randissimo

Top Ten Facts of Life for Playing in Clubs and Restaurants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unless you are in a concert situation, most of the people are not there to hear you. Your music is incidental. People go to restaurants and bars to eat, to drink, to socialize, do business, or maybe to be alone in a crowd. So if you reach some of them and entertain them, you've done a hell of a job. In most restaurants, your main objective is to try to entertain without bothering anybody. Any volume is too loud for someone. The talent of anyone who wants to sit in is inversely proportional to how insistent he or his friends are about his sitting in. The most talented musician that you would really like to play with will be sitting there quietly and will have left his axe in the car. The crowd would rather hear a terrible rendition of "Sweet Caroline" than the tastiest arrangement of one of your originals that they've never heard before. The customer who asked for "Sweet Caroline", his favorite song, won't realize you're playing it until you actually reach the word "Sweet". Someone in the crowd will have halfway heard you play "Sweet Caroline" and it will remind him of the song so he'll request it right after you've just played it. Unless you want to marry her and be the one who takes her home every night, don't hitch your star to a girl singer. Every black horn player who wants to sit in "used to play with James Brown or Brother Ray.".....And the number one fact of life in playing in clubs and restaurants: Your slowest night, with the most obnoxious crowd and the worst response, is immeasurably better than the best day you ever had at a day job!!! NEW RULES FOR BANDS IN THE 21st CENTURY: submitted by R.S.Ft.Lauderdale Never start a trio with a married couple. Your manager's not helping you. Fire him/her. Before you sign a record deal, look up the word "recoupable" in the dictionary. No one cares who you've opened for. A string section does not make your songs sound any more "important". If your band has gone through more than 4 bass players, it's time to break up. When you talk on stage you are never funny. If you sound like another band, don't act like you're unfamiliar with their music ("Oh does Rage Against The Machine also do rap-rock with political lyrics?") Asking a crowd 'how they're doing' is just amplified small talk. Don't do it. Don't say your video's being played if it's only on the Austin Music Network. When you sign to a major label, claim to have inked the best contract ever. Mention "artistic freedom" and "a guaranteed 3 record deal". When you get dropped insist that it was the worst contract ever and you asked to be let go. Never name a song after your band. Never name your band after a song. When a drummer brings in his own songs and asks to perform one of them, begin looking for a new drummer IMMEDIATELY. Never enter a "battle of the bands" contest. If you do you're already a loser. Learn to recognize scary word pairings: "rock opera", "white rapper", "blues jam", "swing band", "open mike", etc. Drummers can take off their shirts or they can wear gloves, but not both. Listen, either break it to your parents or we will; it's rock 'n' roll, not a soccer game. They've gotta stop coming to your shows. It's not a "showcase". It's a gig that doesn't pay. No one cares that you have a web site. Getting a tattoo is like sewing platform shoes to your feet. Don't hire a publicist. Playing in San Marcos & Alpine doesn't mean you're on tour. Don't join a cover band that plays Bush songs. In fact, don't join a cover band. Although they come in different styles and colors, electric guitars all sound the same. Why do you keep changing them between songs? Don't stop your set to ask that beers be brought up. That's what girlfriends/boyfriends are for. If you use a smoke machine your music sucks. We can tell the difference between a professionally produced album cover and one you made with the iMac your mom got for Christmas. Remember, if blues solos are so difficult, why can so many 16 year olds play them? If you ever take a publicity photo, destroy it. You may never know where or when it will turn up. Cut your hair, but do not shave your head. Pierce your nose, but not your eyebrow. Do not wear shorts onstage. Or a suit. Or a hat. Rock oxymorons; "major label interest", "demo deal"," blues genius", "$500 guarantee", and "Fastball's second hit". 3 things that are never coming back: a) gongs, B) headbands, and c) playing slide guitar with a beer bottle. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

Dig it, I just worked a jazz festival gig w/ Rufus Harley.. For those of you who might not know who he is, he's one of the few existing jazz bag pipe artists and is also a sax player.. What a krazy gig! we opened with "A Love Supreme" ..

that's very cool.. it's nice to know cats at that level of success dig our sound.. now all we gotta do is get somebody like metheny to listen to the cd!

Yeah, Jimbo's going to be busy!

Congratulations on the purchase of your new house..

.....However, sometimes I reach a point when I'm soloing where I feel I've said what I wanted to say and simply have nothing more to say.. It's at that point when I feel I have exhausted my theme and want to get out of the water and back to the ensemble playing. And forcing the solo at this point to go on for me, becomes redundant, forced, sometimes monotonous, often fatiguing, and can reverse the effectiveness of a tasty or fiery solo. It's always been my belief that the individual playing the solo should have the call on when it's time to end their solo.. B)

Aug 2nd? We'll be an hour away at the Lansing Old Town jazzfest. Hit time is 5:30pm...

Right on Flam Man! When I solo, I guess I assume that my other band mates are listening and when I'm ready to end my solo they'll be there to either go back to the top of the form or the bridge... This doesn't always happen... The magic word for today is "LISTEN"

I gave up cigarettes for good back in 1993.. Now it's hard to play in smoky bars and even be around people with the filthy habit...

