An Evening at the Aztec
Last night, I had my first appearance onstage on the Las Vegas Strip. It took my co-worker up on his standing offer to sit in with his lounge act, which, this week, is playing over at the Aztec Inn (which has neither a website nor any decent online pictures for me to link to). The Aztec, for those who don't follow Vegas hotel news, is a small hotel and slot casino directly south of the Stratosphere way up at the north end of the Strip. There was a fire there last summer which shut the whole thing down for a while, but it has definitely re-opened and now features a medium-ish stage entirely surrounded by pink-tinted mirrors and glass. Come to think of it, the mirrors may not have originally been tinted pink, but they certainly are now; smoke does curious things to glass.
So The Madame and I went down there and linked up with Ed the Lounge Lizard (he of the Sunspots from a previous post), who was playing video keno at the bar and drinking vodka shots. We ordered some drinks of our own from Mo the east-African bartender and admired his recently added Halloween decorations. "Hey, man," said Mo, grinning and winking, "every day is Halloween at the Aztec."
The set break wound down and I took the stage with the Sunspots. It was sort of a baptism by fire, since I'd never actually played any of the songs they called before, much less busted a phatty-boombatty solo over their not-necessarily-familiar changes. I was left to rely on my wits, my education (which, after all, is considerable), and my ears... and I discovered that my high-priced music education actually is worth something after all.
I had a really good time, and even managed to blow a reasonably hip solo over "Fly Me to the Moon." I won't lie, though: I was nervous. Aside from it being my first Vegas gig (which is a pretty big deal, since appearing live in a lounge act of the Strip is miles away from any performance goal I ever set for myself), and it being my first time playing a show by ear only, it was also the first time I've ever played with people who didn't know me from before. If I played the changes in F# when the song was in C, the Sunspots wouldn't think to themselves well, he's solid and he's cool; maybe he's just trying something new and hip. But I guess I didn't have to worry, since they loved my approach and both they and the crowd dug my playing in a serious way.
On our way out, one of the Sunspots' groupies -- a woman that couldn't possibly have been under 80 and who Ed referred to as "one of the biddies" -- stopped me to say that she really enjoyed my playing and that she hoped to see me again sometime. I figure that anybody who's seen as many lounge acts as that particular biddie must have seen has a pretty good handle on how things went. Either that, or she was hitting on me. Either way, I come out ahead.
So The Madame and I went down there and linked up with Ed the Lounge Lizard (he of the Sunspots from a previous post), who was playing video keno at the bar and drinking vodka shots. We ordered some drinks of our own from Mo the east-African bartender and admired his recently added Halloween decorations. "Hey, man," said Mo, grinning and winking, "every day is Halloween at the Aztec."
The set break wound down and I took the stage with the Sunspots. It was sort of a baptism by fire, since I'd never actually played any of the songs they called before, much less busted a phatty-boombatty solo over their not-necessarily-familiar changes. I was left to rely on my wits, my education (which, after all, is considerable), and my ears... and I discovered that my high-priced music education actually is worth something after all.
I had a really good time, and even managed to blow a reasonably hip solo over "Fly Me to the Moon." I won't lie, though: I was nervous. Aside from it being my first Vegas gig (which is a pretty big deal, since appearing live in a lounge act of the Strip is miles away from any performance goal I ever set for myself), and it being my first time playing a show by ear only, it was also the first time I've ever played with people who didn't know me from before. If I played the changes in F# when the song was in C, the Sunspots wouldn't think to themselves well, he's solid and he's cool; maybe he's just trying something new and hip. But I guess I didn't have to worry, since they loved my approach and both they and the crowd dug my playing in a serious way.
On our way out, one of the Sunspots' groupies -- a woman that couldn't possibly have been under 80 and who Ed referred to as "one of the biddies" -- stopped me to say that she really enjoyed my playing and that she hoped to see me again sometime. I figure that anybody who's seen as many lounge acts as that particular biddie must have seen has a pretty good handle on how things went. Either that, or she was hitting on me. Either way, I come out ahead.
posted by Buckwalter at 11:11 PM
2 Comments:
And everyone came out ahead on this deal. I got a free drink because the bartender thought I was fun. You got some awesome stage time with some kickin' solos (and many thanks from the biddie brigade). Ed got to have his offer taken up...on. Julio the fantastic main singer got to see how excited I was to see you. And, of course, Willie got to go dueling saxophones with our own man, Buckwalter. What a night! I hope for many more, and can't wait until the pictures are developed. Hopefully the mirrors won't mess that up too much for us. :) BUT, I'm sure it's the first of many! And I look forward to seeing them all, my wonderful Strip-music man!
I have in my possession, my newly gigging friend, something that you may find useful. That is, I have a CD. What is on this CD, you ask? Verily, my good man, it merely contains some 14 different "Real" and "Fake" books, all in concert pitch, for easy transposition. How useful would having more than a thousand songs at your fingertips be? I don't know. But I proclaim you to be the reincarnation of Macuilxochitl, the Aztec god of music.
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