Category: Music

Van Halen Erupts

Last night I saw Van Halen at Madison Square Garden, and they were great. Played 20 or 30 Van Halen songs. All their radio hits, a bunch of deep tracks and a bunch of songs off their new record.

Performance-wise they were better than when I saw them in the ’80’s. That time they all looked totally wasted and tired, worn out from the road. This time they were sober and energetic. Plus they had David Lee Roth back in the band!

Eddie and Alex were both in top form, better than ever. Maybe even perfect. After all this time I’m amazed all over again at what an amazing guitarist Eddie is. (On my personal list he’s probably the best guitarist ever in the world, or maybe tied with Jimmy Page). He’s such an icon it’s almost easy to take his genius for granted, but to see him play live really reminds you. Just fantastic. He can sound like the whole album with just one guitar. Great use of space, voicings, and contrast in all his playing. Lots of subtle musicianship in there. And then of course all the over-the-top riffs, speed and seemingly effortless virtuosity. All the solos were spot on, and he put in little improvised embellishments all over the place. Yet somehow it all always supports the song. During his extended solo he did a one-handed tap thing while rocking the volume knob with the other. Great effect and I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

Alex is one of the most awesome and underrated drummers out there. Great sound, great time, great chops, great parts for the songs. He had an extended solo too, and the intro to Hot for Teacher alone was worth it.

David Lee Roth was good but not quite living up to the studio recordings (admittedly a near impossible task). He still has the range but is not screaming high notes all the time, and on some songs he was still finding his way towards perfecting a new delivery. I think this was the 2nd show of the tour. I’d like to see them after a month. He’s still got dancing and karate kicks, although maybe a bit less jumping. He seemed a bit stiff the first part of the show, and he was using a headset mic for some reason. (Jeannie says to me “doesn’t he know Madonna uses on of those because she lip syncs?”) Later on he switched to a handheld mic and the sound was better and he appeared more relaxed. Maybe he had trouble hearing himself. Who knows. Anyway there were definitely some great moments, especially in the second half, and often as not he really nailed it. In any event, he’s Diamond Dave!

Wolfgang held his own just fine, and his presence lent a Hot Tub Time Machine vibe to the whole show. He and Eddie hit most of the vocal harmonies spot on, but Wolfie was off once or twice.

The sound in the hall was great, and the mix was clean and clear. Eddie had ten Marshall stacks behind him, but I think most were props. Three had mics in front of them, and a couple of times he got up there and worked the feedback. Wolfgang had 8 bass cabinets but only 2 were mic’d. The only mics I could see on Alex’s kit were two overheads. If there were close mics they must’ve been underneath, or built into the drums. I’d love to know. The bass drums had closed front heads.

Opening act was Kool and the Gang, which was a pleasant surprise. Looks like they have all the original members. They sounded tight, with a big ol’ horn section, lots of solos, and all their funk-soul hits. They made a nice contrast to VH. I’ve met the trumpet player Michael Ray because back in the 90’s he led a Sun Ra influenced jazz band called the Kosmic Krew that included my friend Adam on keyboards. I’ve even been to his house in New Orleans. He had a most excellent Voodoo shrine. Very nice guy.

Dancing thru the Decades

My kids’ school put on a musical show this weekend, and I played in the band. It was a lot of fun and another good opportunity to get involved and get to know more of the families as well as to make some music. The show included kids from first to eighth grade, and as the name implies, featured hits from the last decades of pop music. I thought it was a really well put together show, especially given the time constraint. The kids were at a mix of levels but there were quite a number of really good performers featured as soloists and in small groups, and the large group numbers gave everyone a chance to be a part of it.

I played pretty much an equal split of sax and keyboards. I got the set list a couple of weeks ago, but only got the music on Monday and had the first rehearsal Wednesday. So the music came together really fast. The band was led by Joanne B., teacher at the school and a classically trained pianist who also does church organ gigs. The drummer John and guitarist Mike were the same guys from the cabaret show last November.

