Teddy Vaño on Boy Katindig’s "Don’t Ask My Neighbors"

I’m lucky to have seen Teddy Vaño play live.  If I remember right, it was at Tavern on the Square in Makati; Mr. Vaño played a Brecker Brothers tune that I can’t remember.  Man, his playing was really smokin’.  He was standing to my left, and someone told him, “Ang galing mo talaga.”  Teddy replied, “Chamba lang iyon.”  Hahaha.  You don’t become that good by luck alone.

Let me rewind further back by saying that I also caught Teddy play live on television with Gary Lising’s Music Making Company — or was it a band called Aerojets?  He played the guitar parts of the Sergio Mendes classic “Love City” in the exact same tempo, note for note.  I heard that there was a point in time he was into Robben Ford and Yellow Jackets, and a fellow musician way back then told me he saw Teddy playing the Larry Carlton classic “Room 335″ in some beerhouse in Cebu.

Based on what I’ve seen, Teddy had a preference for solid body electrics; that’s what I recall from the rather limited number of times I saw him play. 

I can’t help entertain the thought of playing in a band like the one in the Midnight Lady album — a quartet of drums, bass, guitar and keyboard — same format, same style, but maybe do more songs aside from the ones in the album.  Yeah, but it would be nice to have a female vocalist and a sax/trumpet/flute player; I wonder what the employment prospects of such a band are, given that the tunes will be a mix of OPM and songs from The Great American Songbook — you know what The Songbook is, right? 

Check out the song “Don’t Ask My Neighbors” on YouTube — it’s just the audio, but the audio is rather good.  Mr. Vaño solos near the end and, man, I wish I could play like that.  Idol talaga.  I didn’t hear that he’s now doing his gig somewhere up there; I just read the R.I.P. from a post by one teddysapostle1.  He can call me teddysapostle2.

I can’t help saying it.  I hear John Tropea.