Showing posts with label Salsa Night Band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salsa Night Band. Show all posts

Monday, April 26, 2010

Playing Trumpet with the Famous

Over school vacation I had two salsa gigs. The first one was in Hartford at the Expo Center where "the Rolling Stones of Salsa", Gran Combo was the headlining band. Salsa Night Band was the first of three bands and it was quite a trip for $150 and four songs. Bad sound men do not make for a positive performance, but at least Gran Combo had their own sound guy and they sounded excellent. Nothing incredibly fancy, but very solid and clean. Javier was in his glory when he went up and sang coro on one number. This was the largest crowd I have ever played for which was somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 to 9 thousand people.

The second gig had me playing in an All Star lineup of salsa musicians. Legendary salsa musicians Bobby Cruz and Richie Ray were in Providence and needed a band for a gig so my trumpet buddy Carlos called me up. The band had the best salsa musicians I have played with from top to bottom. Three trumpets, three trombones, three percussionists (with exceptional music reading ability), a bass player and three coro singers. We had to practice and perform 10 songs within two days. Had a lot of fun on the gig and met some cool guys.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Great Weekend

Had three gigs this weekend. Nice to get some extra cash. I am really starting to like playing with Salsa Night Band. Even though I do not understand what the people are saying much of the time they are really nice and we communicate with bare bones English and my limited Spanish.

Saturday morning Mike Earley took his friend Rick back to the West End of the canal and Rick hooked up to a nice 28 lb. bass. Mike also brought home a honking bluefish that had to be at least 12 lbs. I was too tired from the night before to get out in the morning with them. It is a really weird feeling that I feel because before Thursday night if I knew there were huge fish in a particular area I would have been there in a second no matter how little sleep I had. Thursday was so good I almost feel as though I have no need to experience the same fishing at the same spot. At least I am not felling the same desire to prove my fishing expertise or lack thereof because now I have 4 keepers under my belt for the season. Having said that, I had so much fun that I think that I am going to go back there tonight. Apparently the fish are still there from reports that I have received.

Great news!! After Thomas' baseball game and my wedding ceremony on Saturday I was able to get the boat put in and it is now being officially rack stored at Fiddler's Cove. On Sunday morning we went out on a family boat outing with Christine's parents. It was awesome. We went into the west end of the canal and were able to dock up in Onset Harbor and eat lunch at Marc Anthony's. Best pizza in the Cape Cod area. There were a lot of boats fishing, but I did not see a single hookup.

Gwen scored her first goal in lacrosse yesterday. I was so proud of her. There is so much luck involved in girls lacrosse. If a girl gets a pass and it is the second pass they need to pass it again until their team can legally shoot on net. I can't count the amount of times that Gwen was the second girl to receive a pass only to have to make one more pass and have that girl score or get a shot on net. No biggy! She is really starting to understand the game and I am so proud of her newly found athleticism.

Thomas had a game and although he did not score he played outstanding. He was very agressive during ground balls and was able to get a couple shots on net. It was their 2nd and last game of the year and they ended up in a 5-5 tie.