A Cool Spring Evening for Live Jazz Alfresco at Java Monkey

Been a quiet week, after Easter brought eggs and treats around our Marietta bungalow.  We didn't get around to coloring the eggs until Easter Sunday, but it was a nice afternoon activity after celebrating Passover with the family the night before.  No Saturday gig means laying low, but that can be a good thing.  Time to allow my right hand's blistered index finger to heal!

Once yet again, the fine Adrian Ash Group core quartet held court in the corner on the auspicious stages of Decatur's Fair Trade Coffee, Tea, Beer & Wine mecca Java Monkey.  We were once again blessed to reconvene for some informal jazz and fusion sessions.  The crowd thickened up as the evening wore on.  I was disappointed that the plastic insulating wrap had been reinstated after last week's warmer temps called for its removal.  Ah, well, that's how Spring can treat a struggling jazz musician.

It was a night to honor the great Herbie Hancock, born this day April 12, 72 years ago.  Jason riffed on the electro-jazz '80's anthem Rockit, but the tunes we played as a group were ones we always do anyway: Cantaloupe Island and Watermelon Man.  Herbie has been a prolific and progressive artist, always intriguing.  He is influential in his long boppish lines that always transcend the bar-lines.  He also spurred the mid-80's "Young Lions" neo-traditional jazz movement for which Wynton Marsalis typically enjoys the credit.  Can't believe he's that old!  That reminds me, I need to get busy working on that Joni Mitchell tune Edith and the Kingpin, a featured tune on Herbie's River: the joni letters tribute project.  That's one that is going to be called later this month...

What else did we play?  Back Track;  Doxy (great Sonny Rollins standard); a gloriously irreverent In-a-Gadda-da-Vida (how can that be you ask?) with moi on the not-seen-before-on-this-stage Ashbory Rubber Bass.  I have to say on my behalf that it sounded good (perhaps not great, I'll concede) and that it was an all too appropriate tune on which to whip it out.  Only wish I had snapped a pic.  The guys know me for taking pics at the most inopportune moments, but they probably would have understood this time.  Hey, there's always a next time.  It took a moment to tune (during setup, mind you) as I typically loosen the silicon strings to avoid breakage.  The g-string is prone to snapping in the case - not sure when, perhaps due to temperature shifts.  So I loosen them if I know I won't be playing it for a while.  It fit the proto-metal-grunge feel of this jazz ditty.  Glad I brought her out.

Update - April 18, 2012
How much time do I have on my hands?  Apparently a lot!  While reviewing these pages (I always find a typo or two when I proofread, check the links, insert pictures, text under the pics, etc.), I went to the US Ashbory web link www.largesound.com and learned that Brock came upon a new make of strings that work well on the Ashbory: Aquila Thundergut Bass Strings.  They're made in Italy.  Not sticky and not as stretchy.  About twice the price though.  I shall have to try a pack at some point soon.  Life is short, and so is this bass' scale.  ha!

Also, on this date in mid April, I learned of 2 passings: Levon Helm of The Band and the eternal teenager Dick Clark.  Levon gave Robbie Robertson's songs heart and soul and really placed the listener in the landscape.  Dick Clark introduced so many artists it's beyond my scope.  I can't begin to state his relevance.  Stunning to learn of these important figures leaving us.  Folks I've known ever since I was aware.  You younger critters can relate, I hope.

Aquila Thundergut Bass Strings
newly discovered to be a viable and perhaps more attractive alternative to the
silicon rubber string typically used on an Ashbory bass