One more.

Here’s Meghan Coffee Arias singing her own arrangement of What Child Is This?  On background vocals is my former (sadly) assistant, the talented Rachel Bos.  The event is Married Life Live Goes Christmas.

 

 

 

 

I Pray On Christmas

Dan Hannon sings a Harry Connick Jr Christmas song, with ONE Atlanta artist Rudy Vaughn on sax, at the recent Married Life Live Goes Christmas at Buckhead Church.  Thanks to Chris Green for the video.  And don’t miss the previous post, either - video from the same event.

 

 

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS from ONE Atlanta.

 

 

Silent Night

Rudy Vaughn, from the recent Married Life Live Goes Christmas at Buckhead Church.  Thanks to Chris Green for the video.

 

Glorious Interruption (free song download)

(If you don’t want to read this whole post, at least skip to the end for instructions on downloading an amazing song and watching video of the song performed live.)

 

The posts have been somewhat infrequent this holiday season. I’ve been doing planning and preparation for Christmas programs/services at 3 different churches.

 

Today I borrow a page, literally, from my friend Casey’s blog, because it contains an amazing song that he wrote for Married Life Live at Northpoint and Buckhead Church. I played it for the pastor of Connection Church, where I’m playing on Christmas Eve with Rudy Vaughn and others. Not only did he decide we should put it in Connection’s Christmas Eve service, but he’s now building his sermon around the song.

 

In Casey’s words:  Imagine your wedding plans and all the wonderful dreaming that takes place when you’re planning for marriage…your hopes for what life will be like, etc.  Joseph and Mary were no different then anyone else who was planning for marriage and dreaming of their lives together.  So the song takes place in the middle of what that story might have been like for them…as things took a different turn one night.

…speaking more to what their marriage and their plans would have been like as it was interrupted…gloriously…by Jesus, the son of God! The reality of how He wants to interrupt us…invade our plans and our dreams and show us more than we could ever hope for…by His glorious interruption in our lives.  

 We’ve all been through things that have made life difficult at best.  Our plans were altered, tragedy happens…or your life isn’t turning out as you had hoped.  

My hope for this song is that it will speak to that, and highlight the reality of Jesus IN our lives, our circumstances, pains and heartbrakes…good and bad, and that when Jesus is IN the middle of it…we begin to see it all differently and purposeful.  I keep asking this of Him, how might He want to interrupt my plans this season…this year…and give me more than i was expecting.

 

It’s a beautiful song, with piano by Davis Harwell and strings by John Carrozza.  You can download the song here at Casey’s page.  Please do.

 

Also, and this is way cool, you can watch Casey’s performance of the song live, along with a few words from Married Life director Ted Lowe at the Married Life web page.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

 

The rest of the week

Married Life Live at Buckhead Church is the reason that I’ll be pretty much living at Buckhead Church this week.  Between vocal rehearsals, band rehearsals, production rehearsals, the event itself on Saturday, and then Sunday services, I’ll be there for 40+ hours this week.  I’ll be joined for MLL by Rudy Vaughn, Dan Hannon, and plenty of other friends.

 

And here’s some Big news.  I’ve been asked to play keys for a couple weeks at BigStuf next summer. They must have read this blog post from last summer.  No.  Actually, a buddy put it in a good word for me and reminded them that I don’t have the ol’ day job anymore, so I’m available.  Should be a hoot.

The Logical Choice

I know not all 1ATL readers are music programmers/editors, but please humor me for a minute.  Just want to agree with so many of my contemporaries who are loving Logic Pro 8 for programming/recording music tracks.  Guys like JAMM and like Fee producer Jason Hoard.  I still prefer Pro Tools for editing real audio, especially vocals, but Logic is the stuff when it comes to MIDI tracks.

 

 

Below is a sample of some stuff I programmed using Logic 8, for a David Crowder song called Rain Down that we’re doing this Sunday at Buckhead Church. For those not familiar with what I’m talking about, these are auxiliary tracks that will be played from the computer as we do the song live, to enhance the musical worship experience.

 

Rain Down programming-audio sample

 

 

Majesty

Have been somewhat removed from blogworld over these last few days.  Just returned from the Charlotte NC area, where I was doing some consulting work with the three campuses of Christ Church.  Great people up there.  Cindy and our youngest, Jett, went with me, and we had a great time.  I was trying to remain inconspicuous as I observed their environments so I really didn’t take any pictures.

 

Folks, I’m in Christmas mode already and I’m loving it.  I’ll be the band leader for Buckhead Church’s Married Life Live on Dec. 13th, and we’re already picking through songs, singers, charts, and the like.  

 

Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking Christmas.  Check out today’s post over at our buddy Casey Darnell’s blog. His Christmas song Majesty is really powerful.  Casey will be a part of Married Life Live as well, but at Northpoint’s Alpharetta campus.  Here’s hoping the song he blogs about makes it onto the program at both campuses.  Please check it out and drop him a line.

 

Who’s ready for Christmas?

Who can guess…

 

…what I was doing so intently on the stage laptop at Buckhead Church just before rehearsal yesterday afternoon? (Those who were present are disqualified.)  Casey Darnell snapped this pic.  I wish I could say I was preparing loops or adjusting tempos.  Keep it clean.

 

Anyone wanna take a stab?

 

 

Buckhead Music Project

I was on staff as music director for Buckhead Church from June 2002 until this past Christmas. I left my job there to start ONE Atlanta Music (with my partners, of course). You’re thinking, “He left a full time job to start a blog?” Believe me, there are much bigger things being developed behind the scenes, which will be announced before much longer. We’ve also added an Artist Agency to our arsenal recently, and hope to add more artists to that side of things.

 

I have to hand it to Buckhead Church. This new thing they’re doing, the Buckhead Music Project, looks pretty cool. It’s basically a concert series using talented artists who are believers, but it happens in Buckhead clubs instead of churches. It features many of the artists you can read about on this site. It’s very similar to what 12Stone Church has been doing with their amazing bevy of singers/songwriters (called Playchase Music) at venue’s like Eddie’s Attic and Picasso.

 

The Buckhead Music Project will include concerts by: Meghan Coffee, Jamie Portee, James David Carter, Chrystina Lloree Fincher, Clarissa Rivera Gibson, Eddie Kirkland, Erica Ambrose, and Moxie Davis Worship (next Thursday 9/4 at The Vinyl with me on keys; oh yeah!) A complete listing of artists and details can be found here.  Check out this video as well.

 

Tonight’s the night.

Tonight at 7:30pm.  Buckhead Church.  Night of Worship.  Led by Casey Darnell, Seth Condrey, Eddie Kirkland, and Carlos Whittaker.  I’m on keys.  We’re expecting a ton of folks.  Please come.  

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