Hi Dave B
I don't think I've heard one of your ballads. When you play your ballads, do you swing ?

What I'm saying though is that if there's a focus while "playing", or an ongoing critique of specifics then it turns into "practice".

If I just blindly play over and over without critical analyis of what's wrong, then I doubt I'll get any better. Technique aside, it's a question of how to make a solo make a statement.

I wish I knew all the secrets of how to do that. I know of the vague approaches like "let you solo have a shape, buildup, motif, etc.". But it's vague.

But when I watched Wayne Shorter and Herbie work on a motif (I discussed this earlier when I described the concert last month), I was amazed at how it expanded from the motif. So there's more to this than just "play". I'm hoping to focus my practice on playing "right".

Sure, there's obvious things like space. But I was hoping to generate more ideas to integrate into practice that's more productive.

As I watched my teacher over the years, I detected some of these in his playing. As an example, the control of direction (upward or downward moving lines). Intervallic vs. linear, call and response, purposeful variation of texture, all within the scheme of controlling tension and release.

I don't have his instincts though so I only have a vague idea of how to apply it. Clearly though, he practiced this in some way.

I don't think it is ever a good idea to play 'blindly'. If you find yourself doing this it is time for a nice cup of tea.



Learning to develop ideas can easily be done whilst playing. Just take a simple idea (say just ascending 1/4 notes C,D,E) and just play with it whilst improvising over a simple sequence. How many ways can you play it? Transpose it, use different rhythms, invert it, reverse it etc. See if you can construct a couple of choruses just using that one idea. Then extend the idea by using the the idea itself (ie C,D,E,Fsharp, or C,D,F or C,D etc) and carry on.
Of course you can do this with any musical idea, not just a pitch collection.

Someone once said to me that I had too many ideas in my playing. Now I understand that what they meant was that I was not developing the ideas that I was using to the fullest extent and making up for that by just introducing more and more ideas. This leads to garbled and nonsensical solos, just like if we were talking and just randomly moving to another topic with each sentence. Rather, like conversation, we need to keep on topic for a while but move it on before it gets boring.

If I am lucky! But it depends on the tune and what it feels like at the moment.

Here are some different more spacious tunes to give you an idea of what I do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFMqWR88OG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8G4JFtXo-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-wMP2Ulg9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yso99eOkZRI

Wow Dave B ! You are very diverse. I had thought of you as a beboper. You are great at ballads.
My favourite was the 4th one, your own composition.

You use scales beautifully and your chords have really nice interesting colours.

To tell you the truth, I didn't "understand" the vocab you used in the 2nd and 3rd ones. What is this style ? Modal ? It seems very very advanced.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Custard.
I try to use ideas that are from the piece I am improvising on, so the Debussy one uses and develops some ideas found in the prelude (which I was working on at the time). The John Taylor one also uses some harmonic ideas from the composition, harmonic majors and some unusual triadic stacking for instance.
I love beebop as well although I don't play it very authentically.

Beeboss, that's the kind of thing I was talking about with the Motif. That's exactly it.

I think that's practice. It takes some discipline to limit the idea. You criticized me one time for lacking a coherent idea. So now I take the approach of listening to what I just played last and modifying it rhythmically or transposing the shape around or modifying it melodically but keeping some of the original.

Now in addition to this, I've added the approach of making sure the melodic fragment is made to be heard. Often this entails specifically letting a important note ring out and then sometimes following it with space.

This seems to give the solo a musical context. I've been playing like this recently and suddenly the perception of other musicians changed and suddenly I was getting gigs.

So I knew I was doing something right. I haven't really recorded anything since I started doing this. The jams that I go to stopped recording.

Now are there other refinements beyond this?

I have to say that in general, all of us here in this thread play too many notes. All the players in my jams play too many notes. But seldom are they laid out with a theme or story. It made me listen to some masters and I realized that even at fast tempos, there is a structure to their solos.

Brad Mehldau, in his early playing followed almost a formula in his playing.

1st Chorus - Very close to the melody, no faster than eighths. Lots of long notes. Then subsequent choruses build in intensity then reaching a crescendo of maximum speed. Then last chorus moves the energy back down. Now this was a little too predictable maybe.

I've been so busy preparing for my concert gig (next Friday). Today I rehearsed with the vocalist and it's funny that to her, I now sound like the expert. I realize that the biggest musical faults in the past is when I was unsure and the rhythm section detected a lack of leadership. They always expect the pianist to lead (so they say ).

So I worked out intros/outros on every tune. I have an organized set list. Lead sheets (in singer keys).

The hired bassist/drummer might think it's overkill but this is not background I'm playing.

