Something to revisit while I get caught up on these past few postings...

I was digging out some old cd's and remembering the glory days of the early '90's when I would, like so many other musicians in the know, hobble down to the Variety Playhouse or, better yet, the Cotton Club when it was  on Peachtree St. in Midtown.  At these venues I witnessed some of the greatest jam-band shows ever.  Yes indeed, we're talking about the beloved Col. Bruce Hampton & The Aquarium Rescue Unit.  What an incredible and original force these folks were when they got up on stage together.  Bruce Hampton is still at it, and my bud Mark Letalien toured with him for a couple of years.  He is one of my true brushes with greatness!  Bruce Hampton, Jimmy Herring, Oteil Burbridge, Matt Mundy, Jeff Sipe, Count M'Butu, and even Chuck Leavell (appearing on their self-titled album recorded at the Georgia Theatre) - that was the lineup.  It may never happen, as Matt Mundy has withdrawn from the public eye, as far as I know.  The licks he played on his electric mandolin were so fresh, albeit bop-influenced to the max.  His tone on that thing was so sweet, sitting in the mix beautifully alongside Jimmy's fire-breathing guitar tone for days and Oteil's Modulus 6-string scatting/chordal compin'/highly nuanced bassdom.  Oteil gave me the impetus to go out and get that 6-string bass.  Sadly, I got a cheap Ibenez.  Replaced the pickups and preamp eventually and still have that bass.  Hey, I left out Jeff Sipe - a real monster on the drums who pushed the beat in such a way that you were leaning forward watching them up there, close to falling into the cat in front of you, but he never lost the pocket.  Uncanny.  I remember the Variety Playhouse show when Phish opened for Bruce & the ARU.  Phish broke out their trampolines and then  during the main set, Jeff had his long hair shaved off, while he played the kit, by a dancing ballerina with an electric razor!  Now that's entertainment!  Here is a great clip, directed by Billy Bob Thorton as a favor to Bruce (they were in Slingblade together) that captures a small part of the magic.  Alas, no solo from Jimmy or Matt, but Oteil gets to shine and Chuck is perfect in his organ riffing.  Check it out just to see Bruce all made up and looking a bit spiffy.  The audio is the same track that is on the self-titled cd - kinda nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM8V5mMGYas&feature=youtu.be

The Georgian Terrace Job

The final Saturday of the first month of the new year.  Not much was easy about this one.  I was warned about the traffic (thanks Gus), so I took 285 around to I20, circumventing the slop.  Platinum is a big group already - tonight we were a 10 piece with Dianna Crawford and Anton's friend Dashill Smith on trumpet.  The placement of our sizable stage in the center of this cozy, odd shaped "Grand Ballroom" put us in the laps of our dining audients.  As as happened before, we were just too loud to be rendering "dinner music".  It had been a while for us as well.  The full original 8-piece Platinum (with Gus) last performed on December 10, up in Alpha-tuckey (ex AM 640 talk show host Kim "The Kimmer" Peterson often used this made-up contraction to refer to the Northern nether-regions of greater Atlanta.  I really miss hearing him on the air.  WGST, you really blew it when you fired him and his staff).  That's quite a while ago.  Still, our first set was rather nice, opening with a jazzy, hip-hop beat-infused version of Coltrane's Lonnie's Lament.  Listening now to the Crescent album version, with Jimmy Garrison's extended bass break, I wish I had run out there figuratively and got in a bass solo.  By the way,  how many Coltrane recordings are there on which John himself didn't take a solo?  Can't think of too many!  There was no sax solo on this one!  Anyways, it sounded nice with Anton & Dash in octave-unison and blowing in a celebratory fashion.  A nice arrangement, perhaps borrowing the vibe from Marcus Miller's version.  Not a bad cat to get ideas from...  Played my NS WAV with the strap accessory.  So hard to see the dots with that contraption.  I know I hit a couple of flat notes.  Will try to get a better angle (and some reliable way to transport that wooden assembly) for next time.  The tone of it is spot on, as far as I'm concerned.

