Jazz Smugglers Master Workshop

Jazz Smugglers Master Workshop
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Monday 28 April 2014

HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW WELL YOU PLAY JAZZ?

You don't, unless someone tells you.

Praise could be from a member of the audience, that is always so appreciated, could be from a tutor. It could be from another band member, and you really appreciate that. As a performing artist, when you get praise, wow, does that make you feel good! When you get occasional criticism that burns you up for days.

I've just sent an email to Terry Seabrook, thanking him for the jazz funk workshop he did with us, and also for writing a brilliant arrangement of The Sidewinder for us. That man is absolutely brilliant at what he does. He has made our jazz what it is.

We had a jazz concert last Friday and it was outstanding, the way the band played. The two girl singers were wonderful together, we all interacted with everyone else in the band. First time we had ever played most of the songs in public. Absolutely fabulous night - and yes some of the audience came up and said so. Yes, I emailed everyone and told them, individually as well.

I'm naturally inclined to say nice things if I honestly can do so. But I never say anything if I don't mean it. If you say things are good and you don't mean it then it is just crummy - and people know. If I feel critical then I say nothing. (You have to read between the lines). I might say something, but it would be face-to-face and there would be a purpose in doing so.

I have just sent an email from all of us to Terry thanking him for the work he has done with us. I know he will appreciate it, anyone would. If I am at the Snowdrop pub to-night when Terry's session ends I will say something to each musician if I think they are good. They will be. They always are.

QUESTION FOR EACH OF YOU PLAYERS.
When was the last time another player said how well you played? And when was the last time you told someone else how well they played as opposed to just thanking them for playing?

People have different levels of performance, the key is whether they play at the top, or beyond, their usual level of performance. It is not about whether they are the best in the world.

COULD YOU PLAY BETTER?
Yes, if you practise. What will make you practise harder? Praise.

John
ps. Some individuals in our lovely band have often thanked me for putting in all the effort to get them gigs and organise things - Vic did the other day. They are really really nice. Thanks for that boys and girls.

But I have no idea of whether I'm playing ok, or whether I'm just tolerated. Ok, so a bit of moaning can't do much harm......but maybe they are trying to tell me something if I read between the lines.


Our guitar man Dave told me about this CD. Jim Hall's trio. The guitar and piano are exchanging fours at the end and copying/feeding each other. Really nice sound. You, know this other business of playing and repeating patterns - which is what this is - must have been post bebop. It is in the mid 50's jazz onwards.

Has anyone got any other CDs where they do this? Tell me?
Ps. Dave is as good as Jim Hall was. I mean it.

The Jazz Smugglers bands in Sussex
The Jazz Smugglers workshop, Bosham, Sussex

This site is to help the Jazz smugglers workshop group and provide information about the following weeks work. We will be working on widening our range of playing styles as individuals, working together in a band, and practising the more difficult things. You need to be able to read.

If you have a Facebook account can you LIKE our band page on Facebook please, 
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS SUSSEX BAND 
and LIKE our workshop page as well.
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS WORKSHOP BOSHAM

In this blog we will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation. you can sign up directly to this blog site as a FOLLOWER, bottom rh side panel, you'll get all the posts.





Saturday 26 April 2014

WE ARE GOING TO PLAY WITHOUT MUSIC THIS SUNDAY




That's right. You have no idea of what we will be playing on Sunday, and we will not hand out any charts. We need to play by ear. You won't know the key either. How will be achieve that?

By magic. Just wait and see.

Scat singing, little riffs. What do you think girls, Andrew? Any use to us?


The concert last night was great. I may put up a post about it.

Keep the music by for these, we will do them some day.
CANTALOUPE
FOUR
STARDUST
DARN THAT DREAM
WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? Just the instrumental version
LADYBIRD
BLUE IN GREEN
BLUESETTE

John

The Jazz Smugglers bands in Sussex
The Jazz Smugglers workshop, Bosham, Sussex

We still have places for front line in the workshop.

This site is to help the Jazz smugglers workshop group and provide information about the following weeks work. We will be working on widening our range of playing styles as individuals, working together in a band, and practising the more difficult things. You need to be able to read.

