Vinnie & Mancini

[PocketPlayer]

Just got back from the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. Hard to give a review on this type of music because it's not my particular style, but here goes.

The first tune played was Life Force by Mancini. It was an up tempo, in your face opener. Vinnie held the orchestra together, locking into the tempo with piano. The next tune was a Ellington composition titled, ?Night Creature for jazz band orchestra.? The last tune was by Gunther Schuller who conducted ?Concertino for jazz quartet & orchestra.?

There weren?t any ?Vinnie-sms? here, but solid time keeping and feel. Vinnie seemed to be reading all the tunes and was very upbeat. I sat on the second floor of the theater and could see the artists waiting to come on stage. Vinnie was high-fiving and giving his 2-thumbs up to other artists. The orchestra was all college students and they were excellent. Amazing talent for college kids. The percussion department was really good.

The second set had a college student on drums with Lenny Castro playing percussion. It was a great night of music?and all for free!

Vinnie played his Gretche kit-5 pc--(looked just like the kit he played last summer with Brian Bromberg) and used four cymbals. As usually, his snare sound great with rim shots.It was a great night of music?and all for free!

The second set lent itself to more upbeat Brazillian tunes Vinnie would have killed on. But, he presented himself as the guest artist well.

Lastly, it was nice to see several fellow HODsters at this gig!

[drum4fun]

Good review PocketPlayer and it was great meeting you along with two other HODers. It is always a pleasure to hang out with other drummers. Yes, Vinnie played very conservatively. After the show, I saw Vinnie and his girlfriend and they graciously showed me his burnt orange Gretsch kit with the Longo snare drum.

[PocketPlayer]

Right on D4Fun! I would have gone to check out the kit, but I sorta ignored my friend all night doing drum talk and she was kinda tired of it all. She didn't say that, but I knew she was. If I knew there would be so many HODers, I would have gone solo or with other "dudes" interested in drums and music stuff.

I thought Vinnie was married. Cool that you met him. I found him VERY nice each time we rapped together.