Adrian Ash Quintet at Java Monkey

That's right, we were a bonafide quintet for the 2nd set.  The trio of Ade, Guy, & myself were augmented by Marquinn Mason (aka DJ Quinn or, amongst new acquaintances, Quinn) on alto sax (alto being key as Guy had some charts transposed to Bb tenor, alas, not good for an Eb horn).  During the break we were joined by Quinn's sparring partner Ahmad on trumpet (hope I got his name right - I couldn't track him down on the net though Quinn had some pix up on his facebook).  Man, we were hittin' it hard.  Guy showed no mercy as he unleashed torrents of angry angular shards upon the unsuspecting wine tasters.  I think we may have taken it a bit too far.  In all fairness, we did rain it in a bit on the 2nd set.  Guy brought in a new tune of his: Blues Descent.  Crazy hits that I obviously had a hard time with, although on paper it sure looked easy.  He did a lot of the usual ones: Watermelon Man, Mr. Magic, Red Clay (in Cm, although we talked about doing it in C#m like the original).  It was perversely fun for some reason.  I always think on my way in, what am I doing here?  I was glad to have made it.  I felt very rusty and I was going into a "4 gigs in 4 days" weekend so I really needed to loosed up a bit.  I played my Tobias fretless, which I feel is a real nice compromise on tone and jazzy "slurvaciousness" (my word, meaning "mwah" factor-itis), a la upright attitude.  I did okay, and the fellas seemed to think I did as well if not better than usual.  Great!
We enjoyed some great chow - I had the Greek Salad, which I wholeheartedly recommend at Java Monkey.  They give some nice warm bread to go with the leafy greens and feta bliss.  The bar had just run out of gas - I mean the gas for the beer taps.  They generously offered bottle beer to appease me.  So generous!  Love Java Monkey!
Side note: my Android phone has not been a happy camper lately.  I couldn't get the thing to snap a picture.  It gave an error message that there was no micro sd card installed, when there was.  I only managed 2 shots before the battery gave out - ugh!  They were both blurry.  I scooped up 2 from Adrian's facebook, one of me not looking too perky and a classic shot of an IOU from the tip jar!  All is well, as long as I can get my car ready for the trip to Savannah tomorrow (brakes, oil, intake manifold leak, coolant,...)