All new to me but getting easier.

I decided to not focus on myself on this gig. There's little that will showcase what I can do. I figured on keeping jazz 'reachable' and hopefully they will ask as back. So far it looks like it's going to have a nice sized audience. I'm now wondering if my amp is powerful enough for the venue.

I have to give this little report of what happened today.

Tonight was my "concert" gig. This was well promoted and I couldn't believe the size of the crowd. The place was packed. Where were all these jazz fans hiding?

We had Piano, Guitar, Sax, Bass, Drums, Vocals. And in addition, I had a friend sit in to play piano on some tunes. The gig extended to 2 1/2 hours.

After just three tunes, the people were already coming up to me saying it was a hit. The sax player was a last minute thing. I've never played with the drummer before and just a little bit with the bass player.

I couldn't believe how professional we sounded. I think the bass player helped a lot to make sure endings were perfect. Not one train wreck on the ending.

I wasn't interested in playing fancy. I just wanted the group to sound good. The accolades were non-stop. And every musician got paid. That's a big deal considering the number of players.

I asked before how many tunes we could do and 13 tunes took 2 hours. One 15 minute break. We did 2 more encores and it was a standing ovation.

I had really good players in the group. We even tried different things like speeding up some tunes. But suprisingly, it all worked and we just had a great time.

So I was asked to bring the group back on a regular basis. We didn't compromise today. We played jazz. Nothing else.

Wicked JW!
Well done!
As to the quote; that's 'the' secret.
(Or at least one of them.)

I'm listening to the recordings now and I played so simply, I actually thought maybe I sounded too amateurish. But it actually sounded good. First it was in the pocket and melodic. But sparse. The more I tried to overplay (on one tune) the worse it sounded.

Why does a sax sound out of tune sometimes? I thought these have fixed tuning (don't know anything about a sax).

Jazz is really amazing. We do a concert without a rehearsal and it comes out ok. Hard to believe.

Because they haven't tuned their sax, they're not proficient enough, the sax is cold, they haven't warmed up, they can't hear the piano, the reed is "off", but usually it's because they don't practice long notes enough, (and practice with a tuner so they can see when they're off, etc etc
There is nothing worse than a jazz saxophonist who plays too sharp (that goes for all woodwinds), a little flat is ok

That's cool stuff JW.
Let us hear if you can.

I play sax out of tune all the time. It's actually really hard to play in tune.

It just occurred to me that the sax player had a Tenor and Soprano. The Soprano was the one out of tune. The player changed later in the gig. I need to understand this better.

But the people really liked it when the sax was playing. I'm going to have the sax player regularly now.

Knotty, thanks. I have to chop up a single long recording (ran out of memory) but I'll post.

Soprano is the most difficult one to play. That's also the one I have most trouble listening to. Tenor is considered to be closest to the human voice, and therefore "sexy".

Gig Recordings

Recording quality is poor and is close to the keyboard. So turn your headphones down. It's loud.

Summertime
http://www.box.net/shared/d4i8yyjyoy

Whisper Not
http://www.box.net/shared/449jaxh002

Lullaby of Birdland
http://www.box.net/shared/m7bb20l46l

Softly as In a Morning Sunrise
http://www.box.net/shared/dtey8dycgd

Route 66
http://www.box.net/shared/ugqm0ja1s2

Autumn Leaves
http://www.box.net/shared/0xdsygnree

Hey JW! Great gig you played! Really nice solos you played all around. I particularly enjoyed you on Lullaby of Birdland. And I bet you can play Autumn Leaves in your sleep. Thanks for putting these recording up - very cool!

JW,

Great post. You did everything right.

How did it feel playing with the background chatter? How were the acoustics? Could you guys hear each other good?
Was that the FP7?

You did well by playing everything as mid tempo, the whole thing seemed perfect for the crowd. I'm not surprised about the great feedback.

One thing I'd do if you play with folks without rehearsal is either come up with a little plan as to who's going to solo next, or, if you are more or less in view of everyone, make signs and tell, before the last 4 beats, who's turn it is next. Seemed like a bit of hesitation between bass and guitar sometimes. A guy should tell you by the beginning of a solo that it's his last.

The head to whisper not was awesome, with a bit of rehearsal, you guys would have gotten the hits just right, but you really nailed that one.
Surprisingly, it's on the blues that you seemed to struggle the most. I hear back in the days, NYkers used to say "flat 5" instead of "hello". This is always a reminder to me that on a blues, the blues scale and the 5b can never be overused.

I hear you about the soprano, he seemed to struggle a bit, but otherwise, the sax was great.

Everyone was great.

