Blood on the Overture

The National Road Show of "The Color Purple" came to Greensboro last week. 9/8-13.

There were 8 shows. Fantasia was in the role of Celie. A great show, cast and band. I got hired to play bass for it. I was honored to be playing the show.

The show carries a conductor, 2 keyboard players, drummer, percussionist and guitar. They pick up a bass player in every town. They also hire 3 reeds, 3 brass and four strings. The concert rider sort of implies that the bass player is in the hot seat and it's true. It's a nice bass part with lots of changes from upright to electric bass. It covers many styles of music.

It's a lot of work and time to play a show like this. I got my advance music about 5 days before the show started here. I read through it some. I noticed a lot of low notes in the part. It started to become apparent to me that this book was a 5 string electric bass part along with the upright part. I own a cheap 5 string that I never play. I don't play 5 string bass. 3 days before the show I decided that I had to play 5 string for the whole electric part and I was right. I started practicing like crazy. Playing a Broadway show tour is a lot different then just playing tunes. Especially this show. There is just tons of underscoring. There is a lot of music. The trouble for me with a 5 string is that I have to look at my hands to make sure I'm on the right note. In a show you can't really be looking at your hands. You get your music set so you can look at your music and see the conductor with peripheral vision or just stare at the conductor and hit your notes.

Most of these notes are a big deal and the wrong one is a clam for sure. So I was just completely on edge the whole time. The rehearsal was funny in retrospect. My music was a mess. Upside down and all mixed up. The bass guy in Chicago , where they had been the week before, just threw it on the floor and shoveled it back in the folder. There were more things written on this music than any part I have ever seen. Dozens of desperate bass players had all this stuff written on it. like: move music now, go to electric 20 seconds, watch for this, don't play this, it was endless really. The messages were valuable after I figured out which ones to read. SO here I am at this rehearsal at 9am, no sleep the night before, music a mess and playing this one bass I don't play. I was pretty much a mess. The conductor was getting pissed. I was thinking I'm getting fired for sure, I suck. I can't find half the charts, I can't figure out which bass to

play because it's written in pencil somewhere and on and on. I got it together and did a good job opening night and the subsequent run. One funny thing that was the kicker for the whole gig. I got two doubles on this show one was electric bass and the other the "Jews Harp". I had 8 bars on this silly thing. The 1st night I was playing my little cue and I noticed this spray. I had cut my lip with it and was spraying little drops of blood on the overture and the opening. I signed the book in blood. Sigh. I had to laugh. The best part of the whole thing was how great I felt when it was over. I learned my lesson again. I am not a show musician. It was one of the reasons I left NYC in 1980. I was getting good at the show thing. It's easy steady money. I have to say I am glad I did not spend my life in the pit.

Bless those who do.

Summer time

August was a nice month for me. The Carolina Symphony Chamber Players had their summer music festival. I got to play for two concerts. The first was "My Funny Valentine". This was a concert of Rodgers and Hart songs on Saturday, August 22nd.

Here is my working song list with notes.

There's A Small Hotel Latin instrumental piano, bass, drums, trp, violin

Have You Met Miss Jones Up swing instrumental piano bass drums sax

My Romance Slow Bossa piano, bass, drums, Violin

Manhattan medium swing bass thing piano, bass, drums, trp, sax

It Never Entered My Mind ballad piano, bass, drums, sax

Blue Moon medium everyone

This Can't Be Love up swing instrumental piano bass drums sax trp violin starts w/ drum solo

My Funny Valentine Ballad piano bass drums trp 2x thru trp solo on A's

I Could Write A Book medium Bossa piano bass drums violin sax violin and sax solo

I Didn't Know What Time It Was medium up instrumental piano bass drums sax trp violin

Bewitched Ballad piano bass drums

Lady Is A Tramp medium-up vocal

I wrote the charts and led the band as much as it needed leading. It's a very good band and I don't say much to them. Federico Pivetta on piano, John Wilson on drums, Wally West on sax, Jacqui Carrasco on violin, Ken Wilmot on trumpet, and the singer was Martha Bassett. These people are all easy to work with. We did two shows on August 12th. The first was sold out with the second taking the overflow and late-nighters close to sold out. The shows were close to two hours. We were very tired when it was over. Here is a review and another review. I felt pretty good about it. I felt my bass playing was pretty good. I squeezed off a couple of good solos. The others played and sang great. We got a Standing ovation for each show.

The following Saturday, 8/29, I got to play Tango music in a trio with Federico and Jacqui. piano, bass, and violin. Jacqui has played a ton of Tango music with these Argentinean groups over the years. She knows a lot about it. I am learning all about the Tango world. It's pretty big. Here is a review of the whole Tango concert. There was some pretty amazing music being played. The concert was sold out with a great audience. Standing o's all around. Good times.

In between the concerts, there were lots of promo things. One 6am TV show. A dinner party type thing and other stuff. A busy and fun two weeks.