Monday, November 22, 2004

What a week that was...

Last week was a week of contrasts for me...

Good points - worked a fair bit last week, playing sub at Senja Restaurant, Hyatt Saujana Subang, and also a very exciting gig at Alexis Bistro, Ampang with Greg Lyons and the Motley Crew during the weekend.

Bad points - I only managed to train once last week... on a Friday, even so, I only ran 6 rounds around KLCC park (that's about 7.8km). Didn't want to run more than that, on that day, because I still had to play at Alexis. Hmm... so much for my training plan. That's me la... cannot follow training plan properly. Either that, I should be a little more realistic with it...hmm...

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Anyway, just a little gig report for the Alexis show with Greg Lyons and the Motley Crew:

If you missed it, you definitely missed one of the more stellar jazz line-ups in KL: Greg Lyons on saxophones, Lewis Pragasam on drums, Andy Petersen on bass (!!) ... the high-end pros of kl... (my main piano man) Justin Lim on piano and synths, and Isyam Swardi on guitars.. the high-end up and coming pros of KL. To add some spice, Greg got some extra fellas in his line up to really cook up the music: Myself on alto sax and flute, Low Chee Meng on bass clarinet and baritone sax, Bruce Hern on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Chee Chow Ming on trombones.

Some of the stuff we played are a mix of original compositions from Greg as well as some interesting jazz compositions from John Scofield, Eddie Harris, and then some. Greg's tunes are some of the more challenging ones, as he is fond of writing some really crazy stuff in odd meters. For the non-music initiated, usual meters are the basic 4/4 beat that you hear every day (occasionally a 3/4, or 3-beat like Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz). Odd meters are meters that are none of the above... like a 7/4, or a 5/4 (7-beats and 5-beats respectively). His arrangements of those tunes are really interesting, as some of the tunes change meters in the middle. A bit gila la, you can say. But really kau kau fun, next time, if you have the chance, do not miss Greg's shows, it'll blow your head off! Hahhaa..

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Well, I plan to intensify my training this week. Since I had so much rest from last week, I had better step it up a bit this time around. I'll be doing more long runs this week, ranging from 8 - 15 km each run. Not to mention I'll be going to Bangkok this weekend for the Int'l Saxophone Conference, hopefully I'll manage to squeeze in a couple of runs there. Next week will be taper week, so nothing more than 5k a run.

Weather looks nice today...

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