For some reason I wasn't expecting to play in a church but it was part of La Verne's Celebration of the Arts: https://www.facebook.com/pages/La-Vernes-Celebration-of-the-Arts/179914412040097?pnref=story
There was a snafu with setup times and sound people so we didn't really get much of a sound check. We were the middle musical act between a female barber shop-style quartet and a 60 kid choir. No puppet show
The set (and believe it or not this was 30 minutes worth of music:
Friday Night at the Cadillac Club (Bob Berg)
Pools (Steps Ahead/Don Grusin)
Chromazone (Mike Stern)
Song for Bilao (Pat Metheny)
I had mostly memorized the tunes but I kept charts on stage for two bits - the solo section on Cadillac Club and the solo forms for Pools. I spent a huge amount of time preparing for this gig but we only had two rehearsals so I just decided to have the paper up there for the bits I still felt uncomfortable with/didn't spend as much time memorizing.
Because of the liveness of the room, lack of a proper sound check and no real sound guy or sound reinforcement I struggled with my volume (too quiet) for parts of the night. I knew that my amp was at ear level for most of the audience even if I was stuck with it at knee level so I tried to keep things on the quieter side...I was told the mix was fine in the hall but it was unbalanced a bit onstage from my vantage point.
As complicated as the music was I was happy that I made it through with just a few smaller mistakes. Ken the sax player shot video of it which I both want to see and am terrified of. We'll see if that sees the light of day.
Afterwards the guys were happy and were pretty unanimous in wanting to keep the group going and getting some gigs so I guess I'm in a fusion group now
There was a snafu with setup times and sound people so we didn't really get much of a sound check. We were the middle musical act between a female barber shop-style quartet and a 60 kid choir. No puppet show
The set (and believe it or not this was 30 minutes worth of music:
Friday Night at the Cadillac Club (Bob Berg)
Pools (Steps Ahead/Don Grusin)
Chromazone (Mike Stern)
Song for Bilao (Pat Metheny)
I had mostly memorized the tunes but I kept charts on stage for two bits - the solo section on Cadillac Club and the solo forms for Pools. I spent a huge amount of time preparing for this gig but we only had two rehearsals so I just decided to have the paper up there for the bits I still felt uncomfortable with/didn't spend as much time memorizing.
Because of the liveness of the room, lack of a proper sound check and no real sound guy or sound reinforcement I struggled with my volume (too quiet) for parts of the night. I knew that my amp was at ear level for most of the audience even if I was stuck with it at knee level so I tried to keep things on the quieter side...I was told the mix was fine in the hall but it was unbalanced a bit onstage from my vantage point.
As complicated as the music was I was happy that I made it through with just a few smaller mistakes. Ken the sax player shot video of it which I both want to see and am terrified of. We'll see if that sees the light of day.
Afterwards the guys were happy and were pretty unanimous in wanting to keep the group going and getting some gigs so I guess I'm in a fusion group now
