We're At It Again . . .

Well, here we go again, only this time, it really is about the band. I have untangled all my personal problems from my musical career. It all started when Nancy Carr took over the booking at Bocci's for the Friday afternoon Happy Hours. She approached me with a great plan. Her idea was my band would play at least once a month starting in January, 2013.

Not only did I agree without hesitation, I suggested to her that we'd be really charged to do Black Friday, November 23, 2012. That's usually a hard one to book, and the consensus was that they'd probably blow off that Friday. I thought it was a great opportunity, so I let Nancy know that we'd do all we could to make this otherwise unlikely afternoon a success.

So far, I've secured the services of sax players Kurt Stockdale and me (waiting on Paul Contos and a special guest on baritone), the brass is Stan Sorokin, John Hemsley and Dave Gregoric, Jon Dryden on piano, guitarist and former Santa Cruz resident Steve Hayes, Chris Charmin on bass, and Olaf on drums. This will be a very hot band, at least the equal of the bad that played back in August in Bocci's.

And then I thought about Stella.I have a couple female vocal charts I did with Marilyn Rucker back in Austin, and several more we didn't get to back there. So I sounded her and she responded with no small enthusiasm. We'll be harnessing her energies. I've been talking to her, and I need to talk to her some more, about the classy girl singers I've worked with in the past (and in their twilights), notably Helen Forrest. Stella is a student of her craft, a hard-working singer who has disciplined practicing techniques. I look forward to working with her.

So far, I designed the flyer, put an event up on Facebook, and we've got more than a month to go before the Happy Hour. I designed the flyer around the concept of Black Friday, as in, "What are you going to do? Shop at the mall?" Adding one of Stella's flirty head shots was a natural.

So, come on down to Bocci's on November 23 for the New Flamingo Swing Orchestra, with Stella D'Oro on vocals. Your $5 cover goes 100% to the musicians.

The more things change . . .

And so, things have changed. But I decided that we would go back to our original identity for the next gig. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we are the New Flamingo Swing Orchestra—only now, we are Richard Fenno's New Flamingo Swing Orchestra.

Why? I'm still shaking off my time in Texas, where we were the Original Recipe Big Band. The New Flamingo Swing Orchestra was what we were when at our founding, back when I was scribbling charts in our spare bedroom on Westwood Blvd. in Los Angeles, soon to be occupied by our about-to-be-born son, Brendan, who is now 28 years old and himself living in Fort Worth with his lovely wife, two huge dogs, and a gig most weekends playing drums with a young people's jump jive band.

I guess I just like this incarnation better. Texas was a lot of frustration for me, despite the good and enduring friendships there. Something about being at war with the climate on a fundamental level, either too cold or blisteringly hot. Ah, the heat, and the fire ants. Don't get me started on fire ants.

So here I am living alone in paradise, and the band's a reflection of that. For better or worse, this is my identity and the band's.

I continue to write charts like there was a demand outside the band for them. (Perhaps someday . . . ) Recent additions are Blues in Hoss' Flat by Frank Foster for Count Basie, Greasy Sack Blues by Don Rader for Woody's band, and, now that I'm all wrapped up in Benny Carter's compositions, I Was Wrong, a lovely little ballad we'll be playing at Bocci's.

The band at Bocci's will be me on alto, Paul Contos and Brad Hecht on tenors, Paul Tarantino on baritone, Stan Soroken and John Hemsley on trumpets, Dave Gregoric on trombone, Mark Howell on guitar, Jon Dryden on piano, Chris Charman on bass, Olaf Schiappacasse on drums, and young Nick Roberto doing a couple vocals.

I'm going to get a few club/restaurant owners in to Bocci's to hear us. I want them to see how we pack the place whenever we play, how we take care of the customers and use our fan lists to bring them out. Ultimately the business is all about butts in the seats, couples on the dance floor, and how many drinks are consumed per person. I've always counted beers at tables from the bandstand. Try it. It works.

Ever onward.

A year has passed.

A year has passed since I moved to Santa Cruz, with my eyes wide open. I knew then that it'd be a hard slog, and I haven't seen anything yet that contradicts that assumption. I've had comical musical experiences (see this post) and meaningful ones too, like the Cabrillo Reunion back in October, where most of the 1975 jazz ensemble's members got together with Lile Crews at the helm once again.

Making a living hasn't been easy. I took a part-time job at a struggling music store. I've never been this close to the ground in retail. Always I had the advantage of being detached from the customer by a distributor, importer or wholesaler when I ventured into the music trades.

Sue's been marvelously supportive. In the last year, I landed a couple gigs–one for my big band even–through her kind offices. But it's time to get serious on a number of levels, including hastening the divorce and getting rent checks in on time, as she's struggling too.

So I've decided that I'm going to redouble my efforts to get my various bands hired. I already built a website called fennomusic.com that's still got a few glaring deficiencies, although the structure and look are just about right.

It's been a long haul from the time I decided to set up my big band once again, through my ship contracts, to the heart attack in 2008, through my marriage ending, leaving Austin, and here in Santa Cruz, where I had to step on the first rung of a ladder that I'd pretty much climbed 35+ years ago, where people play for free nowadays and restaurants expect not to pay musicians for making music.

I'm also going to try a little writing again. I wrote this book for Peachpit Press in 1998. Unfortunately the product was pulled off the market the very week the book was released, the reason being that Steve Jobs had returned to Apple and decided to reallocate the software development, canceling titles that were under the Claris banner. (Not that I'm pissed at his memory, because at the time I was mopping up Apple shares with my 401(K) rollover account. If he hadn't closed that unprofitable appendage of Filemaker along with about a million other details, I'd have a lot less in that account than I do now.)

What has me intrigued is Apple's new textbook initiative and the tool they released for authoring textbooks. For free. Unlike when I wrote and produced my last book, which I did the prepress production on as well, there will be no copy editing through MS Word (ugh!) files passed back and forth among several editors, page proofs generated in Quark ExPress, and then off to some RR Donelley plant in northwest Ohio. Just my iMac and maybe an iPad to test pages.

There are several things I feel I know enough about to be able to produce a text aimed at a very tight market segment. More on this later.

Then there's the issue of the royalties. If I remember correctly I made less than 2 bucks on each book sold. Cover price was $16.95 if I remember right. They sold a lot of them eventually, but the take per book was less than stellar. I was green behind the ears, though, it being my first book.

That's what I don't understand about pundits bloviating about Apple's cut of a finished textbook in the iTunes store. Seventy percent of a book going to the author sounds pretty good to me!

Whether that's good enough to get me going and sustain me through the process, well, that's another matter.

I'm also thinking Sue, who just earned a French Wine Expert shingle from the French Wine Institute, and who just returned from an almost mythical tour of Burgundy with a group of admitted partisans, has a book in her waiting to gently be extracted. The Women Vintners of Burgundy, perhaps? Or something a bit more general?

Again, more as it develops.

Meanwhile, I'm playing almost every night of the week somewhere in Santa Cruz, usually for free or a cut of the tip jar. I'm writing some charts for Dan Young's Pleasure Point Horns which we're about to unleash on an indifferent universe. I'm doing my best to get a saxophone quartet off the ground. And I'm thinking about hiring an organizer. I'm wondering when we can do a reunion of Sofrito.