Could have sworn I heard Von Freeman/Steve Coleman blasting at a large semi-formal Gala (hosted at my Museum tonight), HUGE event -- playing sorta by "accident" (while the live jazz-combo took a break)

[Rooster_Ties]

So my Museum has this HUGE space that can host enormous large-scale events.  The Pension Commission Building (where the Museum where I work is), was for 110+ years THE single biggest interior space in all of Washington DC, hosting Presidential Gala's going back to the 1880's, and until the basketball/hockey arena a few blocks over opened in the mid 1990's, was the single largest event space in all of Washington.

So I wrap up work tonight a little late, around 6:30pm -- and there's a large Gala already in progress that probably started with cocktails at 5:30pm, and was going strong when I went downstairs to make my exit.  So I come off the elevator, and I hear pumping through the large-scale sound-system for the event something that sure as hell sounds like (what I later realized) was one of the harder-hitting tracks from one of these two albums -- either Steve Coleman's Rhythm In Mind (1991, Novus), or maybe even Strata Institute: Transmigration (1991, Rebel-X) -- which feature none other than Von Freeman.  All I know is the more I heard, the more it sounded like Vonski, and then Steve Coleman.

 or 

So initially, I thought I was hearing a real live band (the acoustics in our huge building make any kind of amplified music fairly boomy), so I roam around the perimeter of the room trying to find the band -- HOLY CRAP! - I'm thinking.  What band is THIS??!!!  So I finally find where the band is (or should have been), only to discover an empty keyboard, guitar in its stand, drummer-less drums (and maybe a bass).  Band is on a break! - and the music is canned.

So I'm just gobsmacked hearing his, for a semi-formal (big-dollar) Gala for some organization (no idea what the event is - we literally host 150+ such events every year, as 'rentals').

So as I wandered around the perimeter, I notice 4 young-ish (early 30's?) African-American guys in a back-stage area eating a bite (clearly on break), and I put 2 and 2 together, and figure they're the band.  So I ask 'em -- "hey, love the music out there right now, is this some sort of playlist you've got piped into the PA?"  And they know NOTHING about it.  I tell 'em it sure sounds like Steve Coleman, M-BASE type stuff, pretty hard-hitting, and I was just surprised as hell to be hearing something like that at an event like this (even if I was diggin' it mightily).  They know nothing about it at all, and look as perplexed as I probably did.

So my curiosity gets the better of me, and I start roaming around again looking for the soundboard and tech operators.  It's BIG production, with a huge stage and a fair bit of stage-lighting for the event.  And I can't for the life of me find the soundboard anywhere - ?  All this time I've been chatting up one of our security guards just inside one of the exterior doors -- one of our regular security guys I see every day when I come in the building -- explaining my semi-perplexed reaction to the music.  Finally I'm about to give up, and go home -- by now I've been trying to solve this puzzle for almost 15-20 minutes.  And the security guy says maybe the sound and lighting tech boards are on our second floor, looking out into the larger room.  So I run up the stairs, and that's exactly it -- quite a large setup, 3 board-operators across all the tech, etc...

So I chat up one of them, tell 'em I love the music, but what is it?  I sort of suggest it's kind of wilder than I'd expect, but - hey - it's awesome.

So the main guy says he'd have to look.  Just some Spotify playlist he found called "Lite Jazz for a Dinner Party" (or something pretty damn close -- I wish I'd written it down exactly).  And the guy said he really hadn't noticed, he really doesn't know music, everything at these kinds of events is all just noise to him anyway, he never really notices any of it anyway.

I'm sure he just tried to find some "jazz thing" to play while the band was on break.  And holy mother of god, I swear the next thing I thought I was gonna hear was something like James Blood Ulmer's Tales of Captain Black (with Ornette).  Granted, I never did actually hear that -- but it wouldn't have surprised me.

My entire 25 minute subway ride home, I had this crazy half-grin on my face imagining what the dinner guests might gotten the next time the band took a break.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Rooster_Ties

[Aggie87]

I've been in your building, that's a wonderful space.  There was some sort of maze setup when I was there, my kids loved wandering through it.

One suggestion - download Shazam on your phone, it would've helped you identify the tunes playing.

[Rooster_Ties]

22 minutes ago, Aggie87 said:

One suggestion - download Shazam on your phone, it would've helped you identify the tunes playing.

I used to have Shazam on my phone -- but I still have an ancient iPhone 5 (with only 16 gigs of memory), and about a year ago I finally had to delete a number of apps to keep the poor thing going (including Shazam).  One of these days I'll upgrade, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

never heard of this before, nor have i seen pictures of this museum.  Are you a historian for a non music related subject for them. the history of this bldg is crazy

[JSngry]

See, no more live bands, no more live DJs, just Spotify. You can pump the party from your phone!

Down side = nobody getting paid for playing anything.

Bright side = Von Freeman, Steve Coleman, nobody leaving the room in horror.

[Rooster_Ties]

7 hours ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

never heard of this before, nor have i seen pictures of this museum.  Are you a historian for a non music related subject for them. the history of this bldg is crazy

I have the perfect jack-of-all-trades job, as the executive assistant to the executive director (and I also manage the activities of our Board of Trustees). I'm also sort of liaison between our Development staff/department and our board (which is unusually large, with about 50 members - when you include some of our active "honorary" trustees, and ex officio trustees from various other organizations).

