Merry Christmas from the Pinnacle Brass

[ttyymmnn]

My brass quintet, the Pinnacle Brass, performs a free noonday concert at Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Austin every year, and have done so for many, many years. This year, of course, we couldn’t do our regular show, so we recorded an outdoor concert in the church courtyard.

A recording of the concert is below. It’s only about twenty minutes long. That's me on the left. Bob (trumpet and leader), Tom (French horn) and I all perform in the Austin Symphony and Austin Opera. Randy (trombone) and Kerry (tuba) are both local freelancers. Most of the time, Kerry plays bass in a country band. We've all played together for more than 25 years.

[HoustonRunner]

@ttyymmnn I miss the Austin music scene. Started seeing live music in high school, getting into 18 and up places wasn't that hard back in the day.

A few good memories:
-My parents would volunteer for the Austin PBS TV live auction, and it took place in the studio directly across from Austin City Limits. Just looking at all the pictures on the wall walking in was amazing. Also, if you haven't been in person you would quickly note that the ACL production team is great - the studio is (or was 20 years ago) pretty shabby, but always looked good on TV.
-Bands like Storyville. Basically a group of really talented guys culled from their respective "decent" bands to form an even better band. The energy in their small venue shows was amazing.
-The stories of "I heard these guys at _____ before they made it big." I assume there are stories like that all over the US, but in Austin they always felt more likely to be true.

[ttyymmnn]

@houstonrunner In that vein, Threadgill's is no more. I suppose they were struggling, but then Covid finally killed them. The location on Riverside will soon be torn down and replaced likely with upscale condos. I assume all the memorabilia has been removed and stored somewhere. They could start a museum with that stuff.

[HoustonRunner]

@ttyymmnn Dang. I guess not old enough to be historic, but certainly culturally relevant in Austin.

[mustangchris66]

@ttyymmnn Thank you for posting. I deeply miss playing music. 2 weeks ago this weekend would have been my 24th or so Holliday concert with the local Community Band I play in. The Band was in the middle of its 41st season when it all came to a halt in March.

[ttyymmnn]

@mustangchris66

I'm sorry to hear that, but I know so many people who are in the same boat. For the last forty years, I have either sung or played trumpet for a midnight Christmas Eve service. Heck, I even played one year when I was recovering from pneumonia. But this will be the first year in that stretch with no midnight service. I'm prerecording two, but it's not the same.

The Austin Symphony has been doing online concerts since this fall. It was such an absolute joy to sit onstage with my colleagues for the first time in months and play music. It's still not quite the same, but I'll take it. Aside from the music making, the camaraderie was the best part. The opera stage has been dark so far since January, and they say we are going to do a concert performance in January. We'll see.

I'm glad you enjoyed the show, and I hope you get back to playing again soon.

[Roundbadge]

@ttyymmnn What a cool arrangement of 'We Three Kings'! Loved that. Also the harmonies of 'Feliz Navidad' were awesome.

Thanks for posting!

[ttyymmnn]

@roundbadge said in Merry Christmas from the Pinnacle Brass:

@ttyymmnn What a cool arrangement of 'We Three Kings'! Loved that. Also the harmonies of 'Feliz Navidad' were awesome.

Glad you liked it. The arranger of Three Kings is a local Austinite and good friend Gary Slechta. He has an entire collection of Christmas arrangements like that, and they were all recorded by none other than Wayne Bergeron on the CD Music and Mistletoe. The singer on some of them is not the best, but the playing is fantastic.

[ttyymmnn]

@roundbadge

Music & Mistletoe is on Spotify.