Time to play a little catch up and respond to those who posted.

Thanx for your compliments, critiques and ideas. Yes, I have enjoyed playing in many big bands on trumpet. I see you are from Italy? In the US, ladies night out is not background music, they want to live it up and shake their a$$ as my wife put's it. On Tequila, I was trying to play something really different with a lot of energy almost to the point of being outrageous. Along the lines of Maynard Ferguson's big band comes to mind.

The place was packed and you should have seen some of that dancing going on, it was enough to make a guy forget where he was in the music.hahaha

The owner said we sounded fantastic and we are now the official ladies night out band along with regular weekend work. Also, an owner form another club down the road heard us and asked us to play regularly at their establishment at the gig where this was recorded.

I'm not saying any of this to brag, this is just to point out what I was trying to accomplish and what came out of that night's gig.

I think a lot is lost in just listening to an audio recording. If a person where able to be in the energy of that room with that crowd I think it would seem feasible to play Tequila the way I decided to try it.

On Dock of the Bay, I will have to try your suggestion, and listen to recordings, but in the music I used to get the chords, the chord goes, in this case from D to Dm back to D. It seems a little different, but it seems to work for us.

On Europa, thanx again, I believe the style was bolero lento, one of my favorites.

On Stand by me, I actually am in the process of looking for a better beat period. That beat is not as driving as I would like it, but it's what I picked when the singer gave me his song list and was trying to come close to a beat that might work.

On Under the boardwalk, thanx again. Again, I am always searching for a better more representitive beat, not necessarily the way the original sounded but a beat that has energy and makes it ours. So for me, it's more of finding a better beat. I generally like the Yamaha drums. I know this is very subjective, but it seems to be fine live. As far as the recording, I didn't do anything with eq's etc. However , I am continually wanting to try other keyboards for comparison to see how I could improve my/our particular musical personality.

On Unchained melody, it's actually the first song we ever played together and it was live. We just met, shook hands, I started to open the set as an instrumental, and Chuck said he knew that song and jumped in. The other thing is he does have more of a delicate sensitive voice than the original I would say. Dock of the Bay, Stand by me, and Boardwalk were all from our first gig together. We've been fine tuning ever since, only problem is pretty much all other recordings were not a good mix and unusable, except for one we just did last week.

Thanx again for all comments.

Scott

Hi Diki

I appreciate your honest input. I understand what you are saying about the style, speed etc, but again, it's what I was looking for to get the effect I wanted. On this I felt that there was enough and even more activity going on in the style than the old boring I to viib chord.

As far as the brass trills,.........6 of one and half dozen of the other I have played in 4 and 5 piece trumpet sections where all players did the trill. Usually it's not always heard is of course, it becomes more difficult on the lower parts. To the 2% of the public that may take issue with this I'd say, oh well. To the 98% that thinks this is what a trumpet seciton sounds like, then fine. Again, on Tequila, to suit my taste, what I was attempting, this is pretty much what I was looking for. On some of the other's, I am not entirely pleased, but under the circumstances I think it'll work.

One thing that help's me keep my sanity when going through this material is that it's not uncommon for the big name artist's to do 60 takes before they get the one they want to release. So, when these cut's are not all entirely ideal to me, I think it get's across the spirit of what we're up to and hope that that is what will be felt and remembered.

As with everything I do, I'm sure next time will be different.

Thanx for your comments, Bill. I used the Ballad Guitar. As for the echo, I lifted it from some style where I liked what Yamaha did with that voice. Can't really remember which one.

On Dock of the bay, as I mentioned, it's written that way in the music that I got the info from. I'm going to listen to some recordings and see who does what in what renditions, in my spare time

On Tequilla, I used to use a much tamer version of a Samba, from the PSR2000 I believe. It was leaning more towards the original, as that's what I was tring to emulate at the time.

As for the tempos, being that I normally didn't play this kind of music until getting together with Chuck, and while some of it I knew but most of the tunes on his list I had never even heard of, (I have different than average listening tastes), what I did do is actually clocked the speed from the mp3's that I downloaded for these songs. So, they for the most part will be identicle in speed. We are playing for dancing, dining, and for those who enjoy listening. It's really a mix of all the above, quite often covering all of that in one gig.

Thanx again, Bill.

Hi Don

Thanx for the comments. Actually, I'm flattered, as you are certainly outstanding with guitar licks on the keyboard.

Interesting comment on the tempo's. Actually, we do vary the tempos sometimes by what kind of crowd we have, but I did clock them to the original recordings believe it or not.

Thanx Randy, much appreciated. The demo test actually got corrupted somehow. haven't had a chance to change it yet though.

I used Bolero Lento on Europa and Pop Bossa 1 for You are the sunshine of my life.

Thanx again, Randy, we'll have to get together, and as far as tips......

Thanx, John, much appreciated. That's an interesting way of listening. Truly being someplace hearing a live band is so much differnt than audio or video.

Hi ScottY

Thanx for all your kind words and comments. I guess you got the idea I was trying to get across with my very different rendition of Tequila. For many, I guess you'd have to be there, and I'm sure not everyone will have the same taste on this one.

I definitely was trying for the outrageous sounds of a Maynard Ferguson type song. Here's a video of one of their high energy tunes that Maynard wrote and opened each concert with following his theme song. I can verify, that if you were sitting in the front row of this concert you'd wig out This band was very exciting live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1QO3nNs25E

Thanx for your slant on Dock of Bay and everything else

Thanx Donny for all comments. On Tequila, I know what you are saying, but we really were'nt playing for an average crowd expecting to hear Tequila sound like the Ventures, etc. But I get what you have to say.

On the brass, again much appreciated and understand where you're coming from, but for me, really playing in trumpet sections of different bands and enjoying high energy sounds of Maynard Ferguson and the like, I will have to stick to my guns on this one, I was not trying for the old standby sounds of the past, so the style, speed and trumpet section work is in the 90% range of what I was actually attempting. Of course the next song was a very laid back one to assist in taking the crowd on a musical roller coaster ride

Scott I think you meant the "Champs"

Good luck out there hope to hear more very soon....do you use "STYLES ONLY" All Night at gigs or mix it up & play some horn too..?

Scott,
Very, very nice indeed!

Really enjoyed it...sure make me wish I could sing well.

Thanks for sharing with us...
Lee