Here’s a set list with commentary.

1940’s:
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – the show started out strong with three really talented singers from the 8th grade doing an Andrews Sister’s number. They really nailed it, with the harmonies, dancing, U.S.O. costumes and all. This was a fun one for me, since I got to open the show (tenor sax being the closest thing to a bugle available) and take a swing-style solo.

You Are My Sunshine – cute number for the little kids. Very sweet. I laid out.

1950’s:
Que Sera Sera – small group featuring some very good soloists on vocals. I laid out.

Yakety Yak – big group number. Great fun for me doing my King Curtis impression on the sax. Interestingly, this song and Boogie Woogie are both basically blues in C. We did an extended jam after each until the curtain opened again. Important to use genre-appropriate riffs and phrasing so as not to mash the two songs together.

1960’s:
Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head – big group; Michelle was part of this one. Burt Bacharach was indeed a philosopher of song. The band did a curtain jam on the coda, which was great fun. I remember as a kid that ending being the first thing I’d ever heard in an out time signature.

Walk Like a Man – small group number; the kid who sang the high part was really good. I played sax.

1970’s:
Let It Be – Michelle had a featured solo in this. She was very nervous about it ahead of time, but nailed it when the time came. This was my first keyboard song of the set, playing organ to back up the piano. Weird that a Beatles song would be in the 70’s, but there you go.

Thank You for the Music – the ABBA song performed by a group of girls from the middle grades. Nicely done. I laid out.

Dancing Queen – another ABBA number, performed by four girls from seventh grade, including Lizzy as featured soloist. They did quite well, especially the second show after the house adjusted the mics to pickup better. I played piano, basically backing up Joanne, using a Fender Rhodes sound and emphasizing the bass lines. I’d never studied this song before this week, but it’s really a gem of a pop number, with all kinds of great hooks woven in. I’m kind of fascinated by ABBA right now, how they out of nowhere (well, Sweden) and took over the pop music world and became one of the top five selling acts of all time.

Intermission
Pre-show, intermission and exit music included instrumental takes of Lady Madonna, Martha My Dear, Only the Good Die Young, and several other extemporaneous selections performed mainly by me and John. I seem to know lots of dark and down songs and had to scratch my head to recall upbeat and happy songs.

1980’s
Don’t Stop Believing – they did the Glee version which changed the key from E to G, which really confused Mike and me until we got used to it.

Uptown Girl – small group number. The boy who sang lead and the dancer who was the uptown girl were both really good. I played sax.

Footloose – big production number, including Lizzy. I played sax.

1990’s
You’ve Got a Friend In Me – little kids did this one. A great song which I already knew on piano (big Randy Neuman fan) but learned on sax.

MMMBop – Michelle was part of the group that did this one. It’s a simple song, but really at their level and delivered with great enthusiasm.

2000’s
Firework – Lizzy was in this number. Even though I admire Katy Perry’s fashion sense I can’t say I’m a really big fan of her voice or her music. Song-wise, this was just four-bar loop, something anyone could have thrown together in Garage Band in one evening. Still, the kids liked and it came across well.

Graduation (Friends Forever) – performed by the eighth graders. This was another musically simple number. I did the string section part on synthesizer, which rips off Pachabel’s Cannon quite directly. I was able to sneak in a bit of Whiter Shade of Pale.

I Gotta Feeling – everyone in band asked “The Beatles Song?” But that’s I’ve Got a Feeling. This was the Black Eyed Peas, another garage-band-loop kind of thing. And although the above two songs kinda grew on me, this one never did. Like the two previous two songs it has only one musical idea and is about too long by about two minutes. Luckily our arrangements for all of them were shortened. Joanne was a bit nervous for these last few songs because she likes to read the music and the amount of page turning was just ridiculous, not mention skipping over crossed out sections. I gave up and just jammed out. Anyway it was a good closer with all the kids on stage belting it out.

