This week was pretty consistent. Had a few last minute calls to play some gigs here and there.
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Monday, Emanuale came in from Hangzhou. We had a bit of a jam in my studio, then went over to JZ school (and later Chair Club). I didn’t know, but Souselle and Tony had planned a recording session. Tony is setting the place up for it and wanted to test out the equipment with a live group.
I thought it came out well, the mics for the bass made it sound like I was playing in a Church. Even the piano (which was electric) turned out really nice with some added reverb. The only thing was some clicking from the piano keys bleeding into the bass mic. But it shows a lot of potential, and it looks like a perfect place to record live jazz….
I’d like to record with Emanuale before he goes back to Italy. I go on holiday at the end of January, so there might not be enough time… We’ll see.
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Tuesday and Wednesday I was at Heyday. Wed was a weird one…. Some students hired out the place and we started early at 8:30 (usually 9:45). They were smoking cigars, so we kinda ended it prematurely. No one was listening anyway, they were getting wasted and talking loudly.
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Thursday was at this bar I played last NYE. They put the band in the corner, and still don’t have any decent equipment. Well the police must be on holidays or something, cause everyone was smoking in there too. It has stopped in Shanghai for a number of years now. I don’t know what happened, but it’s pretty funny. They look away for. Minute, and it just starts over again. I liked the singer on this one, Yao Yao. She has a nice voice, confident and a nice tone too. She said she usually doesn’t sing jazz standards, more pop and R&B.
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Then Fri/Sat I was back at the Park Hyatt. I haven’t played there for a year or so. They cut the pay, but everything else was the same. Anyway, it’s still ok. I had a good time, It’s been a while since I played with Tony Hall. He’s still the same… Don’t think he’ll ever change.
Friday the singer was JoJo. I thought she was really good too! 2 new singers I didn’t know before. She does more R&B, soul, pop.
Saturday we had Leo on Alto sax, and Tony sang. A lot of the same material from our time in Suzhou.
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Tonight was Heyday again. A night of instrumental jazz, which is kinda rare for me. It’s probably my favourite, as I feel it opens up to more interesting material. Jeremy Sinclair was calling the tunes. A couple of New Orleans types, some regular standards, and then Litha (Chic Corea). Bit of a tough one, I think I messed up the form a couple times… Not bad for a first time.
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Leeyan bought a couple new phones for us that just arrived today. 2 iPhone 11’s. We had our previous ones for about 5 years, so I think it’s justified. Only problem was spending half a day setting it up, and still not ready. We were meant to have a Xmas lunch at Dave and Cottons, but didn’t make it.
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Still didn’t finish the recording stuff…. I’ll try knock it over these charts the next couple of days and see if I can get something happening. No gig’s lined up for January though, so maybe it’s not the best time to be spending money on something like that….
I think I need to do it anyway, time doesn’t wait you know…. Good or bad, I think I need to get moving with it.
The doubt that I keep having, is that my musicianship is still improving a lot. So if I record, wouldn’t it be better to do it when I’m at a higher level? Sounds a bit like an excuse.
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Looks like I might need to find another platform to upload videos. Dtube simply isn’t ready yet…. Neither is steemit to be honest… I have a positive outlook for it in the future though.
But now that YouTube got funded for that children thing (don’t really know what happened), it looks like they could take down a lot of my content as it might infringe on copyright.
Although the purpose of uploading these recordings of live performance it to see my progression over time, I don’t know…. I guess I’ll just wait till they take them down, then I’ll find another one to upload to.
