I did the solo piano thing for several years, Don, but using the arranger gave me more options like cool solo voices and drums that were far easier to use than on a drum machine or workstation.

At first I had an arranger on top of my CLP-300 and played it about half the gig, but gradually the arranger got used more and more, plus it was fun!

I played the last 11 years at a fairly upscale restaurant using only an arranger and, got quite a few arranger type gigs from the exposure.

I still regard it as just one of the several tools available for a keyboard player, but lately, it has proven to be the most useful, at least in my case.

Ian