The above was written while we were waiting to play.  Once we got going, things went very well.  In fact, the last set was wonderful.  The parents were partying along with the younger folk, making it a lot of fun.  Some highlights were Dash coming up to the front to perform some of the raps on It Takes Two, the Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock early nineties thang (with the James Brown wooo!  yeah! sample that just doesn't quit!), Lexxi stealing the show once again with her beautiful rendition of Get Here, and lastly, a jaunty ride through Donna Summers' Last Dance, featuring Dianna.  Nice all around.  I should have joined Viriginia, Dianna, Anton, & Dash over at Churchill Grounds afterwards.  I got pulled over by the police and received a traffic ticket for turning right on red at a NTOR light.  I use that street a fair amount - Deering Road - so I should have remembered that sign.  Of course, I was sober, so no worries.  Still, it is never fun to sit there with the blue lights screaming in your rear view mirror for what feels like 30 minutes.  Got to be more careful out there...

Accidental lens manipulation - no Photoshopping required!

Dauber effect - it helps!

Waiting to commence.

Gus broke out the cricket chirps early in the evening.

Dashill - finally a dude in the band with longer hair than mine!

Dash & Lexxi going at it on "It Takes Two".

Friday Night at the Cadillac Club

Met up with the gang from The Billy Batts Ensemble last night.   Astute readers know that I made a sly reference to the now classic Bob Berg blues/swing masterpiece.  Those readers have also put together the fact that this band primarily performs at the Capital City Club in downtown Atlanta.  They may start having us at the Brookhaven location as well.  Highlignts were a stellar Dear Prudence, the first run-thru of my chart for In Your Eyes, the old pre-Miles-Prestige-Quintet standard Yesterdays, Stormy Monday Blues, Beg Steal or Borrow, and Just Friends.  Walt enjoyed having access to the Steinway grand piano.  We sounded big with that beast.

As always, the hang was great.  Unfortunately, we took a long first break.  That meant we played an extra long 2nd set with no other break.  That's fine actually.  We are there to play and they serve us a lot of food - hard to get through that big meal in 20 minutes!  We had a couple of families with pre-toddler girls at the end of the night.  They really enjoyed it, especially the closing number Unchain My Heart, featuring terrific vocals from Walt.

My Fender Jazz bass had some rather dead strings.  What is better, fresh flatwounds or dead roundwounds.  I'm considering putting on some of those new (not really new, but they seem to be more prominently marketed) black tapewound strings on my Jazz bass.  It might be a nice look and tone.  Hard to be happy with my sound lately.  I got out some melodic, if not adventurous, solos.  I think I hesitated a bit and Walt wondered if I was even coming in on one the tunes.  I will make it a point to just jump in and go for it.  Walt and I hung out afterwards.  A great friend, he is.  Someone I don't share a whole lot with usually.  I learned that Brian's dog passed away the same day that Praline died.  Very sad to learn.  I will think of her a lot when I play music.

Java Monkey 1/19/12

I was back at Java Monkey once again with Decatur's finest Original Jazz Combo The Adrian Ash Group.  We were restored to the core quartet for this week's performance.  The band has a Valentines Day job on the books, so we are putting together a list of "baby making" music.  In that vein, we ran through You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Al Green's Simply Beautiful, Imagine, & Sweet Child o' Mine.  Funny mix of Motown, R&B, Classic Rock, & 80's Hair Metal.   Speaking of baby making music, I heard Luther Vanross' version of the Stevie Wonder tune Knocks Me Off My Feet ("I don't wanna bore you with it, oh but I love you I love you I love you...") and thought that would be an excellent smooth jazz arrangement.  I will pledge to get that into a Finale chart, along with every girl's favorite Peter Gabriel love song In Your Eyes (thanks to John Cusack and his boombox).  Hard to find time to make charts but I will knock some out.
Emile joined us again and really sounded good.  The keys worked in his favor this week.  We were tired for a change, but we had good energy and I didn't step on my dick as I usually do for some reason.  Viva le jazz!

Monday morning update - my NS WAV didi indeed feel better after the bridge lowering I had recently tackled.  However, I think it may need a slight truss rod adjustment as well.  That looks to be a bit of a tougher tweak, but I honestly haven't looked into it yet.  We have had some sad times here lately at home as our 2nd dog Praline passed away last week.  The house is very empty without her.  I spent much of the weekend cleaning, organizing, and removing her crate and bowls from the living room areas.  Even Jack helped with swifferring, vacuuming, and lysoling!  I drove by Sam Ash and decided to pop in to get one of those feedback busters for my acoustic bass guitar.  Neat how they just pop into the soundhole.  Hopefully next time I will have the level more under control.  I will snap a pic, along with those Stick pics, to post here in the near future. 

