Lucky-

Go back and review my post where I said how fast I'd sink trying to do the omb in the jazz style. I concede completely that playing with other musicians allows for a great deal of spontaneity and creativity using an arranger doesn't.

However...

Looking only at my situation, comparing my quartet that plays "blue-hair" ballroom dances and my arranger based stuff (Solos and Duos). You commented that you liked Petit Fluer. The way you heard it from my website is the exact way you'll here it any night that we've played it over the last 10 years. Exactly the same...

Remember my situation: The band can't/won't rehearse, so there's no real opportunity to refine things very much. Also, we get a lot of praise for being the most danceable band in this area that also doesn't sound dead. In essence, its not broke, so we're loath to fix it. Perhaps back in the earlier days when we were first putting our act together we were benefiting from the spontaneous interplay between each other, but we had rehearsals then. We haven't had a rehearsal in 5+ years.

I think the kind of music my band is working in combined with our circumstances explains a lot. I don't feel very creative when working with the band. Its more about getting the tempo, groove, feel right in the room, etc. All those things, we excel at. Moreover, they (Dancers/Clients) don't WANT something different.

Gary D, & I were talking on the phone last night about this and I told him that I actually had a client complain a few months ago about a particular song. She came up to the bandstand right after the set was over and said she didn't like whatever we did to such and such a tune. The dance floor was packed, nothing had gone obviously wrong on our end. The only thing we different was we modulated for the last verse!

If I think of other bands I've played in that played different styles of music, then again, Diki is 10000% correct. They were, for the most part, more fun to be in, than what I'm in right now. But I'm not playing for college kids or rich yuppies, etc. My crowd adores us for our consistency and that's the bottom line for us.



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Bill in Dayton