The Lefty Valdez Band practice

Unfortunately, noone234 was out of commission for today's practice on account of a battery failing yesterday at a most inopportune moment.

Rachel and I were both in and out for the session - her, more so than me. She was so pale that a few times we had to force her to stop and get some rest. I felt a bit wiped at one point, and opening the windows didn't help. A low fan did the trick and let me continue for a bit.

We worked on fleshing out the Dm mellow jazz jam Rachel and I had done, going off of the Bb-D-F-Bb opening slur she came up with. That jam is now officially named Dm Mellow Jazz, until Rachel gets the honor of naming it once it's done. For the A section, we counter her lines on clarinet with Justin's simpler lines on trumpet over a simple, clean progression on the guitar. The first part of the B section continues in that vein, and then ends with a line harmonized in thirds - Justin still plays simple bits (to downplay the power of the brass) and Rachel plays an approach to their chords.

We also worked on the first - still nameless - tune, just getting it a bit tighter. When noone234 is over next time, we'll continue writing work on it, with Justin and Rachel coming up with their parts.

While Rachel was resting, Justin and I worked a bit on Jack Sparrow (minus any decoration from sea shanties). The fretless does really well on the cello lead, as we had expected. Switching back to the guitar, dropping the low E to a D, and we played through The Kraken a couple of times.