Second only to music -- Architecture (and design, urban planning, engineering, etc.) is probably my second favorite "arm-chair" interest -- so this is really a wonderful place to work (and most of the people who work here are great too).  Even before I moved to DC from Kansas City, I'd been visiting the National Building Museum every 2-3 years going back as far as 1996 (shortly after I met my (then) future wife -- and then it was her job that brought us here to DC).  I think I counted 11 trips to DC in all between 1996 and 2011 when I moved here -- and I visited the Museum on every single visit (save for when we came for Obama's first inauguration).

https://www.nbm.org

[Dan Gould]

Glad it brought such a smile to your face but the first thing that comes to my mind is whether someone got shit-canned for music he selected for the break. Not that its unacceptable as music but what was the event? What was the audience? He picks a playlist by that name and gets those tunes?  And interesting too that the musicians sounded utterly ignorant of what you were talking about.   That suggests major disconnect between what they delivered in their sets and this playlist that sounds like it was given a joke title.  

But then again you say the sound guys don't even "hear" music. So how would they know if "lite jazz for a dinner party" "fits"?

Personally if I was in charge of the event, hired a band playing mellow "jazzy" type music I might not be happy with that break music even if I personally enjoyed it.  On the other hand for the vast majority of people all the music was probably the same as it was for the sound guy: background noise.

[Hot Ptah]

In my experience, most people don't notice the background music, whether it is live or recorded. I went to a large diversity awards event last year. An excellent jazz guitarist was playing live during the cocktail hour before the awards were given out. I was the only person in the room who took any note of his playing. I went over and talked to him, and he was very appreciative. He said that it is difficult to play events these days, when you know that literally no one is noticing or paying any attention to the music.

At other events and venues in which recorded music was piped in, I have occasionally commented on the background music to others in my group. The reaction is always the same. The other people are not aware that there was music playing, and they are a little annoyed to have to talk about it.

[Rooster_Ties]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Glad it brought such a smile to your face but the first thing that comes to my mind is whether someone got shit-canned for music he selected for the break. Not that its unacceptable as music but what was the event? What was the audience? He picks a playlist by that name and gets those tunes?  And interesting too that the musicians sounded utterly ignorant of what you were talking about.   That suggests major disconnect between what they delivered in their sets and this playlist that sounds like it was given a joke title.  

But then again you say the sound guys don't even "hear" music. So how would they know if "lite jazz for a dinner party" "fits"?

Personally if I was in charge of the event, hired a band playing mellow "jazzy" type music I might not be happy with that break music even if I personally enjoyed it.  On the other hand for the vast majority of people all the music was probably the same as it was for the sound guy: background noise.

The Musicians were literally in another room, where the music couldn't be heard at all -- so they had no idea what was playing while they were on break.  I'm sure there was zero communication between the sound guys, and the musicians -- once they did their sound check.  And it seemed to me that the sound-guy was utterly clueless.  As I said, he literally said to me that everything at these kind of events was just "noise" to him, and he tunes it all out.  He also seemed completely oblivious to the quality of the music as well.

On reflection, I think it must have been some hot track off the Steve Coleman album with Vonski (Rhythm In Mind) -- and *not* the way more dense and M-BASE-sounding Strata Institute date.

I'm also sure that the Spotify playlist was titled as a bit of a joke -- maybe EXACTLY for the purpose of programming something quite a bit more hard-hitting (but not quite TOO over the top) -- exactly to ensnare unsuspecting people.

Just because I loved it, certainly didn't mean that I thought it was appropriate.  And the way I framed my questions to the band, and especially to the sound guy -- was only because it really wasn't my business to be stepping on anyone's toes about anything going on there (completely NOT my place).  I mean, the band, yeah -- I did tip them off that something was a little outside the norm.  But the sound guy -- hey, he made his choice (uninformed as it was), and he'll have to live with the repercussions.  I sure as hell wasn't going to try and right the course of that ship, especially since I'd been hearing what I done heard for a good 15+ minutes by that point -- and I presume the band would have been coming back soon, or some stage announcements were gonna happen soon anyway.

It was loosely a black-tie event, though I think I saw a lot of black suits (and not as many tuxes) -- which seems to be more the norm these days, especially if the attendees have much of a contingent under 50 or especially under 40.  I think the average age I was seeing might have been 45, in a spread from 35-60 (so somewhat younger than SOME similar events).  I shouldn't mention the organization by name, but it was a nationally recognized health-issue-related non-profit, primarily known (all around the country) for their good deeds in fundraising for an excellent cause.

It was a lively party, and I don't think anyone was "damaged" by the music.  It certainly WASN'T electric Ornette, or Defunkt, or Dark Magus.  So nobody got hurt, no harm / no fowl.  Maybe somebody complained to the sound guy -- but like our esteemed Hot Ptah just said -- I doubt anybody was really paying all THAT much attention (probably not in the slightest).

Cracked me up, though.  And I'm glad keep following leads until I sort of figured out what was going on.

Looked like a fun party -- more fun than most (that we get) -- and I'll bet they could have played some upbeat Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they would have liked it too, or even James Brown.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

Nobody really listens most of the time. Some people are unable to, actually. All they hear is some sounds that fit a general profile that they've been taught to associate with something called "music".

Well, every now and then, somebody actually listens. But not enough to cause anybody else to notice.

There's a few people, though, and I am one of them, who hear everything, everywhere. That annoys the fuck out of the people you're with when they think you're listening to them and suddenly something catches your ear and diverts you. They think it's a choice, but it's not.

Thinking back to the M-Base record, there is the one cut on there that might have been played, "Hey Jim". But no matter, still, funny!

But people who can really notice the details in real time, no matter the environment....very few.

 

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

looks amazing