Performance Info: 12 September 2010

Hello everyone! This is just a quick reminder about the performance at St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Call time is 10:15 AM (keep it quiet, as a service is still going on) and show time is 11:00 AM. Be ready for a long haul - we're playing a lot of pieces, and though the chop-busters are spaced out, chops are going to get beat up pretty nicely.

See you all in the morning, please bring stands if you know at practice you've gone without them before, and keep your focus on the quality of the music. Be ready for the crazy acoustics ;)

Practice Recaps, Updates, OH MY!!!

Okay, so this blog hasn't been updated in a while. But it's time to focus on the fall, and so that's what is being communicated here.

The focus of our practices have obviously shifted to two major, advanced pieces. As usual, "The First Circle" and more recently, "Rhythm Of Our World."

"Theme from Sesame Street" will sound great on the 12th as will "Incredibles," etc., and we can't forget about "Nostalgia in Times Square" which has taken a seat on a back-burner, but will be coming back. Be ready to work these charts.

The group will be playing for the church at 11 AM on Sunday the 12th, so mark your calendars, and call time is 10:15 downstairs in the choir room for quiet tuning and warming up.

See you all at Monday night's practice, where we will continue with "The First Circle" and "Rhythm Of Our World" and let's see where everyone stands with practicing on the evening of Labor Day as it is the last practice before a gig.

Back on track...

Practice Monday!

Hello everybody! I hope everyone's looking forward to practice on Monday - I know I will be. We will be continuing more work revisiting Begin the Beguine, and expect to hit some of the First Circle again with full rhythm section.

We will also be working on the new charts. Sing, Sing, Sing sounded great at the last practice, so that one is almost ready to go.

On a side note, for those who are not on facebook, there was a message posted just relaying the info that Sierra Music Publications (www.sierramusic.com) has just revealed the second batch of new publications for 2010 of awesome, blow-your-face-off, advanced charts. Check them out. I'm particularly liking "Frame for the Blues" by Slide Hampton. And if you didn't hear the first batch and you have some free time to listen to some awesome, revitalized music, you should do so.

See everyone on Monday, and enjoy the rest of this beautiful weekend (thus far).

Practice Tomorrow!

Hello all. This is just a reminder that there's practice tomorrow, and we will be continuing work on Rhythm Of Our World, as well as Theme from Sesame Street and something else that's quite nostalgic...

A short message for this week, but thanks to all who played on Thursday - the audience really appreciated us stepping up and stepping in to fill what would have been a void during the intermission at the summer concert series. See you all tomorrow! :)

Practice Recap: 12 July 2010

Hey everybody! Great job at practice last night. We continued with some great work on Nostalgia in Times Square, Sing Sing Sing, and Rhythm Of Our World. The latter is the toughest piece we have that we're working on at the moment, with the exception being that we will be diving back into The First Circle and cleaning that one up until it's absolutely solid - another big task.

So, while you're practicing this week, make sure you focus on Rhythm. We will probably go back to Theme from Sesame Street next week two, so it's definitely something to look through at some point.

Again, there is no performance on Thursday, so unless you're playing elsewhere (which it is known that some of you are) or are playing the Summer Band Concert Series in Doylestown, have a happy time focusing on a few charts. And remember, as to active rehearsing, In the Stone, Samba Ti Kaye and Ride the Wind are now on the retired list - we may bring them out again if we have long performances and need more pieces that we know, but they're not the ones to concentrate on right now.

Who knows if The First Circle and Malaguena will ever be retired. It doesn't seem like that... they're just.... beyond it...

Have a good week, and see you at the next practice! :)

Practice Recap, No Performance on Saturday, Practice Monday...

Okay, so three quick messages to update on the blog. The first is a thanks to everyone at practice on Monday - I know it was the very end of a holiday weekend that spilled over into Monday with some people having a day of rest and others with workplaces still open - at any rate, we got a lot of positive work done. As of Friday night, practice had still been up in the air, which is why messages were sent out as to availability for Monday. Since a majority of the band could rehearse, we did. If you couldn't be there Monday, that's fine, and I hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend.

Also, there will be no performance on Saturday as we are still light on players and personally my work schedule does not allow for it, with a third of my work's staff out on vacation, etc. Thank you all for you willingness to come out and do it to those that could, but we will just have to plan ahead for the next performance.

We will have practice on Monday when we will continue work on the Sandoval, Nostalgia and Sesame Street. We laid some of the foundations for work on these pieces on Monday, and we will continue to do so as we start to "shelve" some of the pieces we've been playing for a while, like Ride the Wind and Samba Ti Kaye.

Practice Tonight!

So, we will in fact have practice tonight, and make sure you have Rhythm of Our World in your folders. It was passed out quite some time ago and is on the second CD that was distributed if you want to listen to it ahead of time. We will also be cleaning up some of the other pieces.

A recap of Friday night's performance will be posted later, but it went really well and the audience really seemed to enjoy the music - this was also confirmed by the First Friday music organizer in town.

