I Hear a Rhapsody

Well, Spacecats had our first gig Saturday night, at the Alternative Medicine Brewing Company in Mount Vernon.  It went really well.  The band sounded great.  The crowd dug us, and the owner wants to have us back, and is talking about putting together a regular jazz night.

The room itself is pretty big, although half of it, behind the band, is where they brew the beer, and the other half, out in front is the bar.  So the acoustics were good, with a large, boomy reverb.  The bar provided a PA, which was very nice and saved us alot of trouble hauling and setting up our own.

We did a combination of jazz and funk, standards, originals, and interpretations of rock and pop songs.  I was definitely happy with my playing, and the sound of the group, and everything musically. We really came together as a band, focused and leveled up the last few weeks.

We played two sets of just about an hour each.  Here’s the set list.

  1. Buzzy Blue (Szinger)           
  2. All the Things You Are
  3. Mister Magic
  4. Heavy Skies (Szinger)    
  5. I Hear a Rhapsody
  6. Walking on the Moon
  7. Pour Me a Fifth (Duetchman)
  8. Some Skunk Funk
  9. Peg
  1. Dr. Pluto (Szinger)                        
  2. Sunny
  3. Minority
  4. Atonement Blues (Szinger)           
  5. Havona
  6. Dolphin Dance
  7. Lift Off (Szinger)
  8. Cape Verdean Blues
  9. You Can’t Get What You Want (‘Till You Know What You Want)

Some of these originals I played in previous bands, altough the arrangement and sound have been updated.  Dr. Pluto is all-new, a funk jam written for this group based around a bluesy bass line, which Ken plays with a wah-wah effect.  Pour Me a Fifth is also new, a jazz waltz by our piano player Josh.

Watch this space for audio and video clips from the show, coming soon.

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In other news, I finally finished trimming the hedges over the weekend.  All in all it took five sessions over three weekends.  This last one was all up on the ladder, including getting low-hanging boughs from the neighbor’s willow tree.  Now we’re done for a while, but next it’s on to weeding and edging.

And, it’s origami crunch time.  I’m trying to finish a few original models before the convention.  This week it’s dodecahedron star balls.  Watch this space for pics, coming soon.