Introduction
De Ja Vu – 0.00
I had decided to open with De Ja Vu, as the combination of the keys and violin in an ambient style were a great icebreaker and would allow the band to build upon the atmosphere created with the rest of our pieces. In the final performance, this idea worked a treat in that De Ja Vu provided a calming influence on the crowd and was a great way to initially captivate everyone’s attention. Had we started with a rowdier song such as Run and Hide, I think we would have peaked our interested in the early stages but by constantly building on instrumentation and personnel I think that we created a great flow to our performance as well as captivating my early project idea of growth.
Let Me Go Or Take Me With You – 7.15
Let Me Go Or Take Me Wth You was an interesting piece in that the definitions of the different sections relied on rhythmic contrast which was hugely around vocal cues. We got off to an unfortunate start when playing this at the final performance as Shy’yan came in too early meaning that everything got shaken up a bit and didn’t sync as it was meant to. In order to rectify this , I needed to communicate with Shaun and Jordan so as to get us back on track. By the time we had reached the second chorus, we were fine and the solo sections and final chorus went without fault. The ending could have done with a bit of cleaning up and stronger endings and intros are something that I need to work on in the future in general.
Afro Blue – 13.31
Although Afro Blue started strongly, I think that in certain parts near the beginning, my timing was slightly off. However, I think that I developed my timing as the piece went on and was flawless when playing the whole thing the second time round. Overall Afro Blue is such a fun piece to play as the chords that Robert Glasper uses are really interesting and coupled with the Rhodes piano sounds great.
The violin part was interesting in on Afro Blue and I feel that had I had more time with Ian, then we could have utilised it in a slightly better way. However overall I was really happy with how this sounded and I think that we did justice to a classic.
The Beautiful Escape – 1.26
The Beautiful Escape was an interesting experience to play in our final performance. Overall it sounded really good , however there were a couple of areas that didn’t quite go to plan. The first part was my saxophone solo which I think could have been longer and during the mock gig and rehearsals was much longer than this. The reason that it was shorter in the final performance was probably down to my nerves and me feeling slightly self conscious about how long I was playing for. Overall I think the solo could have been better and as I continue to work on my saxophone playing in the future , my technique should continue to develop. The saxophone is my second instrument and I spend way less time on it than piano and therefore I am not too disappointed by my current level of musicianship on it. The second area was the ending of the piece. In every rehearsal and during our mock gig, we had ended the piece on the final chorus. I am not sure if it was nerves or over excitement that meant that Ian, Jordan and Shaun continued to play but the ending definitely didn’t go to plan. This being said, I am far from disappointed with the band as the ending was still quite cool, however for future gigs and when we aim to play in a professional environment this will need tightening up.
Overall I thought that this song went really well and everyone seemed to really enjoy it both judging from the audience and the feedback given.
Run and Hide -7.54
Run and hide started off really well and picked up the tempo just as I hoped that it would. Ian’s trumpet part at the start was unplanned but added a nice bit of flavour in absence of the missing Fraser. The horn parts were a bit shaky throughout the verse, but there were certain areas where they harmonised really well and it would be lovely to see if we can tighten this up in the future. Ant’s delivery on this track was really great as well as the rhythmic sections in the verse and I think that Shy’yan’s more soulful voice added a nice contrast between the sections. Ian’s delayed violin parts sounded great in the solo section and this added a nice bed for me to solo over. As it was my last college concert I just tried to go for it with the solo and tried to put in as much energy as possible to my playing.
Overall, I thought this was our best song of the night and I was glad that we had put it last as our finale piece as it showed off our best talents between us.