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.