In my previous update I mentioned playing trumpet on the K-Love Cruise in the ‘Double Sea Horns’. As a result of a conversation with one of our neighbors, Chad Mattson (Unspoken), we ended up playing with Unspoken on their brand new song ‘Higher’ for their concerts on the ship.

That night after the concerts (2 sets), my wife Dana and I are walking down to get coffee with Chad and his wife Katie and the rest of the band guys. I stop at the pizza buffet (of course), and I see Danny Gokey. I’ve been a fan since American Idol and figured I’d go say hi. I introduced myself, told him I was a trumpet player with the horn section and we had just finished sitting in with Unspoken.

“Oh man. I wish I knew you guys were going to be here. I SO would have loved to have you sit in with us.”

“Well..if you’ve got an MP3 I could write a chart out”

“Oh, I have the charts.”

The friends standing by Dana just see me over there talking to Danny and then they see Danny start smiling big time. Then they see him take out his phone and put in my number. I walked back and said, “We might be playing with Danny tomorrow night.”

We’re in port the next day in The Caymans when I get a text from Danny’s manager with details. Dana and I spend a relaxing morning in the Cayman’s. We come back to the boat for lunch (it’s free you know). She goes to the pool and I go to sound check with Danny and talk through the charts with Danny’s MD (Music Director) Maestro.

I get all the charts in PDF format, and via Bluetooth, Apple’s AirDrop and the app forScore, I get the music to everybody’s iPads. And yes, I know how cool THAT sentence was!

While the band before Danny is doing their set, I get together with the horns and we play through the charts (just the horns). We talk road maps, starts/stops and the other horn articulations/nuances. We walk out on stage and the first notes the audience hears from the horns are the first notes Danny hears from the horns.

Out of the park! These horn guys are really such amazing musicians. It is so much to play with them.

I learn later that Danny LOVES horns so it was one of those serendipitous moments for both of us.

And that wasn’t the end of it. On the bus on the way back to the airport, Maestro calls and tells us that Danny is performing at the Hockey All Star Game the next day back in Nashville and asks us to perform.

I’ve tried those marketing…networking type events. Usually, when I try to create moments, they don’t seem to work out.

But, when I’m in line getting pizza hanging with friends, all kinds of fun opportunities present themselves.

Yep…I’m a pretty big fan of pizza.

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