Last night I played a dance with an old friend, who I respect very much. He's a terrific keyboard player, and he and his bandmates were so tight and polished, I felt like a kid in school playing guitar with them. They use so many substitutions, and wide chord voicings, it was hard to make my modest guitar technique fit in sometimes. "SOMETIMES" ... other times, I felt like I came home and the groove was relaxed, and in the pocket - it was too much fun. I also learned that I am a better comping player than I thought, because as the night went on, I found stuff coming from my hands that just took me by surprise. With a solid core of piano, bass, drums and sax behind you - it's easy to feel inspired.
The keyboard player carries entirely too much gear, has way too many wires to hook up and is wasting SO much energy on transit and set up - my goal is to educate them to what I know to be be a better solution for one night stands.
Here's his rig:
Korg PA1xPRO (main piano sounds), midi'd to a Korg i3, Roland XV5080 (used alternately for manual bass sounds), a Korg O1w rack and a Korg is5m (module). He uses the i3 for some drum patterns, and the is5m for a sequence, here and there, but for the LIFE OF ME - I can't imagine his genius hands needing all that bulk! The PA1xPro and the Roland module give him a tremendous cross section of older and newer sounds that are ALL fantastic - lots of dedicated outs for processing etc ... he only touches the 1x, and all the other stuff is sound source only. What a waste of real estate and time.
With the exception of a few layer options, I can out-perform that setup with just the PA3x ... he's the bassist for the band, so I understand having a dedicated module, but even so ... my 3x could easily replace everything he hauls around.
Then, there's his system - HUGE EV cab's with 15's and horns, a Mackie mixer in a rack with effects and patch bays .. he takes up more room on stage than some bands I know. LOL
The bottom line is this: He (they) sound fantastic, and they are the nicest guys to get a long with, but they seriously need to DOWNSIZE!!!!!!! they are ALL over 74 years old (I was the baby at 58!!), and they need to lighten the load. I'll work on them ... in the meantime, I have to work on learning more altered chord voicings for guitar. I'm so used to playing solo style and using all six strings to provide the full sound ... not SO in a band! (right Nigel, Russ and others?)
This dance was a group of seniors who have a travel club that follows bands every month - they danced the FIRST number to the LAST, and stood there in between songs for our next offering. It was like the 60s again! I hope they call me again ... I know I brought a lot to the table with my front-man abilities and my voice, but there are SO many better guitar players around. My fingers are crossed ... maybe THAT'S why it's so hard to play this thing!
LOL
Here's a Bill Doggett tune that we played last night - first time I ever heard it, and I LOVE it! Boo, you doing this one??? You need to!
Ram-Bunk-Shush - great slow jitterbug/shuffle.
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