Here a gig there a gig

Thanksgiving week is always a little slow and that's pretty much a good thing. I played a couple of things. Saturday night nov 28 was my duo gig at Nobel's. It's just piano and bass. I play with John Mochnick. Sunday I played at Center Grove Baptist Church. I filled in for their guy for the "engage" service as they call it. It's a rock gig. The leader/guitar player/ singer Jerry Tyson is very good. Everybody is very nice and I always enjoy playing there. The music is sort U2 meets the Police or something. I like the way my old Fender Jazz sounds through their PA. The excellent drummer is Philip Morgan one my colleagues at Wake Forest where I teach adjunct. I was looking at my book and realized I have played in a different church every Sunday for almost 2 months.

Church work can be very demanding. It's a lot of music learned in a short time and the charts can be everywhere from great to nothing. It can be fun and interesting.

Gig Reports Return

I have to decided to begin posting a weekly gig report again. I read some old posts from My Space and found it to be a dairy of sorts. Almost therapeutic in some way. So I'll start with a gig last week , Nov. 18th, at a retirement home in Greensboro. The gig was a piano bass and drums trio in the memory unit of this particular place. The pianist, the leader too, is very easy to follow. She knows 100s of songs. I just watch her left hand and play. Just like the old days. We played Blue Heaven, My Buddy, I'll Be Around and many more. The remarkable thing about this gig was some of the audience couldn't remember their names but knew all the words to many of these songs and sang them too. The audience loved the performance. I felt like I had done some good.

The next night was a piano/bass duo at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Winston-Salem. We played a lot of standards and some original stuff. Nice gig but not a whole lot of people there.

Saturday I played with the Matt Kendrick trio at a baby/toddler fashion show/fundraiser. Nice easy gig of standards and a swinging group. The wings were pretty good.

Very nice people hosting this thing. The fashion show was pretty cute.

Sunday was a Jazz service at Shallowford Presbyterian Church in Clemmons NC.

We played a lot of music. Jazz services are becoming increasing popular.

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.

I Remember Ralph Robinson March 12, 1955 – July 15, 2009

I Remember Ralph (March 12, 1955 – July 15, 2009)

It was fall 1975. I was entering North Carolina School of The Arts as a freshman. I had a dorm room, E second floor. My roommate was drummer, Jason Brashear. Not long after I moved in I heard drums on my hall. There was this guy down the hall who had a set of Gretsch Drums in his room. It was Ralph Robinson. Jason was a drummer and the connection was immediate. There was lots of drum talk going on. Those guys would talk about drums until I thought a gray fog was moving into my brain. Ralph was in a straight and narrow phase. He was Studying hard, practicing and had a nice girlfriend named Tracey. I remember thinking there is something about this guy. There was.

I guess we were both sort of trying to clean up some. I think he was a little more successful then me at that time. He kind of tolerated me. I was really out of my league. All these people playing Bach and reading music. I couldn't read and I had never played the upright bass. I didn't know shit except Grand Funk and The Ohio Players. One night he came to our dorm room and burned a pencil. He sat right in front of me and held the burning pencil in my face and stared at me real hard. ??. I practiced really hard, like 4-5 hours a day at least. We became good friends, started hanging out and playing. The next year we were in Orchestra together under Niki Harsanyi. For one concert Max Rudolph the conductor of the Cleveland Symphony came and conducted Beethoven 6. At one point the Maestro called Ralph out. He had him play a timpani part by himself. Ralph had this look on his face, a sort of ok Mr. conductor I am going to play the shit out this. He did. The Maestro just gazed at Ralph for what I thought was a long time. Then Max Rudolph said thank you.

Ralph was slowly reverting back to his crazy self. There was one night in particular where I think he kind of "broke bad". Keith Yarbrough, Ralph and I were drinking a lot and generally raising hell. Keith told me the next day that his girlfriend said Ralph was acting weird and crazy that night. Before that night, if memory serves me right he was kind a one beer guy. Little did I know this pharmicist's son was a maniac from way back.

We had some bands in this time. Bursita was one. That was with guitarist Matt Balitsaris (Rakit) and singer Kathy McKenna. That band played a lot gigs in a lot of clubs. We were playing at "The Scoreboard" the night Elvis died. This redneck insisted we play some Elvis or there would be trouble. I remember saying I guess I could croak out blue suede shoes. Upon hearing this, Ralph immediately counted off the tune with that authoritative stick click and 1234 of his. No key, no discussion, just boom "one for the money". He never wanted any trouble. We did a lot of trio gigs too. Me, Chris Deane and Ralph. Chris played guitar and sang. We did a lot of gigs for parties and such through the NCSA gig office. Ralph and I even did some jazz gigs with Bob Smitherman and Joe Robinson. During this time Ralph rented a house on Walnut Street in Winston-Salem. He bought a set of fancy timpani and practiced like crazy. At some point He went to Europe and did timpani gigs there. He wanted to get to the German root of the things. There is this picture of him behind an East German guard. He’s all wild looking sticking his tongue out. One night on his way to Berlin on the train an East German guard woke him up about something. Ralph told the guard “ You can’t do anything to me because we kicked your ass.”

