I'm living out in the middle east doing some teaching and some gig on the side. I get a phone call from a violin teacher who asks if I can do a function gig. Nice money, easy playing, shouldn't last more than an hour or 2 – it's for the opening of a shopping Mall. 'Great' I think, 'I'll be there'. Only thing is I'm playing piano – my 2nd instrument, but, he reassures me, it's only a bit of comping that’s needed.

So I turn up with the bass player and meet said violinist, who, somewhat typically is a little worse the wear with his fondness for the grape. We walk into the Mall and find out from the organizer that we will be playing for the Emir (King) of Qatar - Sheik Hamad. 'Great' we think. I look around, the 'Royal Plaza' is 3 or 4 floors high, with a large central open space in the middle, connecting all the floors together. Looking over the balcony from the ground level floor I can see that some 30 feet below is another floor. This is the floor of the large open area which reaches all the way up to the skylight roof some 100 feet or more above. In the middle of this floor are two cast iron gazebos, festooned with flowers and decorations. Behind each gazebo is a fork lift truck being covered in a large black cloth.

The organizer looks at us and says

"You'll be playing in that left hand gazebo"….

"And as Sheik Hamad enters you will start to play and the fork lift truck will lift you up so that you appear to float up from the floor below."…………

"Meanwhile, the other gazebo will also be rising as Mr. Mohamed conducts you"………..(Mr. Mohammed looks accross and smiles)

"As you play the Vivaldi and Bach concertos we talked about earlier"

At this moment, the bass player and I give an extreme evil eye towards the violinist and even though we both know that in the middle east one should always say 'Yes' (e.g. "Can you playa kind of Arabic – jazz fusion with a salsa twist" "Of course madam, no problem at all" – before you turn up and play the Girl from Ipanema etc). However, Vivaldi and Back are a long way from Jobim / Rogers & Harts. The inebriated violinist quickly takes us aside before we have a chance to voice our concerns to the organizer.

I tell him I can't read piano dots for toffee and my classical chops are limited to say the least. He re-assures us that we can play "Impro - classics" which he done before with jazz musicians and accordingly, brings out a set of 'Barok charts' written in the usual Jazz format "A7 | Dm " etc etc. He explains that he will play the original concerto on violin whist the bass player improves an Arco continuo and I play some Bach-style arpeggios over the written chords.

Both of us are more than a bit apprehensive, but sure enough after we set up on our gazebo, we run through a bit of Vivaldi and its kind of passable in a quassi- classical way. (OK – it was awful) However, by this point the fork lift trucks have been completely hidden beneath a huge silky black material and the little Indian man inside is barked orders to start his engine. Well now, you have probably never been on a Gazebo on the end of a fork lift truck, have you? Imagine this. If you were ever to go into a warehouse say, and stand on a palette which happened to be on the end of a fork lift truck you would almost certainly get a severe bollocking from whoever was in charge as it is an extremely dangerous thing to do for obvious reasons. Also, if you happen to be a large box of video recorders, being carried on a fork lift then stability is not too much of an issue. However, if you are 3 musicians perched on the edge of a gazebo which in turn is perched on the edge of a fork of a fork lift truck hoisting you into the air it is fu***g terrifying.

The whole contraption started to shudder before gradually jerking is way forward toward the skylight. Almost instantly I lunged forwards to bear hug my Roland digital piano which was instantly vibrating its way off its X stand in a manner similar to an object left on the spin cycle of a washing machine. As the band edged it way higher and higher (30 feet is a bloody long way down – have a look down a floor next time your in a shopping Mall) we realized that being on the far end of the gazebo was not a very sensible place to be, and we all quickly shuffle back to the "fork side" of the gazebo before it looses its balance.

It was clear that we could not play whilst the fork lift engine was running. The organizer comes up with an idea – whilst we are hanging on to dear life when being thrust upwards, Vivaldi will be played through the PA system. Once in place, having risen from below, the fork lift driver will turn off the engine thus removing the vibration and we can play our music.

So the time comes, and a hush falls over the entire Mall and its inaugural guests of honor. Security gives the go ahead and music blares through the entire Mall. The engines start, the gazebo vibrates. I hold onto my piano, the bass player hold onto his bass. The pissed violinist holds onto the gazebos railings and up we go. We sway as we edge upwards until level with the guests of honor on the floor above us.

Our ascent finshed, we notice that the gazebo's twin is also being hoisted whilst Mr. Mohamed (whom we had completely forgotten about) is doing a wild impersonation of a conductor from the last night of the proms. The fork lift engines stop and we are left swaying a la skyscraper top floor, to start our quassi – classic Vivaldi as the recorded music ebbs away.

We're kind of getting into it now. OK, being on the end of fork lift 30 feet up is a bit scary, but think of the money etc etc. We finish our first piece, the Emir of Qatar declares the Mall open and as the ceremony finishes, we recommence our Barok musak and play to the guests as they move around the various posh shops of Royal plaza. It is only then that we notice that our conducting friend, Mr. Mohamed has been slowly let down from his pedestal and has pissed off home. We notice that the organiser has also disappeared to hob nob with the rich and famous. Furthermore there is no sign of our little Indian fork lift driver and it is impossible to tell if he is under the black silk material covering the truck's controls 30 feet below.

We are stranded 30 feet up, with no way of getting off or communicating with the powers that be. Guests periodically walk by from their jaunts round the shops to peer across the central chasm at the floating trio of musicians. After an hour or so, the organizer comes by and gives the necessary orders to bring us down. Yes it was nice money and yes we got to play in front of royalty, but take it from me if, as a jazz musician, anyone ever asks you to play Barok classics on a floating gazebo – just say NO!