Another Beautiful Spring Evening in the Enclosed Patio of Java Monkey

Does that sound a little weird?  It is a bit odd to play in the most perfect weather on a patio that is enclosed by old sheet plastic.  It's like we're cut off from the society at large.  At no point during the night did we have anybody sitting down inside and watching us.  That's a little sad in itself.  I think we should hope for the removal of the plastic for next time.  Also, the lighting was very strange.  Perhaps a total of 3 lights above us and nothing else!  It was never explained but the new lights were installed as we were starting up at around 8 or so.

We were fortunate to have Rob Dama on trumpet, as Jason couldn't make it - playing for George Lopez' party up at Cafe 290.  Rob has a nice, laid back vibe that seemed to fit with us particularly well.  We did some cool jams, plus some lesser played standards including Wayne Shorter's Yes or No and that Jerome Kern ballad Yesterdays all funked up and with the change of

| Dm    B half-dim | Em7b5    A7 alt. | nicely simplified to

| Dm    | Eb7     |

I played upright again.  It sounded ok.  My solos were a meandering mess in all honesty.  I don't work at it and it shows.  I guess I need to devote some time to really transcribing some stuff to get it under my fingers.  I need to have some decent vocabulary or it's just going to become too depressing.

My special cart loading method: inverted sheet music stand supported by amp
to cradle upright bass neck on journey down the streets of Decatur.

The patio is alive, but we're sequestered behind dingy plastic wrap.

A light challenged Rob Dama.