Billy Batts Ensemble Plays To Ourselves at Spring Break, with a taste from Symmetry

The weather was nice, but not nice enough to play outside.  Besides, the food would be coated in pollen by the time it was consumed if the folks who showed up opted for patio dining.  It was spring break week, or one of the big 2, so the crowd was thinner than usual.  Plus, the Braves were on and kicking butt against the Washington Nationals in D.C. (go Nats, but don't tell anybody)!  We weren't particularly inspired.  It felt like the group was a bit ADD and without our daily meds.  We jammed and practiced a few without any concern.  Well, nobody was there so it was a paid rehearsal.  Brian had a cool riff that doubled as a bass line and later morphed into our Latin version of Elisabeth Reed.  We played Come Together but all agreed that I Want You (She's So Heavy) would indeed be the heavy one to play - how to jazz it up?  The parts in 6 could be a jazz waltz.  The blues verses could be Latin a la Chitlins Con Carnes.

We played the usual Just Friends (I'm getting better at the form without the chart, but I still want to think of it as being in C rather than G) and Song For My Father and good news - we didn't get lost on the form once!  Walt and I spoke a long time ago about all of the great Horace Silver tunes that nobody plays.  We need to do some of them - a Horace Medley!  We spoke (a the gig) of finally getting around to learning Radiohead's Paranoid Android (I just got a chart - 8 pages with not much padding - oh boy) as well settled into the far easier Karma Police.  Mark performed a sweet African-infused multi-limbed workout on Unchain My Heart - it changed the song completely, but it still worked.  We concluded with Walt's original tune Fortune Teller, a funky Peter Gabriel-esque bluesy groove in B flat minor that I wish I had learned a bit better.  His CD is a well-produced masterpiece that gathers together his vast influences song by song for an amazing journey: info is over here for Symmetry, the debut cd release by Middleshelf.  The fellows were looking forward to their original gig on Saturday.  I made the choice to not join them; my loss perhaps.

Afterwards, it was social hour with visiting guitarist Jeff Caldwell, in town from Hawaii.  We met in Midtown at the world reknown R Thomas Deluxe Grille.  Good times and great to see an old jamming buddy.  He really is incredible - you will hear from this healthy individual sometime soon...

Jeff and Mark, both former members of Col. Bruce Hampton's Quark Alliance, sitting in front of me at R Thomas...