Sonny Rollins Tribute with the Adrian Ash Group March 3, 2011

Back at Java Monkey for another round of straight ahead, funk, originals, and on this night, a fine tribute in song to one of our favorite saxophonists, Sonny Rollins.  Sonny is still at it at 80 years young and we honored his muisc with some of our renditions.  I brought my NS Wav since I like trying to play these on upright but I had brought the upright last time and wanted to have a slightly easier load in and gig endurance wise.  I tried my new Fishman Platinum Bass EQ Preamp DI with the EUB and it helped dial in a more bottom heavy tone.  I like the box but I need to try it with the upright since that will be the main use for it.  All in all, I felt a little bit better about nailing my intonation without always looking at the neck.

We played Blues for Philly Joe, Doxy, No Moe, Oleo, Pent Up House, St. Thomas, & Tenor Madness.  We also did some originals, including Jason's Gentle Breeze and Guy's Le Mirror Noir.  We ended the night with a raucous version of Voodoo Chile, which might have been a bit unsettling for the latecomers expecting some patio jazz.  Another highlight was, believe it or not, So What.  It got more applause than all of the others for some reason.  Maybe that's not saying much for our Sonny set.  So What is of course from Kind of Blue, which is one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, so that could be the reason that it still is a nice modal exercise for the players as well as the audience.  This band has a lot of potential that I don't think we've realized just yet.  If we could find some more modern material that we could wrap our instumentation around, then we would be on our way to playing to some more receptive crowds.  Here are some camera shots taken from my side of the stage, actually in mid song for most of them, including the one of me.