Ralph, Matt Balistaris and I also played a show called “Jason and The Scabs” by Steve Jackson, directed by Vince Park, in summer 1977 in Winston-Salem. This was pivotal.

In fall 1977 I quit school and moved to New York City with Vince Park. Vince started Main Street Extravaganza’s. Ralph came up later in 78. We all had nicknames. Ralph was Roast Beef, Matt Balitsaris was Rakit, I was Suitcase, Vince was Bigfoot, Steve Jackson was Pigmeat, Brandt Clark was Pissed. What a crew. Main Street was a production company that did this huge multi media production in 1979 at the Perry Street Theater. It was called “Treadway in the Blue Room” Ralph, Rakit and I played in the 6 piece band for it. Rakit wrote the music and came up with the concept. Ralph played percussion and mallets. One day my brother showed up in New York during the Treadway run with this “brown shit” as Ralph named it. Ralph and I went to LaGuardia to get him in Steve Jackson's car "the Shark". We ingested some "brown shit"and oh my god. We stopped on 14th st to get a chair off the street. Ralph opened the car door stepped out and fell down in the gutter. We left Pigmeats car running in the middle of East Sixth street in front of the apartment. We were in bad shape and we had to play the show that night. It was a hard show with complicated music. I spent the day getting psyched up. We played the shit out of the show. I think that was the official recording. Ralph told me when he was playing the xylophone the bars were coming up with the mallets like they were melting.

When Ralph arrived in New York He had things set up real well for himself. He had a job at Avery Fisher Hall as an usher. He could practice timpani there and he was studying with the timpanist of the NY Phil. Wow. He saw a lot of shows at Avery Fisher. I remember him telling me all about Jaco’s show there. I still remember the vivid detailed account of the weirdness of that night. I left NYC at the end of 1980.

I lost track of him some until 1983 when I moved back to NYC for a while. Ralph had things pretty well together although Timpani were out of the picture for good. He had a cheap studio apt on East Fifth St. by the Police Station. He had this girlfriend Julie, and was in three or four bands. He was playing gigs around the city with Don Morrell’s band, the infamous “Sex In Miami” and some other groups. Ralph and I played around New York for 6 months with Don, Virgil Moorefield and some other things I can't remember now. We did a Leonard Melfi show at Theater For the New City. He got in trouble for throwing a beer can on stage during the fight scene. It fit in perfectly. Melfi liked it.

I left New York again for good. Ralph stayed. He had some substance problems brewing. We used to say he had a hollow leg. All the stuff would go in that leg. He could do two black beauties and go to sleep. He burned a taxi and moved back to his hometown Rockhill, South Carolina in the 80’s. I would see him now and again. I have some tapes of music we recorded in the 80’s.

Last time I saw him was in 1998 or so. I gave him a truckload of old equipment. Speakers and stuff. He loved the Georgia Bulldogs. I used to kid him and call him a damn Georgia piss ant. He used to laugh at that and call me a Carolina something. Ralph was a good drummer. He was very creative. Very fiery without being too heavy, ever. Never plodding, always alive and swinging. I remember his groove.

Poets and Jazz Musicians Drink Wine:: the gig

I played the concert last night and it went very well. I was happy, surprised and generally estatic about the turnout. The place was full or Jazz and Poetry lovers. The audience was tops. The group I put together was excellent, if I may say so myself. Joe Mills, the poet, was great. What a nice night. Sometimes you get lucky. I guess if there are talented people around, goods things can happen if you let them. This an interview with Joe Mills and I about the show. It aired on WFDD. David Ford, as always did a great job interviewing and editing.

We played along with the poet on few pieces. This generally went pretty well. I'm always challenged by this and I have done a ton of it over the years.

Jon Metzger was his usual swinging self on the Vibes. I went to NC School of the Arts with Jon for a brief moment in 1977. My friends Albert and Camilla Reeves were there. Always great to see these Jazz lovers.

The show opened with a Poem "A Winemaker Defends His Craft" I had Jon add a little vibes about halfway through. Then a swinging little version of "Pennies From Heaven". Everyone had a go at it. That's how the night went poem, music, poem, music. The audience seemed to love it. So did we.

Here is the line up:

Joe Mills, poet

Jon Metzger, vibes

Matt Kendrick, bass

Jacqui Carrasco, violin

John Wilson, drums

Mark Mazzatenta, guitar

Thanks to all for a great night. Thanks to the Carolina Chamber Symphony Players for putting this show on.

Poets and Jazz Musicians Drink Wine

Tonight I play a concert I put together with the Carolina Chamber Symphony Players. Jazz, Poetry and Wine is the show. Poet, Joe Mills will read 8 of his poems. Each poem is followed by a tune from the band. I matched the tunes with the poems in an intuitive fashion. This is an interesting process that I never grow tired of. I read the poem and listen for sound in my head. Something happens and I pick a tune. That something is really kind of cool and I think anyone can have fun with it. I have used this with art and literature. I have written a lot of music like this too. When I use art I just stare at the piece and listen. It's all kind of mysterious but creating stuff always has a bit of the mysterious involved. It's fun and nobody gets hurt.