After-gig write-up June 26 2016

I just came from a gig in some posh place in Baguio.

I was with old jazz musicians I just met and that was my first gig in a jazz quintet set-up. It was fun.

Let me introduce my bandmates.

Kuya Frank  is a singer whose repertoire include Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bublé and all those white swing jazz guys. He is middle-aged (I think). He is tall and handsome. He has a very good voice and a pleasing personality. He always likes to joke and he loves barako coffee. He says instant coffee makes him feel weird. He has an old and beaten up car which became our trusty mobile. I really like him, he is likeable.

Kuya Johny is a drummer who worked as a dealer in casino in Portland for more than a decade. He has a very beautiful baritone voice. He really likes dogs. His dogs are named JC and CJ. He is a macho kind of guy who likes soul and country music. When I first met him a few days ago, both of his ears were severely infected, so he was practically deaf the whole time. Still, he has a very steady sense of time. This amazed me. Anyway, we eventually learned to talk to him in a loud, shouting voice. It’s like we were having a fight inside his own house. Kuya Frank always jokes about Kuya Johny being deaf, which is really funny especially when you see Kuya Johnny just smiling, not hearing anything.

I borrowed a CD from this music collection. It’s a record by an obscure Filipino saxophonist named Renato Caranto who is now based in the US. The guy is insanely good. Here is a song from the CD.

Kuya Dennis is a bassist who has a very sharp ear. He can discern when I’m just making up chords. He told me to use a lot of flat 5s and augmented chords and to stop playing many notes. I really appreciated his comments because I got used to playing in a trio setting which conditioned me to play a lot of notes. I like how he seems to be always angry when telling me something about a chord I need to change or about a riff I need to learn. I remember laughing uncontrollably when he said “magaling sana to si Bublé kaso minsan tunog bakla,” because he said it in such a serious and semi-angry tone. He works as a taxi driver part-time in Dagupan and he goes to Baguio during weekends for his gigs.

Daryl is a saxophone player about my age. We have been making music together for too long. We drank too much Empe Light last night in some ktv bar.

After the gig we walked towards Kuya Frank’s car and found that its clutch (or whatever, I don’t know anything about cars) needs to be replaced and we cannot ride it. Kuya Dennis, being a taxi driver, did some driver magic with a tansan (bottle cap) and some soap they got from the cr. Eventually they rode home. Unfortunately, I already booked a taxi through an app.