There's an old friend and drum comrade who I believe lives in Sidney now. His name is Calvin Welch. He is a great drummer and a very nice person... If you know him or hear about him please let me know..

I have no idea what his political beliefs were about... He was an integral part of that great era of comedy and romance that spawned the likes of WC Fields, Mae West, the Marx Bros, George Burns & Gracie Allen, The 3 Stooges, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, Mickey Rooney, and of course his sidekick, Bing Crosby.. Thanks Bob Hope and may you never be forgotten...

I've been running into a lot of kids in fact in their late teens who are into people like Frank Zappa, Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Horace Silver, etc.. I think they are getting tired of being spoon fed jive pop music by corporate America and realize there is a lot more deepness out there... I like some of the younger bands like Phish and Dave Mathews.. In fact, the jam band trend seems to be growing...

Sad, but very funny at the same time This could become an out of control rant.... American people (especially the generations under 50 yrs old) today culturally and artistically seem to be shallow and superficial with little or no real interest in the creative arts.. Maybe too much media hype, TV and Pop culture influence? However, there is a promising generation of young uns in their early 20's who seem to be more into the creative side of music and art...

It would be interesting to have to drive on the left side of the road

......you're scarin' me!

I'll check with Schulers books... I'll call Jeff or Lou tomorrow....They most likely will have copies..

Ballads are cool as long as the people I'm playin' with know how to phrase the melody, use dynamics, and tell a story to get their solo over. In my experiences I've found that some rooms are just too busy and the crowd too loud to effectively play a ballad. I played an outdoor gig recently where too many ballads were called and watched the audience grow bored and many people even left.. Sometimes I'll double the tempo at the bridge or the 2nd time tru the changes with a lite & tasty 12/8 latin feel over a 2 feel for contrast. Doubling the tempo can be done tastefully if the bass player has sense enough to stay in the original tempo and not double up and walk the quarter notes and keeps a relaxed and loose feeling with the drummer. To sum it up; Ballads in my opinion are very cool, but can get boring and die a slow death if not played with feeling, as well as everybody listening to each other. And too many ballads in a set can dampen the enthusiasm of the audience as well as the players...

Right on Pryan... A lot of players miss the most important key word,,,"LISTEN".. Too many times I have played gigs where I have felt boxed in because nobody seemed to be listening to each other..

Right on Jimbo! I saw Cannonball in E. Lansing at the Stables a year before he passed on.. It was one of the most memorable nights of music for me .. They swung and grooved on every tune and Cannonball had a great repoire with the audience. He was very relaxed and had an infectious personality onstage and a great sense of humor.. I'm looking forward to the gig tonight as well!

A lot of younger players with chops to spare, go out there after college or music school with the intention of exercising to the fullest, their " AMAZING CHOPS"... They too often approach the music as if it were some kind of competitive sport.. I've also noticed that a lot of Jazz artists and bands playing festivals and concerts, look as if they were performing a recital, with very little awareness given to enlightening or entertaining the audience. They seem to think the pyrotechnics of the music and their solos will simply dazzle the audience and get them over.. You can have great compositions with brilliant arrangements and a band full of monster technicians, but if everybody onstage looks like a bored stone face with no awareness of, or concern for the audience, the audience in many cases, becomes bored.. Most of the people at a concert, club, or festival want to connect with the music. Pat Metheny, Bela Flek, Poncho Sanchez, Billy Childs, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joey DeFrancesco, Lonnie Listen Smith, Dave Liebman, Oregon, and Ben Sidran are some examples of Jazz artists I've seen who have chops to spare , but connect with the audience simply because there is an obvious joy of playing radiating from each individual onstage.. To quote Dennis Miller, "This is my opinion and I could be wrong"

My dad, Arno Marsh (now 75 and still playin' his ass off) sat alongside Richie Kamuca and shared the tenor solos with him in Woody Herman's Third Herd.. They had a great sound and really complimented each other. One of my favorite arrangements is "Senior Blues" and another is a burnin' arrangement of "Perdido".

We're still not done trying to get this last one out there! "Waiting For The Boogaloo Sisters" has not been out that long... It's only been little over 5 months since it was released. And we still have to pay off the balance on it!

Funny, that's the time that I want to tell "our waiter this evening, Brad" to shut the fuck up and go place the order.

When it appears that the audience isn't listening is when we have to examine just what we are doing and how we are projecting ourselves at that moment, and try to "rise to the challenge" and get their attention .. If we look bored, the audience notices... Next time we are in that situation where the audience seems to be a bit apathetic, we should pull out halloween masks to see if they notice.. HeeHee! Seriously, when it appears that hardly anybody seems to be listening, try and put yourself in the audience, listening to the band and think about how you yourself would react at that moment... There is an art form to tuning in a room and getting people to listen.. Sometimes just shifting gears to a funky blues shuffle (maybe w/ a vocal) can get the crowd back. Also, talking to the audience even though you think they are not listening helps make a personal connection,, like explaining the thoughts that went into composing, maybe a story behind a particular tune, be it an original or a standard.. It's about presentation... I know I get even hungier for a dish when the chef tells me about the ingredience and preparation of the entree

OK Soul Man.... get out and have some Summer fun..