I was asked to play May 2nd at an arts festival with my usual non-All Star Trio bandmates (Tyler Walton, Gary Pritchard and Martin Torres) and saxophonist Ken Foerch who is the bandleader for this gig....I don't play very much jazz and especially fusion or modern jazz so I'm pretty excited. We have a 30 minute spot at the festival so the set list is actually pretty short (4 tunes). We had a much longer list of songs and I spent quite a bit of time on some of the music that was cut (especially "Have You Heard?" by Pat Metheny) but it sounds like they want to book more gigs so its all money in the bank at this point.
Rehearsal was something I've been working towards for the last two weeks with a ton of woodshed time both on the music and my technique just to keep up with the songs. Last night was a painful reminder of how little I've read music at a "pro" level over the last decade though. If anything this gig has been a great boost to my skills just in trying to execute the music as a respectable level.
These are the four songs we are playing for this gig.
As far as practicing goes I've been spending quite a bit of time playing the heads to "Chromazone" and "Friday Night at the Cadillac Club" on my steel string acoustics slowly with the metronome and gradually building up speed until I've been able to execute them at speed. Playing on the heavier strings is forcing me to play harder and more concisely on the electric.
One thing gear wise about this gig is that I usually don't like playing with chorus very much but some of the music really needs that little extra audio condiment to work. I've also been working in some phaser as well...we'll see how the gear part of this shakes out but I'm not totally happy with the Suhr Badger amp and big pedalboard. I might try the Deluxe and small rig for the second rehearsal.
Rehearsal was something I've been working towards for the last two weeks with a ton of woodshed time both on the music and my technique just to keep up with the songs. Last night was a painful reminder of how little I've read music at a "pro" level over the last decade though. If anything this gig has been a great boost to my skills just in trying to execute the music as a respectable level.
These are the four songs we are playing for this gig.
As far as practicing goes I've been spending quite a bit of time playing the heads to "Chromazone" and "Friday Night at the Cadillac Club" on my steel string acoustics slowly with the metronome and gradually building up speed until I've been able to execute them at speed. Playing on the heavier strings is forcing me to play harder and more concisely on the electric.
One thing gear wise about this gig is that I usually don't like playing with chorus very much but some of the music really needs that little extra audio condiment to work. I've also been working in some phaser as well...we'll see how the gear part of this shakes out but I'm not totally happy with the Suhr Badger amp and big pedalboard. I might try the Deluxe and small rig for the second rehearsal.
