Notes on Freddy Cole Concert from February 23

Attended the Freddy Cole concert at the Huntsville Museum of Art. (Freddy is the brother of the late Nat "King" Cole.) Picked up his CD, Music Maestro Please, with the Bill Charlap trio, which was nominated for a Grammy. Mrs. S and I sat right in front, not four feet from Freddy and his piano. The concert was great and a lot of fun. I was smiling and tapping my foot all night. Freddy did a medley of Nat's songs toward the end of the second set, which set the (relatively older) crowd to jumping and hootin' and hollerin'. Right after he played that, he did his signature song, "I'm Not My Brother, I'm Me". It's a clever little piece. One of the phrases I remembered was "I'm not tryin'/To fill his shoes/He has lots of money/I sing the blues". He signed the CD and program for me, and I had my picture taken with him. It was the kind of concert that made me glad to be a jazz music fan and musician.

What I worked on today: My lesson this morning with Newt (my instructor) covered the first few topics in the Post Bop jazz book. We’re going to try and play So What and I Love You this week, working especially on quartal voicings, and playing inversions and arpeggios when there are bars with whole notes and not much going on (like in I Love You).