Pleasant Surprise

Today a wonderful saxophone/woodwind player invited me to sit in with his trio in Central Park. We had a gig several months ago together. It was when I sang for Sweet Georgia Brown's Birthday. His name is Adrian Cunningham. He is very good at his craft. I recommend you see him whenever you get the chance. He is also an excellent composer. Ladies and men who happen to like other men. ...He is also very easy on the eyes. Now that never hurt anyone, did it. :)

It was a lot of fun. It was a specific NY moment. It was a perfect day today, because I sang for people and with musicians that I respect. It would be great if every day could be that way. I would like to sing everyday truly.

Georgia' s Bday

Georgia had a great turn out. She as always put on a great show. A good part of it was letting the fellas in the band have it for not following all of her cues. It was fun and funny. I sang "Feeling Good". Stew and I had a very dry run through before. It was good.It could have been better. Then Georgia sang "I Feel Good" to get the momentum back up again. I sang background vocals for her and I was between two saxophone players. Saxophones are vocals when you think about it. There were two. One was from Australia. He was easy on the eyes and ears. He liked to be near the crowd. The other sax player liked to be closer to the band. He knew all of the licks for the covers.

Gotta keep on moving forward

In spite of the recent heartbreak and shock, life must go on.Maybe he will come around. Maybe he wont. I still have to sing. I will always have to sing. Sometimes people try to down your dreams because they are miserable inside and their kindle is dwindling. Stay away from them. Stay around people with as much light as you can.

My friend Baby Monroe is also a singer and he always invites me to join him at different jam sessions. Last night we went to Sapphire and then we went to Mr. Biggs. All of the musicians are the best of the best.They have worked with everyone. So, you know when you sing with them, they have your back. Sapphire's band leader is a guy called Moogie Klingman . He is the one that wrote the song, " You Got to Have Friends." Even Steven Levee was on bass and Chuck Hancock played sax with his cool silver jewelry. Baby sang with tons of emotion as he always does. The sign of a true singer. Always sing like it is your last song. There were a few other singers. All with different styles. Mr. Biggs is fun because there Steve Marshall always has loads of eye candy dancing while the band plays. What I mean is he has two women usually dancing with form fitting clothes slapping a half tambourine to the music. Then there is this guy following everyone around the club filming it. Be Careful, you never know who is watching you. :) The band is tight. The guitar player has a long ponytail kind of reminiscent of the 60s and he plays without a pick. They can play just about anything. I always have a good time at the jam sessions. It is a great way to keep "working out" or keeping your chops up to par. It is also a great way to meet people. It is cool to go with Baby too, because he keeps the riff raff at bay. Like Moogie's song says, you gotta have friends.

Ah, I forgot, one more thing. Thursday night, I lost my cell phone, Baby and I went back to Sapphire only to see that it was not there. To make a long story short. It was in the cab we took over there. I called it all night and the cab driver answered the phone the next morning. He dropped it off that morning. His name appropriately was ATIF which means Compassionate,sympathetic, or nice. Who says New Yorkers are not nice. Here is to Atif's kharma bebe. :)