Friday night, my friend Frank had tickets to see Sue Foley at the 04 Center in Austin. Frank is responsible for plenty of positive, music-related things in my life, including, in no particular order, a welcoming campground at the Kerrville Folk Festival, many of the photographs that grace my Youtube channel, my stealth introduction to learning upright bass, and an appreciation for the music of Uncle Walt's Band.

The 04 Center is a relatively new venue and a little on the formal side for the blues but this was a solo show, a kind of personal travelogue of the female guitar players who have inspired Foley, from Memphis Minnie to (seriously) Charo. For the record, Ms. Foley played the entire show (except the encore) on a pair of nylon-string guitars – everything from "Babe It Ain't No Lie" to "Malaguena."

But that was just the start of the weekend. The next night, Ms. Fretboard and I made our way down to the Continental Club on South Congress to see Bill Frisell. As we stood in line to get in, Ms. F., who has been to see a lot of guitar players with me over the years, looked around and said, "dude, I'm going to be, like, the only chick here." The fact that this turned out not to be case at all says a lot about the kind of guitar player, and musician, Frisell is.

Unlike the 04, the Continental looks exactly like the sort of place you'd expect to hear blues, but whenever Frisell comes to town, it magically turns into a kind of listening room, and Saturday was no exception. Frisell played one hour-and-a-half set with Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums, and we agreed it was one of the most inspiring shows we've seen in a long, long time.

On our way out, I ran into my friends Lauren and Ryan, who've been hosting an early jazz and swing jam over on the east side for the past few months. So the next day, my brain still full of Frisell, I wandered over to check it out, collecting a guitar from the studio on the way.

Things were well under way by the time I arrived, and first of all let me just say I had no idea there were so many saxophone players in Austin. Second, I was delighted to see guitarist Dave Biller holding down the guitar slot in the house band (on a 175, through a tweed Blues Junior – I know you want to know these things; I would, too).

Eventually, various guitar players came up to sit in as well, and the stage being somewhat on the philatelic side, Dave generously gave up his amp and, occasionally, his guitar to hang out and observe the proceedings. Which is how, in due course, I wound up on stage backing up a clarinet player on a couple of standards and, heaven help us, leading the house trio through a version of "Lester Leaps In."

When I pulled my guitar out to plug in, Dave growled, "Aw man, if I'd known you could bring a Tele to this thing I'd have brought mine too!" I had, in fact, thought about bringing my 390, but when going someplace new, I'm all for an axe that you can A) leave in the trunk without worrying about the weather, B) leave lying around in a gig bag without worrying about damage and C) bring onstage without worrying about feedback.

I'll admit I have the same sense of utility when it comes to chord voicings. I'm all for playing those Freddie Green voicings in situ, strummed four to the bar and all the rest, and like anything else, I try and do my homework first before going rogue, especially regarding anything I'm going to teach.

But these voicings are not only sturdy enough to withstand repurposing; they're a great way to get around the fretboard and they have plenty of uses outside their most well-known context.

So while I'll be going pretty chapter-and-verse in this weekend's workshop, Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes, I thought I'd live stream a short lesson this morning about one of my favorite other applications of the Freddie Green chords, namely, how to provide your own call-and-response comping while soloing on the blues.

Join me this morning at 10:30am Central on my Youtube channel for a live lesson and Q&A:

Soloing With Freddie Green Chord Hits

And sign up for the new workshop at the link below:

Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes

More soon,

David