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.
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