久々の大雨のニューヨークです。今日はサリナちゃんとハラのカルテットでショーケースでした。ショーケースというのはミュージシャンの見本市みたいなもので、バンドが代わる代わる演奏して、お客さんが気に入ったバンドと交渉をするというシステムです。ブッキング・エージェント７社合同のショーケースだったらしいのですが、ホテルの最上階のペントハウスで行われました。広大なセントラルパークの南西の角から１ブロックのハドソン・ホテルはロビーからして豪華でした。
It's been a long time since we had this much rain in New York. Today's gig was a showcase of Sarina and Hara's quartet. "Showcase" is like musician's trade fair; several bands play for a short period of time and whoever interested in comes to the band and talk about some business. I think it was a joint showcase of seven booking agents and it was held at the penthouse on the top of Hudson Hotel. The hotel is located only a block away from the South-west corner of the Central Park.
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| （ロビーの風景。高層ビルの２階でもちろん室内なのですが、森の中の教会の前に立っているような雰囲気です。） (Lobby --- It's on the 2nd floor of the 24-story building. Of course it is indoor but it was like I was standing right in front of a church in a forest.) |
24階のペントハウスへ上がると、すでに機材はセットされてミキシング・エンジニアが待っていました。こういうちゃんとしたプロダクションと仕事をすると、こちらは楽でいいです。雨水を吸ってべちゃべちゃになったケースからベースを取り出し、さっそくサウンドチェックです。
In the penthouse on the top floor, the sound engineers were already there and all the gears were beautifully set up. Always good to work with professional agents. Only thing I had to do was taking my bass out from the soaking wet bass case and plug in to the bass amp.
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The guests arrived bit by bit and we started playing funk tunes as we were asked to play. A moment later, the agent rushed in to the room and told us to put the volume down. Way down. Huh? We were here to do the showcase, that means we have to put our 100% on our music and have to make the guests interested in hiring us. Oh well, so we had to change the direction. We were going to play two short sets of 15-minute showcase, instead, we played two long sets of an-hour background music. I don't know if we could showcase anything.
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| ペントハウスからの風景。一日中雨が降り、ニューヨークは霧に覆われていました。 The view from the penthouse. It was raining whole day and New York was cover with a fog. | |
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