I'm still votin' fer me - and I still hate jazz!

Gary, sadly, you're in the majority. And, I'm convinced that there's little or nothing I, as a pretty "hard liner" can do to change your mind.

But, man, JUST LISTEN to what's out there!

It does a major number on me, in the HUMBLE department.

Every time I do a $400.00 corporate or government dinner party, I'd trade it in a heartbeat for a $75.00 jazz gig. Every time I cash a corporate $25,000 check for an industrial sound score, I just shake my head. At least, per the attached sample rough, you sometimes get a little "wiggle room".

Yea, in an imaginary world!

Sadly, if I don't watch it, I continuously play myself out of a gig.

Russ (proud "hard-liner") Lay

Several years ago I was playing a couple of nights a week at the Renaissance Harbor Place Hotel here in Baltimore. They had piano players on the week nights and trios on the weekend. On the roster were several of the best jazz players in town. One day we all got a letter from the manager that said to please tone down the improv and play songs people could recognize. Some of you would say he had no taste, but he was the guy who signed the paychecks.

Joe

Some guys will listen to the greats and try to learn the licks note for note slowing passages down to catch the details. Good luck with that in most cases. My own approach, never having had the patience to sit and study anything was, as Diki mentioned, jam along with the radio, records, etc. I won't pretend that I'm a real musician but, yes, the tune is in my head before it's transmitted to my fingers. I don't know how that works or how I manage to even do that. I guess we all do it our own way.

My dad and I would listen to Smith, McGriff, McDuff, and others and he'd say to me, "See, everything those guys play comes, in part, from somewhere else and, in part, from within. Take from what you hear them doing, and add yourself into the mix. Stay with that and you won't go far wrong." True then, true now. This all rang true to me when a bass player we had told me I'd managed to make my own style. He said that he'd know it was me playing before he even entered the room. That's a great compliment.

It's all about pushing envelopes.

Joe, I played there about 10 or 12 years ago, mainly doing private parties in one of the ballrooms. My only gripe was getting in and out of there, and of course, the parking situation. The money, though, was great - often $500 for a 3-hour party. I found out later that the guy who parked cars was making more than anyone there playing music.

The wildest party I did in Baltimore was at the Admiral Fell Inn at Fells Point. It was for a shipping company and took place on the top floor, which meant a couple trips up on the service elevator and sliding through the kitchen, which always had a very slippery floor. There was a jazz trio playing downstairs, and I thought there were pretty good, but the bar was nearly empty where they performed. I had about 200 people for the party, and while I thought the shipping company was a trucking company, as it turned out, it was a massive corporation that owned a couple dozen container ships. I had a great gig, and the restaurant owner asked if I would be interested in playing there on Friday nights. I turned him down. I just got paid $500 for the party, plus got a $300 tip, which I didn't expect, so playing for the drunks in the bar for $150 for a 4-hour job just wasn't going to cut it. He said he understood, we shook hands and parted ways.

Russ, I've listened to your music, and you have a lot more musical talent in your little finger than I have in my entire body. You can play circles around 99 percent of the guys on this forum, and you have my utmost admiration. For me, though, jazz, well it's just not what I enjoy listening to, or playing, especially for extended periods. I'm one of those people that can listen to Jimmy Buffett, Willie Nelson, Sinatra, etc..., I love Latin music, Italian music, Bossa, and movie themes. But jazz - nah! Just not for me.

Cheers,

Gary

And that's certainly your right, Gary. I just know that the best players I have ever known are drawn to the challenge of a lifetime involved with Jazz. Sadly, it sometimes brings with it drugs, hunger, and all other kinds of suffering.

That really sucks!

I'm a sell out, and sometimes, like today, when Boo brought all this up, I don't feel real good about being true to my calling.

It's just that starvation and everything associated with it has never been very appealing.

Only top Jazzers make any money at all. and I certainly wasn't anywhere near a top player.

Oh well, you play what's dealt!

R.

NO insult intended just stating something, a fact that I understood many years now from just talking about this subject and other musicians views.

1. Folks who don't like jazz do not understand it and the structure basics of the complex chord progressions and the actual structure of complex chords.
2. They are not capable of playing jazz because of the discipline needed to patiently practice it on a regular schedule.
3. They think that everyone who can play jazz is gifted, and just do not realize the time, effort and training it takes to get even close to playing jazz. You also have to listen intently on a regular schedule to the jazz greats.
4. You're not a Jazzer because you know two jazz tune melodies but cannot improvise which in essence is jazz.

Who is a real jazzer? He is a musician who someone in a club or wherever mentions to a band member that he is a good trumpet player and gets invited on the bandstand by someone he may not even know and gets asked, do you know "Darn That Dream" or some other difficult jazz standard that all the greats did.

They agree on one of these tunes and the original key is known by both parties. The invited person ask for a four bar turn-around and begins to play the melody with his own technique and feeling and does a solo maybe for a chorus or two or three and they swap out on the bridges each chorus maybe.

Then as Russ stated, all the jazzers really enjoy playing fours. It's actually a contest.

I remember Dexter on several different sessions near the last chorus or two with Hank Mobley and on another session with Johnny Griffin playing the lick, "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," as they were actually playing each other's licks and trying to do them better. If you're a jazzer you would really be knocked out of your socks hearing this for the first time and the more you listen to it the better it gets.

When I worked in New Orleans I enjoyed playing fours with two other very good tenor players more so than paying attention to the attractive brunette smiling at the band all night.

I'm elated that I've had the opportunity to experience that in my life and thoroughly enjoyed it and remember all the different guys who could cut it. I don't believe that even pot could compare with the feeling.

OK somebody tear me a new one for speaking honestly. Here's another fact! If you're into music to entertain for money, free alcohol (booze) and adoration from the opposite sex, you ain't smart enough to be a jazzer. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Dosage still a bit off?

Don't worry, we'll get Boo back in the facility before they even know he escaped, again.

Doctor Gary,

I'm smart enough NOT to be a jazzer!
DonM