Anyway, see you tonight! :)

Performance Details: First Friday: 2 July 2010

Alright everyone, here's the informational post with event details for First Friday in Doylestown. Please make sure you read this post carefully, and if anyone has any questions, you know how to reach the band leaders.

1. As stated at rehearsals, First Fridays, especially in the summer, are extremely busy. Not only is there live music in (now) up to three different venues, but businesses do special deals/promotions, etc. in anticipation of the public turnout, and small business (some home-run) put up tables in the central square to sell small arts and crafts. Due to the popularity of the event, it is known that in past years the idea has circulated about blocking off the streets. That being said, the streets were not blocked off in June, and don't expect them to be blocked off on Friday the 2nd.

This information means that if you are driving into Doylestown right before call time at 7:30 (and yes, call time remains 7:30), do not expect to find parking in the immediate vicinity of the performance area; if you do, you're just "lucking out." Furthermore, if you arrive in town at 7, when the events are underway, expect many pedestrians at all crosswalks and many more crossing the street wherever they may feel the need. This will also block up traffic, but for precaution's sake, take extra care driving around the center of town.

If you are parking a few blocks away (I'd recommend Harvey Ave., Oakland Ave., or if you're running late, the parking garage by the Court House. It's more of a hike, but it's a guaranteed spot.) There is a parking lot behind Starbucks - it's closed off when the events start. There is parking lot behind the Doylestown Bookshop/Madame Butterfly's - it's now a performance area and also closed off. Also, when walking around town, please be aware of when you are crossing the streets, as aggravated driver's trying to get through town in the maze of First Friday activities, may be extra aggressive. I know this, as I was almost run down last month at First Friday when crossing on the correct signal and in the crosswalk. Again, exercise caution. It's a lot of people in a smaller area.

2. When you arrive, you may store any personal belongings and instrument cases in Class Harlan Real Estate, directly adjacent to the performance area. Class Harlan is graciously allowing us to do this due to connections with the band (Lewis Graham, the trombone player, works there). This is a special advantage we have over all the other performing groups. Class Harlan will be closed, and during the performance, all cases and belonging will be locked up and secure in that building. As soon as they allow, which I believe will be around 6:30 or 7 PM, we will be able to store the instruments and/or warm up and tune.

3. The music organizer for First Friday, Thomas Phillips, has informed us that there is a pa system in place as well as two microphones. Additionally, should there be light rain, there will be a tent set up over the performance area. However, it is not currently expected to rain on Friday, and the forecast is calling for temperatures around 80 degrees.

4. Make sure you stay hydrated. All will be done to provide water bottles during the performance, but make sure you are comfortable before arriving. Dress is the same as usual, but with even more emphasis on comfort. Look at the temperature forecast on Friday and use your best judgment. And if you absolutely don't want to wear black, khakis will be fine.

5. Town will be well lighted - it doesn't get dark until pretty and there's a lot of ambience from the street lights and nearby buildings. However, it can't hurt to have a battery-operated book light on your stand if you want to precaution against getting a shadow on your stand, or what not. These can be easily found at bookstores for cheap, so do what you will.

6. The church is graciously allowing us to use their stands for the performance, so we have twelve there, but if you know that you have had to use your own stand at practices, bring it along. I will have three collapsible stands just in case at the performance. Again, if it's not a pain to bring it, the best advice is just to bring the stand anyway.

7. The rough performance order for pieces (and I know this is what everyone's been waiting for) is the following:

In the Stone
The Incredibles
Ride the Wind
Begin the Beguine
But Beautiful
Samba Ti Kaye
Intersecting Lines
Georgia On My Mind
Malaguena

Georgia On My Mind will be handed out prior to the performance, and I believe we can handle this piece even though we have only played through it about two to three times. But Beautiful is another pretty filler chart that works as a rest point from Begin the Beguine. In the event we need to repeat anything, it will likely be In the Stone. However, I believe these nine charts listed in the order above will easily fill an hour's worth of playing, taking into account the small periods of time between pieces and ones with extended solo sections. Remember that there will now be three solos in Ride the Wind, and two in Intersecting Lines, not to mention the drum solo in that one.

I look foward to seeing everyone on Friday, again, feel free to contact band leaders for additional information you may want, and I believe that this will be a fantastic performance which the audience will love.

Note: The rhythm section has special instructions for setup as equipment is much larger, etc. All who can get into town early to help set up are appreciated. And if there's any downtime, there's always Starbucks ;)

Practice Tonight!

Okay, you all know this familiar message. (Wow, redundant opening sentence!) There's practice tonight, it's the practice before a performance, so be ready to work on anything and everything tonight. But especially the Hooper charts.

And The Incredibles.

And Begin the Beguine.

Yeah...

See you all at practice! :)

Don't Mess With Mingus...

So, as all can no doubt figure out, the polls are closed and the votes are final. In an extremely close race, "Nostalgia in Times Square" by Charles Mingus has won versus "Theme from Sesame Street" as written for Maynard Ferguson. We will be ordering this chart in the coming weeks, so expect to start working on it in a few weeks, as we also start to tackle "Rhythm of Our World" by Sandoval (you should already have that music).

See you all next Monday at practice!