Here’s a brief update on East Bay Soul. The band is in the studio writing and recording. The release date for the new CD “East Bay Soul 2.0” is February 13, 2012. To keep updated on what’s going on check out the blog created for this project at www.eastbaysoul.com/blog
Greg Adams Short Story Replay: It was conveyed to us through the producer, whom I can’t recall his name, that they would be bringing their own arrangement to the date. One song, no big whoop. In and out in an hour or so, right? Oh boy. When we arrived at the studio, in LA but I can’t remember where, the vibe was a little bit, I don’t know, tense. Can’t put my finger on it, but there wasn’t a whole lot of love coming from these guys.
So we’re in the studio taking out our horns when the arranger comes in and starts handing out the parts to us. Holy you know what! The pages were literally black with ink there were so many notes on them. Scads of 16th and 32nd notes. And the counterpoint between the trumpets, tenors and bari was, well, insane. You always know when a keyboard player who hasn’t studied the instruments that he’s written for, especially winds, that at some time we will have to take breaths to continue to play. And he had an attitude, too. He was diabolically going to bring down the mighty TOP horn section with the lead of his IBM pencil!
It was beginning to be very frustrating early in the game. We could not satisfy him, no matter how hard we tried. At one point, Emilio put his horn down and said he’d have to beg off and leave because there was no way he’d ever be able to play this chart. He packed up and left. First there were 5, now there are 4. Well, JB had his tenor with him, so he and Steve put those tracks down and JB o/d’ed the bari. Lee and I eventually got the trumpets recorded. At gun point. Or so it felt.
Let me now tell you how I learned very early on that when you are playing with same people day in and day out, you learn what each individuals strong points are. Simple enough, right? That’s what made the TOP horn section so unique. This guy was just a maniac, as I said before, with an IBM pencil. This was his thesis paper for graduating Arranging 101. Somewhere on the second trumpet part I swear I saw the kitchen sink. Anyway, we got the job done. Don’t know if this recored came out. I think these guys were Barry Manilow’s backing band. I think. And I never put this session on my resume. Noop! My motto: Less is more.
See you next week.
For more on Greg Adams go to www.gregadamsmusic.com
