1/8 Ginger learns about storage locker culture. Scott emptied pocket after pocket for the keys, only to discover he hadn’t brought the right keys, nor even all of the necessary ones! 3,000 miles and we didn’t have the right keys… Discovered that if you haven’t seen or used whatever for a couple years, you probably don’t need it….unless it’s got some promo reference, is a festival poster, or is a picture. Sounds easy, eh? In Scott’s case however, this means mountains of reviews, correspondence from fans, telephone notes and points of contact written on hotel letterhead, and oh, yes, the music. Stacks of staff paper with ideas, transcriptions, lead sheets of original composer’s handwriting, collections from this band and that pit orchestra…whew! Scott cruised his old neighborhood of Chelsea and kept pointing out folks along the street he knew. A wonderful dinner at Don Giovanni’s on 10th Ave. made everything worthwhile.
1/9 Breakfast today and yesterday with Dean and his lovely wife, Elizabeth Boleman-Herring at Louie’s in Teaneck. We discussed vacations in Greece (Elizabeth is an expert about and a writer of all things Hellenic…) and talked about Dean’s Pratt Brother’s Big Band (he’s a trumpeter and long time friend of Scott’s). Photoshoot in the afternoon with Judy Kirtley. We had a blast! Got some great pictures, so stay tuned to see how the fruits of our afternoon develop…so to speak.
1/10 Scott picked up Scott Robinson’s monster bass saxophone that he played later in the evening with us at our opening NYC show and CD release party at the cabaret “Don’t Tell Mama”. Booker Sidney Meyer welcomed us and showed us around, (they have a couple performance rooms). Sound check with Curtis that afternoon (he did a great job!) and wondered if we needed a “tech rehearsal”…oh, right, that’s something that they do in the theatre…. Went over a few parts with piano player Ted Kooshin, who played on the “Speaking of Love” album.
In fact, all the players that night were from that original recording. They all played wonderfully and we had a really great time! We must mention how neato it was to hear that bass sax on the tune “Suger”, and of course it was Scott R.’s playing that brought that amazing instrument to life. Stu Hamstra, of Cabaret Online.com mentioned it was the “biggest saxophone he’d ever seen!” Mary Ann McSweeney, bass player sight read and nailed Jennilfer Leitham’s tricky arrangement of Henry Mancini’s Dreamsville. Willard Dyson, reminded us that that his creative drumming is impeccable and unparalleled. Ted’s chile pepper tie underscored his solidly hot playing.
Thanks to the Summit Record crew for showing their support at the late show after just stepping off the plane from Phoenix! Ginger’s Girl Scout camp friend, Amy (Kelly) Comport, two daughters and a friend came out from Connecticut. Scott Robinson’s brother Dave was there, and an old friend of Scott’s, Sarah Hayes, from their Orlando days.
Yes, Dean and Elizabeth were in the audience too…We played Bill Evan’s “Bill’s Hit Tune” and it was especially sweet to play, since it is on the new CD, but even more so because Elizabeth wrote some really smashing words for the song. Her version is called “Adagio in Pearl” and is a beautiful collection of images from the Greek isles.
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