to play a gig, but Yacht Rock had a video/photo shoot thing, so I couldn't go. Sunday , I had my church gig and played pretty comfortably. I didn't have much time to practice flute this week, so I was relieved that my face held up as well as it did on the gig. This week has a couple of rehearsals, an Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra gig on Thursday night, and a Yacht Rock gig Friday night. Yee haw.