We opened last night. This after four nights of 3 to 5 hour practices. Suzy was awesome, had a good night and was my rock. I fumbled for the soprano once and missed an entrance and that won’t happen again. Otherwise, it was a nice night of music. It’s funny, the hour prep and two hour show seemed like 15 minutes to me.

 

We crawled up the ladder into the band loft and schlepped our instruments under four pipes that are about 3.5 feet off the platform. Every time I carry my baritone sax to my chair I think it will be the last time. And since the set painting is done, that is probably correct. I reward Suzy and I with a chai tea and double-tall mocha no-whip latte and we chill out for able ten minutes.

 

Getting our five instruments, two stands and chairs into the space allocated for us is a tight fit. Suzy is playing tenor sax and clarinet. I’m using a soprano, tenor, and bari sax. I’ve got them positioned so that I don’t have to move that far but it still is challenging putting the tenor down and grabbing the bari.

 

The bari is a sweet Yanagisawa 990 with key ergos like butta and a sound that just purrs. I get play some rather jazzy parts and the bari really comes through for me. The tenor is more of a challenge as I am playing mostly low notes very softly! And the soprano has been tweaked by my repair tech to a fine edge.

 

After the opening night performance Suzy and I joined the band at Cucina, Cucina’s for some snacks and drinks. We met some of the spouses and significant others, talked about the performance, and just basically hung out. This is a very nice group of people. Idris the violinist is superb with light fingers and sweet string tones. Jamie the reed book one person plays a clarinet that just makes you wanna woodshed more–she is very consistent with a very woody clarinet sound. Liz’s flute and piccolo performance is soooo nice. This is one of the finest woodwind sections that Suzy and I have had the please to play with.

 

On to night two of a 17-night stand.