Paper Dragon

I’ve been researching videos of origami instructions in preparation for my new book, when I came across a funny thing. It used to be that when you googled “origami dragon” the first link was the diagrams for my Classic Dragon:

http://zingman.com/origami/zingoridragon.html

Every so often I’d get an email from someone asking how to do step 8 or so. The diagrams are clear, but it’s a complex move that can be difficult for someone who’s not at an advanced level or is not good a reading diagrams. I hadn’t gotten a question like that in a while, and now I know the reason why: someone video’d the step and put it up on youTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH47QYoKcrs&list=UUXjoCyW74kxPiDU8VCiHjVw&index=6&feature=plcp

The video has over 8,000 hits! I’m amazed, I guess a lot of people must be folding my old Dragon. The guy has a youTube channel in which he has video clips f a number of other steps from other models:

http://www.youtube.com/user/therealchris

I also came across a video for a song called Paper Dragon by a band named Moe. By coincidence I heard them on the radio the same day. This is kind of a big deal for me simply because it’s been a long time since I heard a new band on the radio that I like well enough to want to go and by their record. The group is musically adventurous, which is important to me. They have actual musically creative ideas and can play. They have a vibes player who gives them kind of a Steely-Zappa sound. Plus the subject matter spoke to me. But then I went to try and find their CD, and it looks like they’re a jam band with more live records than studio records, and Paper Dragon is a new song and not on a CD. But then where did the version I heard on the radio come from? Maybe they’re making a CD. Hope so.

New Song: Now and Forever

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that Michelle has taken in interest in my home studio recordings and been working on ways to get into the act. She wrote a song a while back called Now and Forever for her mother. Very sweet. She came up with the lyric and melody and I liked it well enough to record, and helped her by adding chords and a piano part. Together we came up with an arrangement. It was Michelle’s idea to have a tambourine and have Lizzy play a flute solo, and to do the last chorus uptempo with a beat. We started recording it last fall before the Cabaret show and finished over Xmas vacation. I’ve been doing mixes the last couple of weeks and it’s nearly done. The only thing that’s been holding me up is blending the flute FX, but I think it’s pretty much there now. It’ll be ready in time for Jeannie’s birthday. So look for a posting of the audio file here soon.

This is the third song on my next album, whose working title is “Buzzy Third”. Michelle has another song in the works called “Now”. I have three more songs in the works, including a longish, prog-ish number that’s next. But with getting my new band off the ground I’m looking toward changing my approach to recording to be more live-in-the-studio. At the very least I’m working up the songs to play on piano and sing before I start in on recording them.

…

Now and Forever
Lyrics by Michelle Szinger
Music by Michelle Szinger and John Szinger

I’ve always loved you
And in my dreams
And forever and ever
I’ve always wanted your attention, yeah yeah yeah

Now, now and forever
I’ll be there for you if you need me
Now, now and forever
Now, now and forever
Now, now and forever

The wind blows one way
The earth turns one way
And forever and ever
I’ve always wanted to know why, yeah yeah yeah

Now, now and forever
I’ll be there for you if you need me
Now, now and forever
Now, now and forever
Now, now and forever
Yeah!

Cold Snap

Last weekend was a little ski trip up to the Berkshires with our friends Seth and Cathy and their daughter Erin. The trip coincided with a cold snap – zero degrees when we woke up Sunday morning! It got up to maybe 10. There’s been no snowfall this year but they’ve been making snow on the mountain. Conditions were pretty good, mainly cuz it was so cold. We had a great day skiing but we didn’t stay out too long. For once, though, the cold didn’t seem to bother me, and I stayed out on the mountain longer than anyone in my fur-lined tuque. I got in a good 10 runs.

Apart from the weekend this has been a mild winter and so far I’ve been feeling really good. Hope it lasts ‘til spring. The days are already starting to get longer.

The trip was a really good time and we stayed up late playing games with the kids. As an added bonus Michelle went with Erin to her horseback riding lesson Monday and got to help groom the horse and ride him too! She was absolutely thrilled.

