Wow, has it been that long?

Well Merry Christmas to one and all. You are all loved and cherished and I appreciate all of you. ( Even the ones I don’t like.)

Lots going on in the family. My mother in law is now moving to Cartersville and has bought a house here. This is one of the side effects of I-75 being such a bitch!! The traffic is really bad any time of day and it can get worse at a moments notice going to and from Atlanta. And all her family lives here. So she bought a house and is moving. That is a BIG deal. (in a positive way).

The GPC at Clarkston Jazz Ensemble had its last concert first week of December and is now on hiatus until the spring semester starts. This time was fun and I’m hopeful that the spring will be too!!  The Big Band Contractors had a GREAT show at the Strand and raised enough money to pay everyone and nobody lost money. We also paid the MDA folks as well. SO, that was considered a success.  We are going back to COSMOS early in March and then are playing for the Museum of Southern Music in April. Still beating the bushes for gigs. Big Bands are hard to book. We might just make a Christmas album. The album that we made earlier in the year is selling well and is a good recording. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bigbandcontractorsllc/

I played several venues in December as a solo gig. My Bose system, long in the tooth after 12 years or so, finally got replaced and it works fabulously!!! Played a couple of combo gigs in November with some really great players!!

The Peachtree Jazz Edition got busy in the last of the year and really enjoyed playing with them as well. Travelled a bit, but you gotta go where the music is. Great holiday parties but they were well south of town!!!

Going forward, in January25-Feb 4th I am going to Portugal with the combo like we did in 2015 in Berlin. Should be a blast.

Then Feb 14th with the EJS and the Valentine concert to celebrate the Harvest House (local food pantry). March 4th BBC at Cosmos then April 21-22 with the Big band and  a Sinatra group and then some lady jazz singers. All good.

Life is good and so is music.

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BUSY!!!

So a lot has happened since last I took finger to keyboard.  Trump Won. There is that.

Music, well, I am going to Portugal in January with the same crew that I was with in Berlin playing Jazz at several big locations in Cascais (sp?). We will be playing with the combo for about 10 days and days and nights have been booked. We hooked up with a very talented keyboard player to go with us and another one to do our demo’s. Portugal 2 minute demo

Peachtree Jazz Edition has been playing at outdoor and indoor venues and I am now playing lead tenor for them instead of Bari. A delightful change simply because I hate lugging that thing around!! We have played a really classy benefit and had a great time.   This weekend we are playing for a fundraiser for the children and it should be a gas!!  Great Gatsby Party

The BBC playing for a Rat Pack Group just got thru at the Strand Theater in Marietta on the Square and did a great show.   Tomorrow nite , I will be playing with the Jamie Leonard trio on the sidewalk for a Holiday Celebration outside (chilly) then for a Magnolia Garden Club reception Friday after that, and at the Tellus Museum for a Client appreciation dinner with the CJ “Little Jazz Band”. Got a full weekend coming up.

Sold my house in Jasper and my Mother in Law is moving to town. So………this should be interesting!!!

Life goes on!!!!  Shalom….   (found this TITUS3:1-15)

 

 

 

 

They want an Audition tape…..

So if you have been reading this stuff, you know I am going to Portugal to play with a jazz combo. This group with only a few small changes went to Berlin last year or so. The keyboard player cant go this year, so we have a new keys player, and a Polish singer is going to join us OVER THERE!!!! So, it should be a blast.

They also wanted an audition tape and said they only wanted 2 minutes or less. Wow, you know how hard that is to get it down to 2 minutes when there was so much good stuff to hear !!!?!

So here it is: Portugal Demo

Well to be honest, I’ve been kinda busy.

 

 

Booking a big band is a tough sell in today’s market. First, its expensive. To bring talented players out to a gig and pay them enough to show them their talents are appreciated costs more than a DJ. This, combined with the dwindling number of people who appreciate good jazz and good big band and it’s a tough sell. But it can be done. Fortunately, I have continued to play with some really good bands and run a group of really talented folks. So we are chipping away at what is left of the market.

In addition, I have continued to play with a couple of groups. No, these folks are not close and I have to travel to play with them, but you have to go where the gigs are. Today, we played for an Atlanta Track Club Road Race and last weekend it was for an Alzheimer’s Walk. But, its playing.

I am also part of a small jazz combo that is going to Portugal in late January for a week. So there is that.

Also, my nurse of a hundred years, took off to the UK for a vacation so I am trying to remember all the clinical stuff on my own…..but there is this…..

I received a phone call from the head of nursing at the local hospital. She reported that her son had a broken leg (below the knee) and that she was at a hospital in Atlanta. The problem was, that the ER doctor refused to let her transfer her son to “her” hospital which was more convenient, closer and near to all her medical professionals that she was familiar with.

