Happy Holidays. Yesterday we played here in Portland at Dunes. It was a small bar with a pretty good Sohmer upright. Sohmers are good pianos and this one was in good shape. A friend of Billy’s named Leif, a saxophonist, set it up for us. Thanks Leif!
Leif also recorded it and gave me CDs. Maybe I can put up a sample clip. I know I keep threatening to do that.
Apparently we played a two hour set which I find remarkable, as I had no idea how much time was going by. (Billy nominally “led” this gig as he had booked it but we played both our compositions, and I did the speaking.) To play for two hours so effortlessly seems a big stretch for me. I don’t think I could have done that on the first gigs. I, individually, and the trio collectively are getting more of a flow going, I think.
A free trio opened for us led by Portland drummer and writer Tim DuRoche. They sounded very good. It is hard not to be influenced by what you hear right before you play, and by what you perceive as the expectations of the audience. Perhaps as our trio plays more together this will become less of an issue for me. After the gig we went to a restaurant called Montague’s. It was late at night. The food was very good but the music (mostly dance and hip-hop) was way too loud for a restaurant. I asked Ratzo if he thought we would have played differently if this music had preceded our set instead of what did precede us and he agreed that we would have. How to get over this issue and just play the “pure” music that truly identifies you? I think it may be impossible. Of course we’re influenced by experiences and environment, and isn’t that how it should be? Billy agreed with me that this dichotomy exists. Oh well. We played some good music; I guess that’s all that matters.