The next day it was back to work, and the kids are already deep into school again. Tuesday night was Lizzy’s school band concert. The band sounded really good. Lizzy and the girl sitting next to her sound particularly good as the 1st flute section. It’s the same band director as the old school, which is nice cuz he’s a cool guy and a good teacher. It’s much larger ensemble now, forty kids compared to maybe a dozen. And that’s just the experienced band. The beginner group, including Michelle, will play in the spring concert and double the size!

Buzzy Tonic Unplugged

I just got back from playing at an open mic at a performance space called The Purple Crayon. It was my first time at the place, and they seem to go out of their way to provide a nice environment for artists. They had a nice PA and a helpful sound man, plus a drum set and grand piano.

When I arrived the crowd and performers were mostly kids. Made me feel really old. They all seem to write in this jingle-jangle post-alternative style, and none of them know many chords or much about melody, but they write these really down and angsty songs. Some of them could sing pretty well at least, and it went over with their friends. Later on there was a better balance of performers. One of the highlights for me was Erik’s daughter Ella, who’s exactly Lizzy’s age, sang a couple songs with Erik backing her up on guitar. She can really sing. We’ve decided that we’re gonna have Lizzy and Ella do the “las wages” part in Show Biz Kids when we do that song.

This was sort of a milestone in the development of my new band. Erik had said he’d made it a goal for the new year for us to do a gig playing three of each of our originals before the end of January. Well we came close. He played two of his songs and I played two of my songs, but each solo.

It was the live debut of a few of the Buzzy Tonic originals I’ve been working up. And it’s also my first ever solo gig as lead singer (while playing piano). And in this case, it was a completely solo performance. I played two songs: Ghost in the Machine, and Get On Back 2 U. It went well, and I feel like I passed a test and am ready to take to the next level.

The songs I played were written with a band in mind, and so the arrangements were very stripped down. Even playing as duo with Erik, I had him doing leads and providing some level of fullness and failsafe on the time, but all that was gone. Further, I usually play on a Fender Rhodes and use its sustain as part of my sound.

But tonite I was on a regular piano. Every single other person there played the guitar. The good news it that it was a grand, and it’s been a long time since I played on a grand, and never before in concert. The bad news is it felt kind of dead and needed a tune-up. The good news is it sounded good from the hall anyway. The other bad news is that the piano was set up so my back was to the audience, which was kind of weird and made it hard to interact with the crowd at the eye contact level. And the mic was set up on the treble side not the bass side, which is the wrong side, because one tends to lean and look down to the left as one is playing to keep an eye on the bass hand.

Ah well, for all that it was a good performance. The whole internet gadget age really paid off because Lizzy captured my songs on her phone and I’ve been able to study them already. When I’ve been practicing I’ve really just been concentrating on the not messing up the piano. So that paid off and my playing was relaxed and fluid and grooving, and any clams were minor and smoothly covered. Now I can take it to the next level and concentrate on putting more into the vocal performance and embellishing the right hand with riffs and all that jazz.

‘Tis The Season

Been doing lots of holiday stuff the last couple weeks. A trip to the museum, two family holiday parties, three kid’s performing arts shows, and four work-related parties, town halls and similar functions. Whew.

I took the kids to the AMNH a couple weeks ago, and we had a great time. Spent a long time with the dinosaurs and the frogs, and in the hall of minerals. The Origami Tree is in the south hall this year, since they’re doing renovations in the lower hall on the Central Park side. My elephants were featured in the “folding the museum” display at the base of the tree, and they saved a number of my models from years past, which are in the tree.

I also folded some models – a dragon and a moose – as ornaments for the tree at the kids’ school.

Yesterday was the big family xmas party for Jeannie’s dad’s side of the family. A good time and great to catch up with all for Long Island cousins. Today was a party for her mom’s side. Had to skip that one to get some things done.

Our kids a in this after school theatre program, in which they do singing and dancing and acting. They had two different shows last week, one for the younger kids and one for the bigger ones, and it’s pretty impressive the level of the performance. Later this week there’s some kind of holiday play. Lizzy is an angel and gets to say some lines.