Knotty, there's so many stories to each one. The crowd noise was very loud. So If you notice some of the countdowns weren't tight. The reason was if the bass player counted down I couldn't hear. In fact it was hard to hear the drums through the noise.

The guitar player was always lost so often I tried to recover the form (it was in the other recordings). It's interesting how much automatic recovery occurred. Between the bass player and myself it was automatic. The recovery was always fast.

Whisper Not -- this was one of two encores. So I picked something that half the group didn't know and it's rather difficult. I played it one time at the last jam and did it here. I'm surprised we managed it. At that point I was willing to take a risk.

There's a few vocalist errors in knowing when to come back. Again, not a big deal to the listener although my solo was cut short.

The FP7F sounded really good. The room was carpeted with acoustic ceilings. I pointed my speakers upward and my little Stagepas 300 was able to handle it (at Max.). If anything, the keyboard was not too loud. The recorder was next to the speakers so it may give you a false impression.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't try to do anything risky. I focused more on having the group sound good. Most of my solos were pretty short. So if anyone is looking for me to play fancy, it's not here. It was more about comping.

The bass player was really solid. He's the most experienced. The drummer had a small jazz kit and it was not very loud.

I was expecting more energy to come from the Blues but the drummer played softly and it was too slow. When we rehearsed this at a faster tempo at a jam it was more interesting. But again I wasn't focused on myself so I just wanted to hold it together.

This was such a major event though that even the other players were amazed. They commented that they haven't seen such an appreciative and large crowd in a long time.

The signalling was actually pretty good -- all the hesitation was about the guitar player.

Yes - no rehearsals. I think by the next time, this will be a piece of cake. I just got a call a moment ago that they want us back.

How was my comping? This really was comping night.

Some nice stuff here, JW. I especially liked some of the solo lines in summertime and your comping in Softly. And for softly, cool feel. I'm going to play that tune that way now. You might think of octaves in the RH for soloing on that type of feel, especially when you have a guitarist with you.

How are you finding it trying to comp with a guitarist at the same time? Tricky business at the best of times.

Also, I'm curious why the recording quality is so low. I thought you had an H4?

Good job!

Sounds great Jazzwee! Definitely a great experience at this stage for you. All the tracks sound good and it's great that you recorded it. I recorded all my gigs for the first 3 or 4 years that I gigged and always put the recorder close enough to the piano to hear it most so I could really critique myself. It really sounds like your comping is very intuitive when supporting the vocals and soloists... not too busy and in the pocket for the most part. With more experience playing with the same people you'll get better at picking up on what they'll be playing and locking in even more as well as choosing voicings that compliment soloist's lines. It sounds like the guitar and sax are a little unsure of things, but the good news is that as long as the drummer keeps good time, and you and the bass stay together, everyone else can tag along, even if they get lost from time to time or don't really know the changes too well. It sounds like you've got a good drummer and bass player so I'd definitely try to stick with them for awhile. And Chris is right that keeping it simple is the key. You'll likely find yourself not playing as well on a gig in the near future and you can almost guarantee it will be because you'll be trying to "one-up" yourself from before. It's tough because you feel really good about what you did before and you want to feel growth each time you play, but alot of the time it just has to be the same. The new ideas will come more easily if you don't try to force them. Easier said than done . But all things considered, sounds like a good group to work with for awhile. They're good enough to keep up and there's room to grow for awhile without feeling stifled. Good to hear it!

Oh and by the way, if you think you'll play with these guys for awhile but it's hard to get everyone together to rehearse, I always found it helpful to do "sectionals". You can just get together with the bass and drums to work on playing changes and you're own soloing and then meet with the sax and/or guitar separately to exchange ideas for soloing, which is really helpful for predicting what they will play when you're comping and vice versa.

You guys are so supportive to a gigging newbie. Thanks a lot scep.

Softly - that was spur of the moment. I planned to do it swing and the bass player said let's do Latin.

You didn't comment on my subs on Softly. I played the solo as Min/Maj (augmented triads).

Summertime - I was planning on it as a ballad and when we swung it the singer was thrown off for a moment.

So the two you mention were totally decisions of the moment. I'm glad it turned out well enough for you to notice.

Recording - no one was supervising the H4 and there was no good spot for it, so I just laid under a table. I didn't have a chance to check the recording level and the place was loud due to the number of people. Next time I can lower the gain.

Thanks for comments, Scott. Comping is a new skill for me and looks like I picked up a lot from the jams. I did think my comping was reasonably acceptable though sometimes, when the guitar player played something off then it distracted me. The drums was hard to hear from where I was. I had 5-6 musicians on stage at any one time. So we where spread out.

