weeks thoughts

Once again another couple of busy weeks. We finished up at the House of Blues and Jazz. A nice experience for me. We ended up in a bit of a routine, as in playing almost all the same songs every night. But I think it catches up with you. Selim came in with a lot of energy, but I think after 2 months its hard to keep it up there. It was really like 2 gigs.

We did a jazz set, then 2 sets of funk/soul/blues. The jazz songs were usually long and drawn out. 3-4 songs for a 45 minute set. Long solo’s and pretty much everyone took one on every song. I think If I were calling the shots, I’d let one or 2 take a long solo, or everyone shorter solo’s. I think it’s hard to keep the audience interested these days, so trying to break it up a bit and making more peaks and troughs would work better.

The funk/soul/blues were a lot of the time were the same form as the original songs. Selim has a bit of a show that works well getting the audience involved, pretending to fine the band if we made a mistake. All good fun, and a bit of a shame that I’m not there anymore. They like to switch up the house band every 3 months or so. The past year they have been using local musicians for 1 or 2 weeks. But they decided to go back to inviting international bands to play 3 month residencies.

I think from my experience, I just really want to play every night. You just get stronger with all that experience. And songs that you know become more familiar and easier to play. Practicing in the shed doesn’t compare to playing live.

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So last week I had a night at Heyday and a couple of nights at Shake, as well as a bunch of corporate gigs. I’m really tired actually, but I need to work while I can because Chinese New Year is coming up fast and there will be a couple of months of nothing much.

Heyday was great! Charlie Foldesh was on drums and Denise and Koh Koh were singing. Koh Koh got a request for one of my favourite tunes “The Man I Love” and she killed it. She had her new boyfriend in the crowd who just happens to be a phenomenal tenor sax player, and dedicated the song to him and made it into a moment. I just like the intimacy of the venue, small and compact so you’re playing right amongst the audience.

Shake was fun too. It was a 90’s R&B night with such hits like ‘The Thong Song’ and ‘Frontin’. My 18 year old self would be deeply saddened by the songs on this gig. But it was kinda fun. Always is when there a 6 piece band that know how to play. Met a new drummer on the gig too. He’s got an amazing groove and I think he’ll be sticking around for a while too.

The events were ok… they paid well so I can’t complain. One was at the Peace Hotel on the bund. Its an amazing building, and they have an old Chinese jazz band playing in the lobby there. We were doing some corporate function on the roof with an amazing view of the river and it’s lit up buildings.

Another was at a fancy French restaurant in the French Concession. This road has a bunch of similar bar/restaurants. They are these old houses with beautiful gardens, and they just turn them into a business. This one had a few hiccups, like the chefs were busy and we overplayed, almost got cancelled on arrival and we were all starving, but we did get paid and had a nice meal in the end.

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This week I’m in Hangzhou. There is a new Italian band starting a residency at the Hangzhou JZ club. Their bass player got delayed, so I’m subbing for him for 2-3 weeks or so. We did our first gig last night, which was fun! It’s pretty much straight ahead stuff, and they are pretty keen and excited about doing the gig. It’s a nice venue, I wish it were in Shanghai. The club has an upright bass which is in pretty good condition. The one downside is that I’m staying in hotel and don’t have much to do during the day. I don’t have any instruments to practice so I might do more writing, ear training and transcribing. Next week I think I’ll at least bring an electric bass to play a bit in the room.