I had a really great night on Friday. I was playing with Technicolor Motor Home at the Recher Theatre in Towson, MD. This band is one of my greatest pleasures right now. First off, it’s a great bunch of musicians and a tremendous bunch of people to hang out with. It’s incredibly gratifying for me to be included in such a wonderful group. Second, the band is a tribute to Steely Dan but rather than trying to go the whole “Beatlemania” route and dressing up in costumes, we are content to be a tribute to the band’s live concerts. That means we are doing arrangements that are in many cases more complex than what was done in the studio recordings and we’re also able to solo much more freely rather than trying to mimic whatever was played on the original recordings…not that there’s anything wrong with Tom Scott, Pete Christlieb, Wayne Shorter, and Chris Potter but Walt Weiskopf and Cornelius Bumpus really pushed the envelope in the live shows. Another great thing is that the fan reaction to the band has been phenomenal. Of course, we don’t get to play together too often since people would get sick of us doing the same music over and over. Also a group of people this talented and sought after in the area (and a large group at that) is very hard to schedule. So it goes without saying that we end up cherishing the time we do spend together.
One more thing, above and beyond all that, this band has probably the finest total package horn section I have ever had the pleasure to work with. The Retox Horns, Dave Makowiecki, Jim McFalls, and I seem to have a rather special bond when we play together as a section and our ability to have fun while hanging out is second to none. We originally started playing together in another band called Expensive Hobby and have been together as a section for at least 5 or 6 years but I think it’s been longer. Currently, we are the section in TMH as well as for a band called Crack the Sky (where we are called the Crack Pack Horns). We’ve also been together in the studio for a few very fun projects recently. I’ll have more on that as details become more available.
We tried to do our soundcheck as quickly as possible because some good buddies of ours were playing a block party type thing right down the street from us and we wanted to check them out. Rumba Club is an outstanding group featuring some of the absolute best jazz and latin players in Maryland if not anywhere. The band is always a great musical experience to see and it’s never less than a blast of a hang. If you ever get the chance to see this band please make sure you do it. We only got to hear a couple songs but it was worth the effort and a couple of the guys came over to see our show when they were done which was very nice of them.
Food was provided by the club…I had a turkey burger. 🙂 In deep rotation in the dad van this week is the new Pat Metheny album called Unity. Pat Metheny and Chris Potter playing together…how can you pass that up?
