The may have the same profession, but completely different people with united souls. For the longest time, the have been trying to remain as just good friends until that became to much to bear and loving each other was the only way to make it better...
About four hours ago, I sat down in this hard black swivel chair to get my hair braided. Four hours later, I got a sore butt, a headache but some awesome braids. The braids are super heavy because of the massive amount of beads there are but it's all good. I really want to go for a look that is symbolic to African American culture with the braids and the beads. Not only that, but this hairstyle is real fly, if I do say so myself. I get up from the chair and look in the small, dirty, oval mirror on the wall in the bathroom. I gotta say, I am impressed with the outcome. She shocks me every time.
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Yes, this is all my hair. After the Afro I was rocking for about, a good ten years, I had to change it up a little bit.
It is now about noon-ish and I want to hang out at the studio for a bit. I give Niki—she has been my hairstylist for about a month now—her money for the hair and swing my bright, blue nap sack over my shoulder. We give our hugs and say our goodbyes before I exit. I go out the front door of Niki's cute little LA apartment and head to my car. I have a black 4 door sedan amc concord. It is a bit rundown but regardless of its looks, it gets me where I need to be so I'm good with this 'junkie' car. I put my bag in the leather passenger seat and put on my seatbelt. I drive the 15 minutes to The Sound Factory Recording Studio.
When I finally get there, I park the car in the parking lot. I grab my bag and head towards the entrance of the building. I know exactly where to go when it comes to my band. They go to the biggest studio that there is. I have a pretty big band.
I walk into studio room six and everyone stops and looks at me. Then they all say their 'hey' and 'hey short stuff' before going back to what they were doing before. I hate for my band to be doing nothing. We do not have anytime to be doing nothing so they have to be working as much as possible.
A quick break down of my band. There is James, Charles, Al, Marlo, Freddie, Abraham, Ray, Oscar, Bill R., Bill S., Bill G., George, Paulinho, Jeff, Valarie, Clay, David, Ken, Maurice, Larry, Ted and Kim. Jazz bands tend to have way more musicians than non jazz bands do because of the multiple instruments that jazz music use. Sometimes I feel like a one women band because my band is always screwing up and I have to fix their problems myself. Then, there is the background singers. That group is made up of Roy, Jim, Oren, Pauline, Syreeta, Stephanie, Sheree, Charles, Reggie and Maxine. They don't do much. They just harmonize and sing backing vocals behind me.
I put my bag down on the beige stool by the drum set and grab my green composition notebook from out of my bag. James says "Come here real quick, short stuff!"
It isn't a cat call. Him and Kim have been calling me that since '76 because I'm only 4'10. It use to bother me but now I'm kind of over it. "What's going on?" I say as I walk the short distance to the drums.
"Listen to this right here, P." James exclaims before playing a short piece on the drums. As much as I like it, I need to make the slightest bit of a change in the sound. I walk behind the drum set where James is sitting and scoot him over a bit. Then, he gets up and walks around so he could see what I'm about to play.