This ER doctor was telling her all about compartment syndrome and losing his leg if he went to a hospital that wasn’t capable of taking care of this “really complicated fracture” etc.  This lady is a RN and although she had been in administration for a number of years, she still was clinically savvy enough to know that this was mostly BS and this ER guy just didn’t want to send his patient away and wanted it taken care of at HIS hospital.

I called this guy and reassured him that we were capable of doing whatever it took to take care of this lady’s son and he still refused to transfer the patient.  What a dork. So, being a control taker, and being asked by the head of nursing at my hospital to help, I called the local ambulance service, met them at the ER at my hospital and off we went to the ER where Dr. Dork resided.

We showed up at the ER, signed whatever papers they wanted us to sign, clearing them of all liability and responsibility and loaded her son up and trucked him back to our HOME hospital.  We put a cast on his leg the next day, as I recall, and sent him home and he healed un eventfully.

Come see the Rat Pack Show on November 4^th

I’m just gonna leave this here…..

The CD is done!!

Back in July, on the 18th, we assembled the big band along with all the recording knowledge and experience we could muster and made a CD. I was looking to record a CD

that would capture the essence of this great band that I had been a part of for more than a decade. These guys are some of the greatest people that I know and in addition , they are the greatest musicians I have ever been around.  Their feel for the music, their interest in playing it perfectly and make it SWING is without peer.  In addition, I asked a friend of mine who is a FABULOUS producer to put some of his genius in the recording and mastering of this endeavor. I was rewarded with excellence.

I then looked for a recording venue that could hold a big band and found MADLIFE in Woodstock. These guys are first class and were the most accommodating help you could ask for. Plus they have world class equipment.

We started about noon and set things up. The band showed up around 6-7pm and we were thru with 12 tunes by 10:30pm. True professionals!!

What a lot of fun and music.

It should  be available soon on CD Baby and on iTunes. Thanks to everyone involved!!

Remember my name? What’s my name?

What’s your name??

I was quietly beginning my morning ritual of swimming laps at the local pool, and a man I recognized but didn’t remember where or how began that conversation. I don’t remember the specifics. Don’t ever do that to your doctor. We know some of you very well and will never forget you, and then some of you are, honestly, quite forgettable. You aren’t bad people or folks that we didn’t do our very best to care for you but you probably had something that was, for us, quite mundane and ordinary, yet, for you, a big deal in your life.  It disrupted your usual situation, may have made you take off work or school, it hurt a lot, made you cry and in general was relatively catastrophic.  For us, just another broken arm or leg or elbow or whatever.   The sheer volume is what makes it hard to remember.

And we feel bad when we don’t. We like to think that we care for everyone with the utmost interest and enthusiasm, and it makes us feel like we have let you down when we don’t remember your name and everything about you. We can’t. There is just too much.

Think about it. The week starts on Monday (well it really doesn’t ever “start” or “end” because we work weekends and nights but just let’s use this as a starting point). I don’t like to do elective surgery on Monday. The labs aren’t back, or the last instructions and visit for the patient was on Friday and they have forgotten or misplaced anything they were told.  The paperwork isn’t always where it should be and the OR folks can be a bit sluggish from their weekend. So Monday is a office day. We usually see the folks that were seen over the weekend as “work-ins” and so even with the new scheduled patients, it’s a busy day.  The morning is manageable with around 18 -20 folks but the afternoon can run up to as many as 20-25. So lets say 40 patients on Monday.

Tuesday is an OR day in the morning and rechecks in the office in the afternoon. 3 people in surgery in am and 25 in the afternoon.  So ballpark 28 folks.

Wednesday is a mirror image of Monday but with less “work ins” and so lets use 35 as a good number in the office.

Thursday is just like Tuesday so we can ball park another 28 patients.

Friday is unique. I wanted to incentivize getting all the claims in and all the work done for the week so the office folks could leave after lunch if everything had been taken care of, and the morning was usually office with surgery in the afternoon, again, taking care of “left over” injuries from the week. So, 18-20 patients including the surgery patients.

Monday 40 Tuesday 28 Wednesday 35 Thursday 28 Friday 20.  Grand total= 151. Per Week.

151 per week times 48 weeks per year (holidays vacation etc) = 7,248 patients /year

Over a twenty-year period of practice, 144,960 patients. That is the population of Savannah, Georgia in 2015/16!!!   And don’t forget, each one of these folks knows or is related to a number of people who will remember you took care of their loved one/neighbor/coworker.  And they all may remember you. But there is NO WAY you could remember all of them.

My grandfather was a proctologist (look it up) and a colorectal surgeon in Atlanta. His standard jokes were that he was going to be a dentist but couldn’t stand the smell of people’s breath. The other one was that he never remembered anyone’s FACE.

So, we do remember a lot of you. And if you are remembered, you must be special in some way. Not necessarily a “good way” but usually.  And if you are not right on the tip of our tongue, don’t feel left out!  Savannah Georgia is a big town!!!!