Salt Lake City Jazz Festival gig July 10th

3 pm Saturday: I just got home about 30 minutes ago, from the most fun I've had in a long time. Everything about this jaunt was just great. The cats are a joy to travel with, all of the people we met in SLC were so nice, friendly, and accommodating. The Festival promoters made sure we had everything we needed. The front of house, backline, and lighting people were wonderful -- all of the tech stuff went off without a hitch. The band put on a show that was pure exuberantly thundering magic. The crowd largely really had no idea what they were about to witness, LOL.

Yeah, folks, I got tasered once by these cats myself a few years back, my first night hearing this band. I feel ya.

I have a lot of shots to review (and re-size for the blog; I shot in full-bore 14.2 megapixel mode this time, anticipating shots that we may want to use for print media). Below, as the announcer introduces Santa Fe...

Much more to come (I have a couple of video snips, too, from the afternoon soundcheck. I also took my other camera, my old Fuji, which does video. I gotta dump those and convert 'em as well). Stay tuned.

Much more to come...
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OK, back again...A couple of random video minutes of soundcheck outa my old Fuji. Had to be careful, trying to watch the shot framing while moving around amid all that setup activity and stuff everywhere. Just wanted to give y'all a sense of the pre-show beehive.



Before we came up we were apprised that we might get to do a quick "line check," period, given that the gates were opening around 4:30 for the fans. But, they gave us a full-on set-up and sound check after all. A ton of extra work for all of them, because, after setting it all up and permitting our cats to do full run-throughs of several tunes while Sonny got a firm grip on the mix, the crew had to strike and stow the entire setup and the set the stage for the opening artists.

I cannot say enough good regarding all these peeps.

A cool, funny thing happened: after the guys finished the sound check, we heard this applause and hollering of "thank you" coming from several floors up in the adjacent City Hall building, where some of the employees had opened windows to give us a shout. How nice is that?

More shots...

Tyriq has entirely too much fun.
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OK, below, Fat City Horns trumpeter Danny Falcone is the son of legendary pianist/arranger/conductor Vince Falcone (long associated with Frank Sinatra most notably). So, it was a really nice Father and Son night. Vince conducted the excellent Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra (featuring the wonderful Tierney Sutton on vocals) to open the Ellington Stage Friday night show.

I got there in time to get some shots of their great set.

OK, TIME FOR SANTA FE...

More to come. Stay tuned. Next up, my night shots from the show. The guys crushed it, man. They were so ready. And, we gotta again thank all of the crew for making the performance environment so perfectly right.
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The cats opened with the customary "Horn Thang" (Sonny's mix could not have been better) into the Fred H. flourish (that usually sets up the Earth, Wind & Fire medley), and then hammered straight into Jerry's stomp-ass new tune "Pack It Up" to establish the evening's cutting edge funk threshold.

Thank you, Salt Lake City!

We'd have given you more, but our understanding is that the city noise ordinance forbids outdoor music after 11 pm. The preceding group "Fat Soul" over on the Yardbird stage ran long, so we had to cut the last two songs off our show list. It was fine though, peeps were diggin' them as well. Hey, who would wanna quit playing at a gig like this?

So, we'll fill you in next time.

Below, a local Fox affiliate reporter gave us a couple of great plugs live from the Festival. At one point he called us "an All-Star band from Las Vegas," LOL. Uhhh.h... do we have to pay a royalty for that characterization?

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Props to Marty Collins. He's the Festival photographer. I hooked up with him, and we chatted up some shop talk. I'll be posting some of his shots on the blog once he's done processing them later in the upcoming week. Really nice cat. Great photographer. Me, I just stay at Holiday Inn Express episodically.

I also have a list of "props" links to post for everyone else I can, all the fine folks who are integral to this fine event, as soon as I can get 'em all together. More to come.
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SUNDAY UPDATES

OK, from what I can glean off email addresses contained in the Festival Phone Directory tabular sheet that was in our swag bags, here are some of the SLC Jazz Festival event vendors and affiliates:

• www.martycollins.net
• www.prattsound.com
• www.midiassist.com
• www.kbraevents.com
• www.davidhallmusic.com
• www.tescowilliamsen.com
• www.xmission.com
• www.marriott.com

Thanks to all of you! We hope to see you again soon.
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UPCOMING FYI

I got this email when I got home from SLC yesterday:

Good afternoon Bobby,

I hope you and the guys had a great time in Utah, I would have loved to see (and hear) that show!

My name is Alex, I'm a big fan of Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns and a regular at the Monday night hang at The Palms. I'm also a regular on your blog, checking out the music scene and what's going on around town. I am writing to you because I run a 10 piece soul / funk band here in Las Vegas and I was hoping that you would be able to give us a mention on your blog. The band is called "Backbeat Village" - www.backbeatvillageus.com, we are a 10 piece band (4 horns, 4 rhythm & 2 singers) and we have our first Casino show coming up next weekend. We will be subbing for Michael Grimm in The Ovation Room at Green Valley Ranch next Saturday, July 18th 7:00pm - 10:00pm. It would really help us out if you were able to mention this show on your blog as we are trying to get the word out as much as possible to drum up some support! You can hear some tracks on our website for and idea of what we do.

I'll try to catch you on Monday at The Palms, we are rehearsing on Monday evening but should be done in time to make the show!

Thanks a lot Bobby,

Alex Jackson

Done, bro'...

Check out this cut from their website:

I know where I'll be Saturday night. Y'all come and hang. We gotta support all our friends.

- BobbyG
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WHILE WE WERE GONE

They had to call Security in the Lounge at The Palms. This ever-earlier vying for choice seats for our Monday night hang is getting way out of hand.