If you have a Facebook account can you LIKE our band page on Facebook please,
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS SUSSEX BAND 
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS WORKSHOP BOSHAM



In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation. you can sign up directly to this blog site as a FOLLOWER, bottom rh side panel, you'll get all the posts.


Monday 21 April 2014

FISHBOURNE CENTRE. FRIDAY 7.30. SHOULD BE GREAT FUN. TICKETS AT DOOR

We have a complete new programme of songs to do on Friday. Really pleased with this show. Hope you can come and brings friends. Tickets at door, £12. Organised by the Fishbourne Lions in aid of the Snowdrop Trust.
John



Friday 18 April 2014

HOW WELL DO YOU SOLO, SINGING JAZZ IN THE CAR?



This video is what I'm talking about.

Isn't it amazing how good your solos sound when you are listening to jazz cds in the car? Just doing dade dum dum, dade dum, dade dum ....dum etc. Have you noticed that you repeat little motifs, usually concentrating on the rhythm. Sounds good, yes? So why don't we do that more in our solos, build up little tunes within a tune?

Every person in the world can improvise. Whenever we speak we improvise. Sometimes we have a story to tell, sometimes not. Some people's conversations are just a mass of words, a stream of consciousness and this turns people off after a while. I've got two people in mind right now.

Some people show-off in their conversations, full of themselves they dominate, insensitive to other people. I have another person in mind.

Some people are just boorrrring. Yup another person always banging on about his mobile phone. You know something - these people do not attract great crowds of admirers.

But other people's conversations are good to listen to, interesting. They have a theme to them, they are articulate they are well modulated. Most of the time they are not telling a specific story they are joining in with patterns, adding textures to a group conversation.

You can guess where I'm going with this. I'm afraid to say that for my ears many jazz solos are just overplayed, a stream of notes, others are boring, some soloists just show off. But many others are beautiful, lovely to listen to they capture your imagination, you don't want them to stop.

I was listening to just such a solo by Geoff Simkins last Monday, with Terry Seabrook, piano and Nigel Thomas on bass. Autumn in New York, by John Lewis. Geoff chose to use a number of repeated motifs and it sounded really nice. Once Terry played a little piano phrase as a fill, Geoff picked it up immediately, played with it, teased it into other keys for the next 12 bars or so. It was so good on the ear. I've heard Geoff pick up themes from other people while they play -from an Imogen Ryall vocal scat the last time I heard.

I've just listened to a Jazz Messengers track on Youtube. They did it there, way back in the late 40's!

Some soloists never play repeated motifs at all and I think that is a pity. Unless they are careful their work can easily turn shapeless, like one of those pointless monologues. Others I know play them occasionally and it holds the ear when they do. I'm very lucky to work with a bunch of players who will do this, and who will play off each other. Andrew, Geoff, Dave with Vic, Bob and I also being sensitive to it. Wish I could do it like Paul Desmond did it - but it will never be, I'm afraid.

We can all play repeated motifs, they are not hard. We do it every time we da diddy dum to a jazz tune in the car.

For me personally, I don't hear jazz solos telling a story, whatever the profs say. I think they create patterns and textures and they have interesting but one sided conversations with you. I respond to the conversation by feeling. Or not, as the case may be.

I CAN PROVE IT TO YOU. IN 4 POINTS

1) How many times have you heard ordinary people say they don't like jazz because they can't hear a tune?

2) Think about the way an audience always wants bands to play their favourite songs. They like songs they don't know but for sure they want to hear their old favourites.

3) What is a tune if it is not a series of small repeated motifs? Typically a pattern is set up in the 1st 8, repeated, a variation on it is played in the bridge usually in a different key, then back to the original motif. They all use repeated motifs, all of them. That is what our ear enjoys.

4) Think Mozart, and variations. Are we talking Ostinatos here, and ostinato development? We have a very sound basis for this theory.

John
LAST MINUTE EDIT.
Just found this Video of Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers playing their hit Moanin' Listen to all the lovely solos with repeated little riffs, all of them. Timmons on piano, Golson on saxophone, and Lee Morgan on trumpet. He wrote The Sidewinder




The Jazz Smugglers bands in Sussex
The Jazz Smugglers workshop, Bosham, Sussex

This site is to help the Jazz smugglers workshop group and provide information about the following weeks work. We will be working on widening our range of playing styles as individuals, working together in a band, and practising the more difficult things. You need to be able to read.

