I'm Dreaming of some new tunes

Here is the gig info for Dec 14,15,16,and 17th. The weekend was snowed out. I didn't have much on the weekend anyway.

Monday 12/14 was the big gig for the hospital trio. Wally, Wiley and Matt. I played my upright electric bass and used a chorus effect some for the big smooth jazz sound.

The urb is like Jaco on steroids. The chicken wings were really good.

Tuesday 12/15 I played a Christmas party at Nobels Resturant in W.S. They closed the place down for these people. Very loud and great food. I had Salmon and Cream of Tomato Soup. It was a trio, piano,bass and drums. Karen, my wife on piano and John Wilson on drums.

Wednesday 12/16 was an old folks home in Greensboro in the morning. They had a good time with the quartet of piano,bass, drums and sax. We played White Christmas twice and the same guy was still asking for it. That night I played at Knollwood Baptist Church with 2 guitars and drums. It was their Jazz Christmas dinner. Greg Hyslop sounded great on guitar as did Ken Wilson. Bill Poole did a fine job on drums.

Thursday finished things up for this very busy Holiday Season. I played a hospital up in Reidsville with the Hospital trio. That evening I played for the Urban League's Holiday

party with John on drums and Wiley Porter on guitar. The gigs were all Christmas all the time.

Merry F'in Christmas.

xmas gigs xmas gigs xmas all the way

This was a busy week. Monday the 7th was a rehearsal for Swingle Bells. Tuesday the 8th was the show. This was a Christmas concert with the Giannini Brass Quintet, Vocalist Martha Bassett and The Christmas All Star Jazz Trio. That's me, John Wilson Drum and Fred Pivetta piano. The show was sold out and a big success. We had some especially great arrangements by Roger Pemberton.

Wednesday I played at a hospital in Greensboro with the "Christmas Tree-o". Wally West and Wiley Porter, sax and guitar. we play lots of Holiday music.

Thursday was another Hospital gig with the same guys. After that I played an old folks home. They had a good time. More Christmas.

Friday was a luncheon gig for a rotary club. Bass, drums and guitar. more Christmas

Saturday I did a wedding reception with Wally, Fred and John. Four For One. I like this group. We played at the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro. What a cool hotel.

We got treated very well. More Christmas Music.

Sunday was a Christmas Cantata in Mt Airy. It was a double on Upright and Electric.

The orchestra was 4 violins, 2 Violas, 1 Cello, Me 2 Trumpets, Oboe, Flute and Keys.

There was a Chorus too.

Later that day was a gig a car dealer with Fred and Wally. Christmas.

It was a good week.

XMas and the Gig

Christmas time and the gigin's plenty. I am playing and going to play a lot of Christmas music this year. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
This past week got things going a little. I finished up the semester at Wake Forest on Tuesday.

Thursday 12/3 I played two things in Greensboro. The first was the first of 5 daytime dates in Hospitals. It's me Wiley Porter on Guitar and Wally West on Sax. We play all Christmas for a couple hours for employee parties. After that it's down to West Market Street Methodist church for a Jazz Nativity called Bending Towards the Light. I have been playing this for 12 years or so. It's fun. The band was good this year. It's 8 pieces. T-bone, Trumpet, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Piano, Drums, Percussion, Guitar and Bass. There is a choir, singers, dancers. It's quite a show. This was the rehearsal.

Friday I did a little trio with John Mochnick for a church Christmas dinner. Low key.

Saturday was another double header. I played the performance of "Bending Towards The Light". It went very well and was fun as usual. After that it was back to Winston-Salem for a night of playing for a Ballroom dancing societys annual party. Waltz, Tango, Cha Cha, Swing, Rhumba and everything. That was with Fred Pivetta and Wiley Sykes. It's like the Catskills sort of except everybody can dance pretty good. Sunday I played at an old folks home. This was in a more medical type setting. Everybody was kind of out of it but they liked it more then people think. Music gives people something to kind of hold on to. I have seen folks that can't remember their name remember all the words and melody to old standards. It's like an old friend that never leaves.

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.