Also, made a chart for Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes for our Valentines Day show.  It was a labor of love.  I have searched long and hard to find a chart for it.  No dice.  Had to make my own.  Got it onto 2 pages and it's fairly well detailed.  I didn't add the lyrics because I thought that might clutter it up even more than it alrady is.  I also didn't chart the bass or the cool 12-string guitar parts that really make the track come alive.  Hopefully, folks do their homework to a certain degree and can cop those parts.  I did get the melody to the first verse down fairly well, although it reads a bit stiff with lots of 16th note syncopations.  I might be easier to read if I had doubled the pulse, but that would certainly take up more space on paper.  It is a glorified ballad, so I'm certain that I did it justice.  We'll see how it plays out as a smooth jazz number with either tenor or soprano saxophone handling the melody.  As it is in concert D and then E major, it is not likely as sax friendly tune.

Sittin' in with Brett Warren at Fat Matt's Rib Shack - where it all began for our family!

Took the family out to Fat Matt's Rib Shack for great BBQ - Sabina was all for this.  We met 16 years ago there...

Adrain Ash was playing drums (he also is the bassist when they have a drummer) for The Brett Warren Band, a blues revival force hailing from Tennessee.  Brent played and sang at Adrian & Heather's wedding, so I have known him for a bit now.  He had Adrian on drums (Adrian usually plays bass with Brett, I believe), Ronnie White on keys, and  Jacob Holliday on bass.  Jacob played with a lot of fire and passion, careening all over the neck of his Squire Jazz bass equipped with black tapewound strings.  I had brought my bass to sit in, but took Jacob up on his offer to let my play on his axe.  Got up there for the last song of the set, as Bin and the boys couldn't wait through the break for the next set, and played on a funky version of Albert King's Crosscut Saw in A.  Brett gave me a solo - funny!  Blues bass solos are silly sometimes.  I had some good ideas and finished off 2 choruses in fine fashion.  Only problem was he wanted me to go longer.  The moral is don't wrap it up too soon!  Be ready to keep it going until every else is ready for you to be done!  Words of wisdom that I may heed one day myself.  I loved the sound and feel of Jacob's bass.  My apologies if I happened to get some rib sauce on the strings!  You know that's goona happen at Fat Matt's!  Really, Jacob, thank you so much for letting me play on your bass!  You are a wonderful player and I appreciated the chance to get up there and play in front of my wife and kids for one rockin' ditty. 

The ribs, beans, Brunswick Stew, and even the Wonder bread dipped into the bbq sauce really took me back to the good old days of playing there every Wednesday with Randy Chapman & The Big Green Bottle Revue (a crafty tongue-in-cheek tribute to Mickey's Big Mouth Malt Liquor), which unfortunately was never properly documented (too early for internet documentation), as well as Randy's Interstate Brickface, Buffalo Alice, and even Jellyroll.  I spent many nights there playing back in the day.  One great brush with greatness for me was meeting James Hetfield of Metallica there.  He watched us (a band with my bud Reece Harris on drums) play a bunch of stuff a bit too fast.  I remember apologizing for the tempos (tempi?) and he said he liked the faster versions.  A great memory.  Fun to be up there again, dodging the bathroom doors with my bass headstock!

No Gigs This Week, But I Did Receive a Special Delivery...