There’s been a lot of end-of year holiday parties, for my immediate team, for the platform group, and for the whole company. Our corporate parties tend to be rather boozy affairs, but I survived alright. I’ve been there long enough that I have friends in all different divisions, so it was good to catch up. Then there was a town hall in which our corporate overlords are telling us out of one side of their mouth how the company had a great year and made tons of money, and out of the other how internet piracy is destroying our business and killing innocent people and must be stopped. Umm, yeah.

All this has been great fun, but it’s really hard to get stuff done. Looking forward to taking a few days off this week and getting caught up.

Back in the New York Groove

I was sick with a cold Thanksgiving week, and it took me a while to recover. My energy was really low the last couple of weeks and I mainly worked from home and even (gasp!) took a couple of sick days. But the last few days I’ve been feeling better and I’m back at work. It’s good to have my strength and energy back. Been catching up on a few things.

I finished the diagrams for origami Inchworm. Now it’s on the my new Butterfly II and my Rocketship. Hoping to re-establish a groove with that.

My neighbor lent me a stack of Bob Dylan albums a while back. Believe it or not it takes me a long time to listen to music, because the first time I hear it, I want to listen to the record the whole way thru with no distractions. It’s harder to find the time than you might think. I did manage to get thru a few when I was sick, and only have one to go now, but it’s a double live album. Listening to it now.

I finally got together with Blick to jam over the weekend. It’s sounding really good and fun as always. I love that he’s really focused on working out vocal harmonies and making them sound good. I think my singing is better after the Cabaret show; all that horn playing got my breath support back in shape. I want is to get together with the Cabaret rhythm section soon, but it’s the scheduling question makes it hard. And I think it’s about time to start looking for gigs.

My only issue is that I want to spend more time on originals, because they take longer to develop. But this is partly my fault. Every time we get together we spend the first part of the session just jamming songs that one or both of us know, rather than working on getting our originals tight. And I keep calling tunes. This time we tried to figure out a good Zeppelin and Floyd song to do. It’s harder to pick one than you might think, since both groups have lots of long songs with many complicated parts that may not come across stripped down. Ah well.

And All That Jazz

The big news here is that this weekend was the ICS cabaret show. This is a big fundraiser for the kids school and I volunteered to play in the band. And I must say it was a smashing success and alot of fun!

It’s a pretty big group, with about 20 singers and 4 in the band, plus a chorus of a dozen or so high school kids who are alumni of the ICS middle school. It’s largely parents and faculty of the school. The core of the group have been together for a long time, and used to do a similar thing at their old church. Lizzy’s math teacher, Michelle, is the show director, and also has 2 kids at the school. She has a powerful, brassy voice like Streisand. Her husband Mike is musical director and plays piano. He’s excellent at that style music. Another couple, Kristen and Brian, are stage manager and artistic director, and both excellent singers too. And yet another couple, Dean and Susan are two more outstanding singers, although I don’t think they have anything to do with the school. In fact there are alot of really good singers in the group, and the general level is quite high. It’s really interesting too, hearing how different everyone’s individual voice and sound and style are, yet how they all blend.

For me it’s totally worked out. I got to dust off my horn and play in a live show, which I haven’t done in years. I got to meet a bunch of parents at the school, and a bunch of local musicians. The band was made up entirely of guys named Mike and John. The drummer (John) and guitar player (Mike), who also plays bass, are both very good, and cool, and want to get together and jam. So I may have found my rhythm section for my rock project with Erik.

