Fun Fact #51

Over a year ago, I started an entry entitled 50 Fun Facts About Kev. It took quite a while to complete, but I think it's probably become one of the most-read of the older entries. Halfling suggested quite a while back that I start a second set (realizing that it might take even longer to find fifty more), and maybe I will once I remember the three or four things we came up with back then. But last night spawned a pretty good starter for that list:

51. The Temptations have heard me play.

I had a gig last night at a fancy downtown hotel, playing in a trio (piano, bass and me) as cocktail-hour entertainment for a bunch of corporate executives. Following our gig was the main show in the next room, headlined by the Temptations, and one of the corporate guys broke in with an announcement (during what was otherwise a nonstop two-hour gig for us) that the group would be coming in for a short meet-and-greet in a few minutes. We scrambled to find a lead sheet for one of their tunes, settling for "My Girl" in the unusual key of F (it's normally in C) since that was the only version we had. We used that as walk-on music for their grand entrance, and then we launched into a rousing version of "St. Thomas" as they walked right by us, stopping to listen for a bit as a few guys smiled and flashed us the thumbs-up. Think about all the people they've entertained over the years; tonight, we got to entertain them for a little while.

(And yeah, there was this part of me that was secretly hoping that their scheduled sax player would get sick at the last minute and I'd get tapped to fill in. It didn't happen, of course, or there'd be a biiiiig picture as part of this entry, but as the song says, I can dream, can't I?)

Anyway, it was a fun night; according to the leader, you can tell if the audience is having a good time if they're talking really loudly. If that's the case, they had a great time; we even had to open the piano lid most of the way up just to hear ourselves. The whole thing was done in a few hours and was quite profitable for us; as another song says, nice work if you can get it. I'm not sure I'd want to do that kind of thing every night (especially with teaching starting at 7:45 this morning), but it's sure cool every now and then.