Well, not exactly. We were on the patio of the Capitol City Club and it was the first night of Dragon Con. Very entertaining from a people-watching perspective. It was the return of my upright bass to the scene where it seemingly broke in transit. I brought a backup this time. Brian shot some video, which turned out decent and actually helped to score a couple gigs since Mark shopped it around. We played a lot of tasty jazz ' blues, with a slant towards the trad.
For a glimpse of the video footage, shot as we were warming up on Solar, check out our MySpace page here: https://myspace.com/billybattsensembleatlanta/videos
My upright has a different tone from the broken and then glued-n-bolted-on neck. I can't say it's better, but it's different. Perhaps I'm more aware of the changes. The action is lower, and I'm not sure I can or want to change that. I think it's a lighter, crisper tone, rather than a dark and full-bodied tone. Upright players want the full-bodied tone, but as we all know, it's easier to remove the highs and add lows than the other way around. I think it works in my favor. I love the tone that Gary Peacock has always had with Keith Jarrett, and this seems like a few steps in that direction. I'm not advocating one to break their neck and then glue it back on. Just trying to see the bright side of a very bad tragedy. In the back of my mind, I see it being very fragile and possibly coming apart at the most inopportune moment on stage. That, and the sad fact that I have dried glue all over parts of the body. Talk about character. This bass oozes character now, that's for sure.
Lots of pictures of the crowd walking the streets of Atlanta on their way to the convention. How could I resist? We had a lot of compliments and it makes me wish we could play outside all of the time. Till the next one...
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