Everyone seemed to agree that having a horn in the band raised the whole level of the music, so I’m very happy about that. I made plenty of mistakes to be sure, but mostly they weren’t obvious, and I nailed all my solos. Not bad considering I had to learn 40 tunes in a month, and pretty much put it together all on the stand, and this after having barely played my horn at in ages. Some of the songs I only played for the first time at dress rehearsal. I had a CD and some of the sheet music ahead of time, but the two often didn’t match, and then when I got to rehearsal Mike was doing something altogether different. Keys were changed, parts were skipped or repeated, all the usual stuff. They were all to worried about getting their own parts together to pay much attention to me. Everything I was reading was in concert key, so I had to transpose +2 in addition to whatever transposition Mike did for the singer. I played tenor and soprano sax, and some keyboards too, mainly organ, accordion, and some brass and string sounds. In rehearsals the hall was cold so keeping the horns in tune was an issue too.

The week of the shows we had rehearsals every night. The dress rehearsal on Thursday was the first full run thru with everybody. I took Friday off work to be well rested for the show, but then Thursday I caught a cold walking to work in the rain, so I pretty much stayed in bed the whole day Friday. I was actually pretty under the weather most of the weekend, but I’d take a few Sudafed and a shot of whiskey before showtime and was able to keep my energy up, um, in classic jazz musician style.

Friday was opening night. It went really well. In fact I’m amazed given how rough the dress rehearsal was. I got a standing ovation for my solo on Scenes From and Italian Restaurant. I’m the hero of the hour of Eastchester housewives, who it seems are all big Billy Joel fans. We did another show Friday night and a third Sunday afternoon. In the middle of the first set on Saturday a key on my horn broke, but I was able to fix it with some tape at intermission. Now that it’s all over, it feels like it came and went really fast. It was a great time, but I’m still recovering from my cold. The house full of the sound of the kids singing show tunes, particularly Anything You Can Do and The Song That Goes Like This.

Set 1:

The Nicest Kids in Town (Hairspray) – Brian and Company
Key -1, tenor sax. Lots of key changes and page turning. Brian has a great, booming voice and energy.

Anything You Can Do (Annie Get Your Gun) – Janet and Phil
Tenor sax. Followed the melody and added some extra flourishes.

Goodnight, My Someone (The Music Man) – Jen and Francesca
Ballad, laid out. Francesca is a girl at the school who is a talented pianist.

Seventy-Six Trombones (The Music Man) – Roy
Tenor sax. Followed the melody and added some extra flourishes. Turns out Roy is my neighbor, and my kids know his, but I only got to know him in the course of doing this show. His daughter Jacklyn was part of the Alumni chorus.

Somewhere (West Side Story) – Corrine
Key -2, soprano sax. There was a violin line in the score that I was able to pick up.

New York, New York – Brian, Dean, and Mike D.
Tenor sax. This is Leonard Bernstein song. A challenging part, great fun to play, but lot of page turning and faking it, um, improvising. The three best male singers.

Try To Remember – Bob
Soprano sax, just on the “follow follow” bit.

Tradition (Fiddler on the Roof) – The Papas, Mamas, Sons and Daughters
Soprano sax, mainly Klezmerirific noodling and picking up riffs from the score. Reminded me of the scene in the movie Bird where Charlie Parker was playing at a Jewish wedding. This was a big, fun production number.

If My Friends Could See Me Now (Sweet Charity) – Linda
Key +5, tenor sax. Mainly double the melody, plus an intro part. A nice jazzy number. Linda is a really good singer for this kind of song.

Happiness (You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown) – Alumni
Ballad, laid out.

I’ll Never Fall In Love Again – Julieann
Key -2, soprano sax. There’s a nice intro. Burt Bacharach was a philosopher.

Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat (Guys and Dolls) – Brian and Company
Key -5, tenor sax. Another big fun production number.

Standing on The Corner – Phil and Men
Key +4. This is a great song with a jazzy feel and interesting chord changes and cool counterpoint horn riffs. Unfortunately, the key they picked was for me a tritone away from where the sheet music had it, and it was really awkward to transpose so I ended up basically improvising a new part on the stand. It worked out pretty well.

Morning Glow – Vinny and Company
Ballad, laid out.

Corner of the Sky – Mike D.
Ballad, laid out.