Yesterday, my new (used) Chapman Stick arrived via UPS!  As a few of you may well know, I was once a Chapman Stick owner.  I traded it for an NS/Stick, which I use somewhat often, mainly in the U2 portion of a U2/Van Halen tribute band called Running With Desire.  Perhaps not the best use of a tapper's talents, but it has been a challenge to conjure up The Edge's & Eno's treated keyboard ear-candy along with Adam's rock solid bass dwellings in a live setting.  After getting in touch with my old bud George Soler, a Stick virtuoso since he first picked one up back in the mid eighties (sorry to date us both there George!), I realized I truly missed having a classic Stick to hold and smother with my own Taco Bell-infused greasy mitts.  I probably could have gone about it in a better way, but the bottom line is I do have one in my possession once again: a gorgeous Pau Ferro (Brazilian Ironwood) model completely refurbished by Emmett himself.  It plays so well I think I'm going to keep it forever this time!  It made me realize the importance of the wood (thanks again to George for pointing this out so eloquently).  My old model was a Polycarbonate and the difference is more than I would have thought.  It has what I think are medium gauge strings, but they may in fact be heavy.  I had hinted  to Cambria, my phone and email contact with Stick Enterprises, that I may wish to tune the 6th, or lowest pitch  "bass" string down to "A", a minor third below the Stick's standard tuning.  That string is a larger one!  The others may be correspondingly greater in diameter as well.  The tension feels a bit stiff compared to what I remember.  As it is now, I'm leaving it in the MR, or Matched Reciprocal tuning that I ended up gravitating towards so many years ago: CGDAE CGDAE (strings 1-10).  Ah, the possibilities - what would be the tuning if I lower everything?  A whole step lower: BbFCGD BBFCGD  or A minor third lower: AEBF#C# AEBF#C#.  It's hard enough dealing with the pianistic concepts presented with the free hands way of playing, the inverted 5ths on the bass side, the stereo output and subsequent independent signal processing... then to relearn the fingerboard just to get a couple of extra low notes.  I don't think I have it in me.  Perhaps I will occasionally lower that 6th string for sub-bass hooks, but I will keep that MR going as my MO.  EADG is in my DNA!
Thoughts along these lines are 2 handed.  On the NS/Stick, it is divided in half at the 4th to 5th string jump.  Since the 2nd 4 are DAEB, well, then that becomes your 4 string bass.  The 4 string guitar is then BbFCG, which is not in anybody's dna.  Rather unwieldy.  How about a take on Keef's 5-string open G Telecaster method, based on Gram Parsons' country originals - yeah, I read the book Life.  That would be something life BGDG (best string tension compared to the current NS tuning) or maybe DBGG or DBDG, if strings could be swapped.  just a very random thought.

Finally took some pics of this instrument.  Been a bit of a challenge to get around to doing it, at least in a semi-proper fashion.  Anyways, here are some glamour shots of the newly restored Stick, #1283.  Yeah, the headstock is a bit dusty now that I look at it.  But boy, the hardware has a nice gleam!  Now, how do you tune it again?

Platinum Soul "from the top of the world" in downtown Atlanta

Saturday January 7, the small and ergonomic version of Platinum, namely Platinum Soul, played at Ventanas.  It is billed as "Atlanta's Premier Rooftop Event Space and Helipad".  Going to their web site, I learned that ventana is Spanish for window.  This place has lots of floor-to-ceiling windows and perhaps one of the best views of the ATL from it's 14th & 15th (location of their helipad - makes you wanna yell "Air Taxi!  Follow that copter!") floor locations.  It was stunning.  It was also windy and warm and great to hang out on the patio next to the gas fire pits, that is until the thunderstorms (in January?) came along.  We enjoyed our boxed lunch of cold chicken and such from Affairs to Remember fireside.  I for one enjoyed the spread: grilled chicken, leafy greens with dressing/dipping sauce for the chicky, black eyed pea salad w/diced jalepenoes, seasonal fruit (strawberries & the like), roll, frudge brownie.  Nice.

It was the same lineup as New Years Eve, with one minor change - Gus was back!  Hey there, that's a nice surprise!  Great to play with the big man once again.  We tried a couple of new things, for us anyway.  We did Mother's Finest finest tune Baby Love, the live version, mind you.  It could be considered our proggiest tune in the book, with lots of tight kicks and blues-inflected licks.  It was decent, considering we didn't get a soundcheck run-through to work it out prior to tackling it in front of an audience.  We also played Barry White's You're the First, the Last, My Everything, which went much better than last week's feeble attempt.  Other tunes: a straight ahead jazz set to open it up: Mercy Mercy Mercy, Stella By Starlight, All the Things You Are, and Freddie Freeloader.  My electric upright was put to good use for that set.  We kept on going in that vein after the 1st set: Georgia On My Mind, Come Away With Me, Easy, more of our typical early night's selections.  Later we ventured into some other territories: Michael Jackson's Rock With You and then a KC & the Sunshine Band medley: Get Down Tonight --> Sheik Yerbouti (not the FZ album but I like that spelling!) --> That's the Way (I Like It).  I know, it's not exactly revolutionary or adventurous, but it's still nice to play some things we've never done before as a band.  If we knew Sledgehammer then that would have been something to get into.  Let's Go Crazy went over well too.  Hey, I almost forgot to mention that I had a mic and got to sing a slew of backups.  Fun!  I was a Pip for Midnight Train to Georgia!  The crowd really got into dancing - shouting for Brick House!  Ended the night with Purple Rain, as we do so often lately.  Nice venue, but the load in/out was not easy.  At least security gave us the OK to park in the empty lot for free!