If you have a Facebook account can you LIKE our band page on Facebook please, 
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS SUSSEX BAND 
and LIKE our workshop page as well.
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS WORKSHOP BOSHAM

In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation. you can sign up directly to this blog site as a FOLLOWER, bottom rh side panel, you'll get all the posts.


Tuesday 15 April 2014

THE GIRLS ARE GOING TO BE STUNNING

We always have a lovely time in the group when the girls, Maria and Nettie, turn up for rehearsals. I am amazed at what they can do together. Neither of them, by even a tiny slither, ever gets a note wrong. Pitch perfect they are. It is a lovely sound.

Not only that, they know what they are doing musically with the rest of the band. They do what jazz singers should do, and often don't, they will tell the band what they want in the backing.

They also tried out something else for the first time on Sunday. If you have ever seen Bobby McFerrin on Youtube he sometimes gets a member of the audience to scat with him. The girls tried this out for the first time. Now I tell you, this is brave - they've never done it before and they had all the band listening. They did it over a blues format, one sang a rhythmic pulse and the other hummed an improvised line. As Bobby Mc Ferrin says this is spontaneous, inventive, instinctive, creative.



I've got a question for you ladies. Look at this Bobby McFerrin audience participation stunt the one in the latter half of the film. Yes, yes, he's brilliant and he has been doing it for years.

Suppose we give it a go sometime? I'd prefer if you two do it on your own, but to ease it in how about this? Maria will know what I'm talking about. A couple of times, I've challenged the audience to understand jazz, playing it straight then swing, then a triplet, then finishing with the Devils interval (Google it Nettie). The audience joins in a bit but it lasts for only 3 minutes.

You two could add to that. One of you improvs the rhythm, the other makes up a tune. You could divide the audience in half, and lead one half each.
We'd need to rehearse it, the three of us. Not for the concert next week, obviously, and we'd need to try it out a few times. But it could be brilliant.

Whaddyafinkthen?

John
Ps rehearsal nextr week 6.00. Mike we'd be really pleased if you could join in as you did last Sunday. any time from 6.00 onwards.

The Jazz Smugglers bands in Sussex
The Jazz Smugglers workshop, Bosham, Sussex

This site is to help the Jazz smugglers workshop group and provide information about the following weeks work. We will be working on widening our range of playing styles as individuals, working together in a band, and practising the more difficult things. You need to be able to read.

If you have a Facebook account can you LIKE our band page on Facebook please, 
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS SUSSEX BAND 
and LIKE our workshop page as well.
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS WORKSHOP BOSHAM

In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation. you can sign up directly to this blog site as a FOLLOWER, bottom rh side panel, you'll get all the posts.

Monday 7 April 2014

YUP. SIDEWINDER IS GOING TO BE BRILLIANT

This is the song we rehearsed last night. It was a special arrangement written for us by Terry Seabrook. Lots of echos, key changes, solos, and harmonies - wonderful.

This is the song played by the composer Lee Morgan's band. It was originally planned as a filler song on an album, but became a popular commercial hit to the bands surprise. Lee Morgan died at the tender age of 33, having been shot by his wife on stage at a jazz club. Duff note probably, or missed a key change. 





At 6.00 next Sunday we have the two girls coming in to rehearse their songs for our upcoming gigs first one on Apl 25th. I thought the workshop people would enjoy joining in with the band for the rest of their songs from 7.00 onwards. Should be a fun evening.

John

The Jazz Smugglers bands in Sussex
The Jazz Smugglers workshop, Bosham, Sussex

We can do with a couple more front line players in the workshop

This site is to help the Jazz smugglers workshop group and provide information about the following weeks work. We will be working on widening our range of playing styles as individuals, working together in a band, and practising the more difficult things. You need to be able to read.

If you have a Facebook account can you LIKE our band page on Facebook please, 
FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS SUSSEX BAND 

FACEBOOK JAZZ SMUGGLERS WORKSHOP BOSHAM

In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation. you can sign up directly to this blog site as a FOLLOWER, bottom rh side panel, you'll get all the posts.