Rudys Jazz Room recap

Dear Backstagers,

It’s the morning after the show. I am beyond exhausted but thrilled with how it went.

Rudys has 3 shows a night! Ours was the second, so we had to wait for the first show to clear out before our lightning fast line check. Normally I would panic at this amount of set up time but I’ve been to the club before and the sound is always amazing. There’s something about landing in a major city and knowing there’s a certain standard to even the house techs that is comforting.

Our set list was:

SET ONE

TRIO SONG

ORANGE COLORED SKY

LETS FACE THE MUSIC AND DANCE

BUTTERFLIES

(MICHAEL COMES UP TO TALK BRIEFLY)

LOOSE WIG

QUEEN

LIFE ON MARS

SET TWO

ANYTHING GOES

JUST FRIENDS

NEVERTHELESS
IS THAT ALL THERE IS

TRIO SONG

REAL LOVE

WHERE OR WHEN

JACK (can cut if we’re low on time)

==

VALENCIA (would like to end with this)

By the way, we did not end up cutting “Jack” we were actually a little low on time, so Pat added in “Blue Skies” before “Real Love”. From backstage my little heart leaped. I knew my dad loves this song. He’s loved it in various forms but when we were growing up we were familiar with the Willie Nelson version as the cassette “Stardust” had heavy rotation in our Volare. Country and jazz intersect yet again…

I introduced my dad to the audience, said why I was doing this show…(for him) and he stood up and waved to everyone. It was very sweet.

The new songs were really interesting on bass and drums and piano…what I missed in the backing vocals and guitar solos was more than made up by everyone’s extraordinary jazziness.

Engineers Dave Salley and Casey Wood came out. I invited them by saying, “If you want to hear music after working on it all day, come on out to the show.” I was so thrilled they did.

Longtime fans Ashley, Ethan, Brandon and a few others came. One chap had an old school “Emm” shirt, you know…the one with my name in the star? Then there were regulars in the crowd and only for a few milliseconds did I think…hmmm, pop singer singing jazz, not quite legit…and I was able to quash that worry pretty fast.

A beautiful night in a beautiful room…one of those once in a lifetime gigs. I was so happy to have so many beautiful souls cheering me on and I can feel you doing that from here, too.

Can’t wait for October 13th when I can play for you too.