David Freeman Music

The tour continues! This past weekend, Yacht Rock was in Florida for a few shows. This is the perfect time of year to be down there, because the heat will return in a matter of a few weeks. Thursday: We left dreary, rainy Atlanta after being delayed for a couple of hours... ...and landed in sunny Tampa! This evening's weather outlook was imperfect at best. The line of storms that had crashed through Georgia was still getting dragged out of the Gulf of Mexico. To try and fit it all in, the start time for our show was moved from 9 to 8:30 PM. Pretty nice gig, though! I think some people stayed away because of the threat of a rain, but it was still decent crowd, and the breeze from the oncoming storm was kind of pleasant. We played alright--it took a while for everybody to relax and settle in, but for the most part, the night moved along quickly. Immediately after the gig, I looked at my phone. Hmmm, tornado warning...is the warning the bad one, or is it a...

Here's a transcription I just finished of Michael Brecker's solos on For David from  The Lady Wants to Be a Star (Martee Lebous, 1976). When else are you going to hear a diminished whole tone scale in a pop song? This whole thing is great. It's largely major pentatonic, and it's slippery, but precise...his time feel really makes this an exceptional moment in a forgettable 70s pop song.

Tuesday: Yacht Rock played a live session at Paste Magazine in downtown Atlanta. It's more record promo stuff.  I finally feel like I'm getting a good handle on the originals, and all the stuff I've worked on is gelling into a cohesive part that makes sense in my head now. In short, I am finally getting it right. FINALLY! Jeez! Anyway, here's the show. Nice mix by Kip. Friday: Remember how last week I flew home and went straight to a rehearsal for The Color Purple ? The dress rehearsal was tonight, and it went pretty well. The vocalists are fantastic! We're giving a concert performance only, so there's no staging, but dang...the actors are killing it. There were a few things, though. First, the Roswell Performing Arts Center is about 60 degrees on stage, which is a little cold, especially sitting in a chair and not moving for a few hours. It also makes tuning a challenge. Second, the audio crew had a lot of trouble getting the three monitors fo...

Wednesday: We played Fishcenter Live at Adult Swim. I'm not sure who watches this show (which seems to be four stoned guys hanging out, and the only thing on the screen is a live feed of an aquarium), but they now have bands come through and perform. Here's a representative example: Thursday: I played the lead tenor chair with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra at Venkman's. Love this band! Great music and a great group of people. Check out these excellent photos by Emily Butler Photography. The big challenge for this particular show was a clarinet feature called Lorenzo's Wings that scared me to death--I'm not the most electrifying clarinetist, to begin with, and adding an improvised solo? Yikes! Rob asked me about it at the beginning of the year, so I spent a lot of time working on it (22 of the 24 days I had available), and...I played really well! Friday: Back to Yacht Rock--got up and flew to Utah for a gig for ...

Thursday: Yacht Rock played the Georgia Theatre in Athens. It was a very full house, which, for some reason, surprised me. I guess I was thinking that Thursday wouldn't be a big night, especially with a 9 PM start time. Also--ugh! 9 PM! That put us back in Atlanta around 2 AM.  Kind of an average gig for us, playing-wise, though. Friday: We played a private/corporate party at The Roxy. This one had a some things working against it--first, I think the room was too big, so when people left or walked off to the bars, it felt like there was no one there. Also, they had a long program (dinner, awards, band), and I think we'd lost a fair number of people before we even took the stage. The long day also affected us, as we had to get there really early, set up (and after hanging around, never get a soundcheck), and then hang around for three or four hours before it was time to play the show. I did squeeze in a lot of practicing and a run, so I got something out of this nig...

The first week of the 2020 Yacht Rock tour is in the books! The weekend began in Lexington, Kentucky at the Manchester Music Hall. We played here once before, a few years ago--I remember it as the first gig with new equipment (after some of our gear was stolen in Louisville). It's pretty decent for a Thursday night. The room looked to be a comfortably full--a good showing for our second time here in two and a half years. Friday was night one at the Egyptian Room in Indianapolis. We've played here several times, and I like it, mainly for it's large stage and multiple dressing rooms. Also, we pack this place out, hence the two shows. Here's my solo on the end of Biggest Part of Me.  Thursday's version had gotten a bit harmonically abusive, so I tried to stay more on the bluesy side of things. Saturday , I slept late, had coffee, ran on the treadmill, ate at the Indian buffet, practiced, and walked to the gig early (and got all my flute warmu...

End of the year gig, beginning of the year gig--here we go. Yacht Rock played two gigs around New Year's, both connected to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville. New Year's Eve was some sort of VIP thing in a hotel ballroom.  There was a screen showing highlights from previous years on repeat. It went around five times. Interesting that Jimbo Fisher was featured as an FSU assistant coach, FSU head coach, and Texas A&M head coach. And that was the gist of the gig for me. Mark Bencuya would want me to point out that over the years, our NYE gigs have ended earlier and earlier, and I would agree that this is overall a good thing. This night ended at 11:45 PM, when the guests were all sent outside to watch fireworks over the river. New Year's Day was a day off. I slept late, ate overpriced french toast (and four bananas), went for a run, and worked on the Sonny Stitt transcription that I posted a couple of days ago. After my run, I walked to a burrito pla...

I was at a jam session about a month and a half ago and got called up to back a singer on I Can't Give You Anything But Love , a tune I did not know, so I did my best to "ear" my way through it. Most of it is pretty obvious--it's one, two five, two five to the four chord, major two, that kind of thing. I think the only really weird thing is the second measure, which I think is often played as some kind of diminished three (in this case, Eb diminished for the alto), but Stitt is pretty clearly outlining E minor to A7(b9) in his solos. The leader of the session reminded me of this classic recording of Sonny Stitt with the Oscar Peterson trio (with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums), and I thought it a good idea to write out Stitt's solo and see what he's doing. It's a beautiful example of the bebop vocabulary. Enjoy!

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!