Lush Life: The Continuing Adventures of a Jazz Quartet at Java Monkey's Fortnightly Wine Tastings

Thursday the 5th of January was my first official paid musical engagement of the new year.  I am back with The Adrian Ash Group for perhaps another series of wine tasting events at Decatur's beloved Java Monkey, a coffehouse/bistro/restaurant that also happens to serve distinguished selections of wine and locally crafted beers.  We provide jazz originals, standards, swing, bossa, ballads, electric fusion, instrumental classic rock, and the like for those who wish to partake in the cozy environs of the patio area.  Speaking of which, one of the natural gas faux-fireplace space heaters has just been replaced along with the drapery doorway, making the patio a warm refuge from the chilly windy Dekalb County Marta and Police fueled streets.  It was toasty!  What a difference - spread the word, wake the babies, get down here next time!  And yes, fortnightly is the same as biweekly, but apparently not in the UK (see here).

For this night, it was Adrian, Guy Fenocchi, myself, and Marquinn Mason, who played with us on this very stage last year.  Also added to the proceedings, we had guest vocalist Emile Worthy, a ballad specialist in the Johnny Hartman vein.  The first tune Emile called was Lush Life, which perhaps not so ironically was quite famously rendered on the essential yet brief pairing of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.  I am not a jazz historian (really) and don't know all the big players as well as the Miles, Tranes, Methenys, etc., but I can honestly say that it would be a waste of time to find a more superlative version of this song.  This song, by Billy Strayhorn, would have to be considered his quintessential composition, rumored to be written by young Billy at the age of 16 (originally titled "Life is Lonely", btw).  Anyways, for some reason, the tune is ingrained in my conscious.  I think my old roomie Sam Skelton taught me that it was an important record and I took to it.  It's Trane made easy for the masses - no sheets of sound, no Giant Steps to keep up with, no false harmonics and reaching for the higher being, no double quartet or modal excursions.  Just good old fashioned tunes that your mother could appreciate.  Lush Life is a great tune, but if you've never really listened to it before, it's a sucker to try to play on the spot.  We had a trying time with it.  It follows the vocal very closely.  It also cannot be played without the verse up front.  However, when the solos come around, it's only the choruses that get repeated, as with any standard.  The good ol' Real Book does not do a good job in distinguishing that, and btw, mangles some of the chords pretty well at that.  Ugh!  I had penciled in the correct changes years and years ago, but the tune just doesn't get called very often - we're all a little afraid of it Billy!  Joe Henderson's solo rendition is wonderful - a great vehicle for him to play the melody and harmony as well, with help from nobody else.  Nat Cole did a nice job as well.  Here is a very good chart, taken from the New Real Book 1 - they get it wrong once in a while too, but this is spot on.  I hope we can develop it with Emile in the future - it should be his signature song.

To be honest, the whole night was kinda like that.  We played You Are the Sunshine of My Life in the key of Eb, which made a good fit for Emile's voice.  We played Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby in Fm and he did well, making up some of the words but leaving out the verse - he didn't know it at all.  That's okay and we followed him.  I love his voice and he is very talented.  We talked about getting a show together.  That will take getting a list - with his keys!!! - together.  It needs to happen.  Singers have to sing standards in their keys.  End of story.

Marquinn had a great tone and some really nice melodic turns.  I played my NS WAV and it sounded good.  The action was higher than I remember.  The cold weather has taken it's toll and if I want to play it tomorrow with Platinum during our jazz set than I need to tweak that a bit.  It was good to be back - we missed the show 2 weeks ago due to some severe rain storms barreling through the greater ATL.  Here are some pics - taken by Emile so they look better than usual.