The good news with this group is that the Bass Player and drummer are very experienced. So they really made it simple for me. I'm thinking actually that it wasn't important for me to shine. Just that group shines. So I personally didn't shoot for playing anything to prove a point. If I do next time, it will be just to have fun with the group.

Whisper Not was one of those risky moves. The drummer actually wanted to play Windows and I was set to play Very Early. But we ran out of time. On the other hand, I wasn't sure the audience would have appreciated that. Maybe later on. I think a bit more blues would have been good.

The group wants to be part of the regular gig. Everyone had a good time so we'll likely stay together. The weak part of the group is the guitar player. I might practice with him separately like you suggest. He already asked for that practice.

But regardless of my own thoughts about the performance and the zillion mistakes, the audience liked it and we were paid a good amount of money (part of it ADDED beyond the agreement, and they bought dinner too). The bar receipts were apparently significantly above normal. So if go beyond the 'artsy' thoughts, the reality is that we drew an audience. So my self criticism isn't worth a darn.

Can I call myself 'pro' now? (though at the low end). LOL.

One of things that really helped with such a big event as this was the practice at the jams. Musicians are super-critical and there's always an informal pecking order established so you know your place(I started out at the bottom).

I'm sad to say that the jams have ended so from here on, I'd have to organize my own jams.

I do have some other gigs but it's just not the same lugging my keyboard and amps for some casual. That doesn't interest me so much. To me, it's either a jam or a significant public performance. At least an environment that pushes me to learn.

Anyway, I'm thinking about doing some jams at my house but I'm worried about inviting strangers in.

You have come a long, long way, my friend! Most excellent relaxed swinging on those great tunes. It's so very easy to relate to your music.

Your comping on all the tunes was superb and the solos were right on par with the way you and your partners were handling the tempos.

It'd be great if there was a way to do some practicing together either in whole or in part to shore up the exchanges. Look forward to more recordings of your gigs.

Great playing across the board, JW - enjoyed it thoroughly.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, you must be JAZZED!! I am.

Glen

Thanks Glen! Thanks for the kind words. Yeah there's an online record of my progress, even just on this thread. Hopefully it will encourage others to take a similar path.

Do you ever play in group setting? I know you mostly play solo. It's a different energy isn't it? I like both but the interaction is a challenge.

If you were over here we could have jammed, man. You always have such a nice touch. I have a long way further to go to develop that.

As I'm relistening to this, do you mean some sort of rhythmic octave stabbing? I'm curious what you mean here.

There's a lot that can be done rhythmically with latin that I'm just getting a feel for recently. I need to get some good examples of what can be done here.

>> Anyway, I'm thinking about doing some jams at my house but I'm worried about inviting strangers in.

I've said it before, and I'm naturally a risk taker, but I've had dozens of people show up at my place, and I've never had someone that wasn't nice. I've had some guys that couldn't play, and I simply did not invite them again. But everyone was always nice. Once I had a trumpet player tell me I had to tap my foot on 2 and 4. LOL. Sad is that he played alright, very clear sound, but I don't think I can put up with that kind of non-sense
It's not about the stranger, it's about the noise you make. My kids have to sleep with ear plugs. At the same time, they love to have the music around, they think I'm the coolest dad in the neighborhood.

I've been doing it twice a week for about a year now, and I can tell you that almost every single time, my comping has got slightly better. Each time, I go on and take a bit more risk, trying to anticipate someones solo, playing with volume, register, and more and more, I can pick up drummers hit. Each time, I try to focus on one thing.
The drummer that I have on Fridays is really awesome, we keep smiling all night because we have this game that noone else notices. One of us will do some rhythmic thing, and the other is supposed to pick it up and do it the next time around. Then sometimes one of us goes into some funny rhythmic thing, and the other will try to match. It's really fun.

My Monday drummer never picks up those things. He's too busy with the bass player. However, that dude knows a lot of tricks, so it's fun nonetheless.

So far all the people I've met at the jams have been nice. In fact some are extra shy. There were some that looked like homeless people, mind you. But when they got on the mike (singers), they were obviously just starving musicians.

But one of the people in the group scared me. He talked of theft, drugs, etc. I have little kids. I can't do a jam on school nights. My house is open and even a piano sound spreads and echoes through the hardwood floors everywhere. So there will be no respite once the music starts.

Now if I pick the people who show up, it will be ok as long as I know them. Anyway, it's difficult because a jam announcement is global.

Knotty - I know how much I learned from the jams. Twice a week means your learning is very accelerated. That's amazing. I find no faster method of learning how to interact.

But doesn't this also take away from practicing? I did jams only 2x a month. In your case, you're not just jamming. You're the house pianist. That's even more intense.