Get Happy/Happy Days – Michelle and Susan
Tenor sax. These are two of the best singers and they really made this slow bluesy duet sizzle. I played on the intro and in the last chorus.

Phantom / Les Miz Medley – Company
I played keyboards on this one. I did the organ for Phantom while Mike held down the piano part. Later on I did some string pads and brass fanfare. This number was long and had alot cuts, and we didn’t rehearse it until near the very end.

Set Two:

Every Story Is a Love Story / Fortune Favors the Brave (Aida) – Susan and Mike
Soprano and Tenor sax. I took a nice intro on ESIALS. That song really grew on me. With FFtB, it turns out Mike can sing as well as play piano.

Belle (Beauty and the Beast) – Kristen and Townsfolk
Key -1, soprano sax. This was another big production number. I thought I might play some keys on this but I mainly laid out again because we didn’t rehearse it until late.

Poor Unfortunate Souls (The Little Mermaid) – Janet
Tenor sax. Janet more preformed than sang the part. I played in a sort of Tim Burton/Danny Elfman style. Worked out really well.

Day By Day (Godspell) – Lisa and Company
Tenor sax. Big ol’ jam at the end.

They Can’t Take That Away From Me – Christina and Roy
Key -2, tenor sax. Jazz standard. Smooth and smokey.

Once Upon a Dream – Jennifer.
Ballad, laid out.

Elaborate Lives (Aida) – Dean and Susan
Played keys in the middle section, not enough time to work out more than a basic comping part. Dean can really sing the hell out of this song.

The Song That Goes Like This (Spamalot) – Brian and Kristen
I played some brass fanfare stuff on keys. Could have used more rehearsal time on this one. It didn’t matter much, though, because Brian and Kristen did an amazing job.

Someone Like You – Corrine
Ballad, laid out.

Age of Aquarius (Hair) – Julianne
Tenor sax – big jam at the end.

I Don’t Know How To Love Him (Jesus Christ Superstar) – Linda
Ballad, played a bit of soprano sax. Not sure why Linda does all the songs where the character is a prostitute.

All That Jazz (Chicago) – Susan
Key -2, tenor sax. This was great fun to play, but it had alot of key changes and page turning, and I’m afraid I messed up somewhere every night. Still the energy was good and Susan brought the house down.

This Is The Moment – Mike D.
Ballad, laid out. It seems like there were alot of ballads in the set, but they were all sung very well and Mike is great at playing them, so I can’t say I’d want to cut any of them. This song in fact I thought was a bit of clunker when I heard the CD, but Mike D. did just such a great job singing it he really won me over.

We Need a Little Christmas (Mame) – Alumni
Key ???, soprano sax. A late substitution, figured this one out by ear.

For Good (Wicked) Michelle and Kristen
Ballad, laid out. Key changed from night to night. Michelle was worried about her voice going, but they did such a great job on this, really moving.

This Night (Movin’ Out) – Dean
Tenor Sax. This was another late substitution, I think cuz they liked my playing on Italian Restaurant. Dean is such a fantastic singer. The sax solo is really hard, mainly cuz it’s very high (I think it was originally done on alto) and in a weird key, and I didn’t have enough time to memorize it. But still I pulled it off.

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (Movin’ Out) – Mike
All instruments. This was Mike’s big number, singing and playing piano on Billy Joel’s one-and-only long format, multi-part song. It was also a good number for me. And we actually rehearsed it twice and ran down the parts! I played the accordion part behind the vocals, and then there were no less then four sax solos. The second was the dixieland bit, which I did on soprano. The others I did on tenor. The fist and last ones were slow, the interlude and the outro, and they were probably my favorite parts. John the drummer did a really good job too, capturing all the parts from the record. This number went over really well.

You Can’t Stop the Beat – Company
Key -1, tenor sax. A high-energy production number to close the show. Again lots of page turning and key changes, and I blew at least one cue every night. But it still was fantastic.

…

Now, back to the rock band, which had been on the back burner since Hallowe’en.