Has it really been this long since I've had a gig?

What a slow November for me.  Hasn't been much to write about.  I'd have to say that it could be the calm before the storm.  I do feel that I have a lot on my plate once again.  In my fine style, I've left a lot of prepping for the last minute or two.  Coming attractions to follow.  Friday night I played with The Billy Batts Ensemble, which has been the jazz / blues / classic R&B quartet that performs at the posh country clubs.  We were back downtown at the Capital City Club.  It was the night before the gi-normous Christmas Parade.  The foreboding story was laid out here, with the gory details of the SEC Championship game that followed.  It would not be a day to wander into the downtown traffic unaware of the proceedings.  Well, the night before was not so bad.  We had to share the stage space with the very impressive club tree.  I cracked to Walt, "I heard you were going to invest in some LED lighting for us, but this is ridiculous!"  My pics can certainly not do it ample justice.  The manager coordinated his staff to move some furniture out of our way, so we had plenty of room after all.  Nice treatment - they didn't like my amp sitting on their sofa!

We played a good mix of tunes, as before.  For some reason, I didn't get the Christmas charts that Walt had sent out.  No idea.  We did a few of the easier ones: Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Christmas Song, & Vince Gualaldi's Christmas Time is Here.  I more or less know these well enough.  We snuck in some impromptu rehearsal-mode versions of some others: Vince's Christmas is Coming, which is similar with the descending chordal pattern that gets you back to the V chord.  By the way, I recently got a copy of the newly (3 or 4 years ago) remastered Charlie Brown Christmas and I have to say it is one of the best improvements I've heard, as far as the remastering goes.  I got an early edition, with the new 2nd bridge (actually the original track unedited, so it's the original 2nd bridge that was never heard before) tucked into Linus and Lucy.  Love that album, and now it's even better!  No tape hiss!  Good use of noise reduction, if they employed it.  It was remixed from the original 3-track tapes, which is getting to be more common place these days with reissues.

I played my Tobias fretless and it was a bit of an intonation awareness session, but I got better as the 1st set went on.  I had forgotten my music stand at home, so my book was propped on my amp.  It forced me to try to commit Bye Bye Blackbird & Black Orpheus (Manhã de Carnaval - everybody calls it by the movie name, so it's hard to not follow suit) to memory.  I sort of have them now.  Nice to start finally memorizing some tunes.  Another one we tried that we really hadn't touched before was Yesterdays.  We back before I owned a computer or knew what the term blog was, I played Yesterdays with my buddies in the now-defunct Buffalo Alice.  I used to play it on Stick - at the Northside Tavern!  Anyways, it all comes back to ya after a few choruses!  We played it semi-up, as opposed to the ballad version that many folks emulate.

We were a force to be reckoned with, I reckon.  It seemed like we went over better at the beginning of the month.  Not sure why.  I think it's a very strong CC kinda band, considering we don't have a horn player...  but we do have Mark Letalien!  A true legend that I aspire to contend with!  (Dangling participle intended!) This guy truly cares about his place in the music business, and for that, I am blessed to join forces with him on select occasions...  You rawk Mark!