January Rehearsal Blues

January is usually the deadest month in the band business, and this January was/is no exception. But I was hoping we could use the time constructively to work in a couple rehearsals. Unfortunately this was not to be. Too many work-related conflicts. Oddly there was a gig on Saturday night and everyone (the rhythm section only in this case) made it.

No matter. We will be needing it for the February gigs we have coming up, including a road gig to Dallas on the 19th, where a surprise birthday party has requested 2 James Taylor tunes (I wrote charts on Steamroller and You've Got a Friend) and Just the Way You Are (which I think of not as a Billy Joel tune but as a Phil Woods tune). I've been writing a lot and there's a lot that's useful in the pile: Back Stabbers, Save Your Love For Me, Beyond the Sea, Tell It Like It Is, Tarrentella Napolitano, Elvira, Everyday People, The Curly Shuffle, and--just finishing--Macarthur Park! (Now consider the wide range that that list covers. Man oh man.) Now--if we only could get together and LEARN them!

So far Gigmasters has booked us best. We like the clean way they handle things. No fees for us, just the people hiring us. How much longer can this good thing continue?

I took the night of the 29th off. The rhythm section made it up to Cabo Loco and played with the singers, and we were auditioned by a wedding couple for a June event at the outdoor venue at the Salt Lick. They got the gig. The reason for my absence was that it was my birthday and I treated myself and Jan to a concert by Poncho Sanchez at the Hogg Auditorium at UT. Great band, fantastic charts, one mo-fo of a trumpet player.

As we were leaving UT I called Steve Johnson in LA on my cell and it turns out he's played with most of the band. Steve and I have been playing together since we were in Junior High, and when I realize that I'm really out in the sticks I call him to get my LA head back on. Steve is also the reason I write such high trombone parts. He doesn't complain, he just plays them. And because he has one of the most gorgeous trombone tones he always makes it sound like music. I write, Steve plays, he makes me look good. Unfortunately he lives 1300 miles away!

I'm going to sign off now and get MacArthur Park finished.

New Years Eve at Cabo

This was (except for a one-year hiatus in the 80s when I was too tied down to play) my 39th New Years Eve gig. My first was with Chuck McKelvey's band for twenty bucks. I remember afterward sitting in a booth at Pike's Verdugo Oaks in La Canada staring down at the twenty I'd just made, which I was just about to break for a hamburger and a coke, shaking my head in wonder. Over the years I played with Ansel Hill in Orange County, the Guy Lombardo band in a live remote from the Coconut Grove ballroom at the beach in Santa Cruz, with a bunch of ex-Kenton guys in Los Angeles, with the Modernaires and the Orchestra I led at the Casino in Avalon--26 miles across the sea. In between there were countless square bands, bands that were thrown together for the occasion, and yes, it is better to have a little history with the other players on the stand.

We played at Cabo Loco, where we did our first gig back in July. It's a room we may have outgrown, but we were assigned some of the space in the restaurant section of the room, There were plenty of enthusiastic dancers and the singers rose to the occasion. The horns alas were all sightreading except for me. Lucinda played her husband Chris' bari chair. John B was brought back from retirement to play trumpet. John Tolleson played plenty of trombone. Monte Mann played bass, Leroy and Javier made it, Janice got back from Atlanta in time. Jimmy tried out his new cordless mic with mixed results as he learns the ropes of not being roped to anything. Brendan gave blood as he split a finger on the conga.

Missing was a table full of people named "Cruz." David had a gig in Victoria, running sound for another band. The sound gods abandoned us several times during the gig, so we missed David.

Overall, nobody noticed, everybody got good and drunk and danced and stayed at the motel so the cops lined up at the stop sign didn't have very many customers. I got home at 4--still better than watching the sun come up over the driveway.