Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group 2: Advanced Players

I gather this is a jazz camp? Whereabouts?

I'll be going in a week to a jazz camp I've attended the last two years. It's called Tritone and I go to the one in Wisconsin.

Louisville, Kentucky.
http://workshops.jazzbooks.com/

Hey jjo-I'll be in Wisconsin (Madison) during that time!

I wanted to take a side trip to Door County but don't have enough time.

Chrisbell: Thanks. When I was picking a camp, it was between Aebersold and Tritone. I'd probably learn more at Aebersold; sounds a bit more intense. But Tritone is only over 21s and its a family, mellow atmosphere. People come back year after year and make friends get to know the faculty.

Jazzwee: enjoy Madison. If you need any recommendations I've got friends there and put a kid through college and grad school there. Aat least go to the student union and have a beer and a brat on the patio overlooking the lake for me.

sounds like alot of fun!

Well, I'm copying you. I'm putting a kid through college there this fall. I spent a lot of time at the Rathskeller 30 years ago!

One of my buddies from way back when is now the Dean! If only the students knew his bad influence. LOL.

Will also have a Babcock Ice Cream in your honor.

Hi beeboss

I recommend listening to Gregory porters version of skylark from his recording water. He is a singer and it is a spectacular reading of the tune.

Thanks for the tip

Is there something strange happening on this thread? In the last few days it seems some posts have come out of nowhere (jazz camps, and a reference to Skylark). Am I missing something?

So I got double-booked tonight and left without playing. Second time to be double-booked this year. Of course, I still got paid so I really didn't care much.

But as I was chatting (complaining) about the double-booking, a restaurant owner (who heard us play before) came to talk to me and wanted us to play at his Cafe. Once a month! So overall it was cool.

This new gig has tight space (and only had a budget for a trio) so I'll have to prepare myself for trio playing.

In the meantime, recordings from Monday...These two ended up as a medley since there was no stop in between. Comments welcome.

Mr. PC
https://www.box.com/s/2c0f0fcac76cda89cf51

Red Clay (Repost)
https://www.box.com/s/af32a168dd66a471bf14

As we're setting up for the gig last night (outdoor venue) a family sends a kid up to up to ask if we can play the Macarena. That's a first. They turned out to be a friendly bunch when I chatted with them. Don't know if they liked our music.

What can you do? One weird one was when somebody asked me to play Tango. I said "mam -- we're a jazz band.".

So I have big story to tell. I arrived at our regular venue and then the person in charge said, "Oh, BTW, you're playing for a crowd of 200+ --it's the wrap-party for the movie Raging Bull II".

OMG -- so while we were playing, all these movie stars were around us. I had a picture taken with Paul Sorvino (Sopranos) after the gig, but the rest were around in the middle of the sets.

And they asked me if the Director could sit in on a couple of tunes. I guess he's a jazz pianist. But he didn't actually approach us though.

Anyway, it was so noisy we couldn't hear ourselves so we pumped up the volume and dropped all the soft tunes. Played everything uptempo. We had to stay longer since the crowd was still heavy (and quickly negotiated extra pay).

I made sure to hand out my cards to the production company people. Too bad I wasn't prepared for this.

Big time gig but NOT big time pay -- because I had no idea. Too bad.

sounds like a blast and a gig to remember!!

I thought you used an iPad for your lead sheets? You could've taken pictures WHILE playing with the nifty little camera it has...

Nice one JW, hanging with the stars.

Well that's certainly a high profile gig on our resume!

Scep, when you're doing a solo and these scantily clad women are hovering nearby, there are enough distractions. I won't even try to post recordings of this.

I can say that Hollywood types are quite unpleasant too. I had some blondie make some put-down comment to me. Besides, did anyone really care about anything other than to pose themselves to each other so they get their next job? Likely not. The proof was in the tip jar. Minimal. Good thing the venue increased our pay.

A friend of mine who's in Film production (who was there too), made a comment: "Don't worry, those people you saw there are unemployed today!" (It's a movie wrap...).

Listened to the recordings of the Hollywood gig. We played pretty well. However, the recordings were very compressed and right next to the Keyboard PA so I won't bother your ears with them.

At my gig on this past Saturday, here in the humdrum Midwest, no celebs, no scantily clad ladies, but one dude bought everyone in the band a beer. Fine by me.

Hey everyone, just wanted to drop in to say hello. I'm still here! I've been periodically checking in to see what's happening, but I've been slow at the piano lately. I'm an outdoors person so the nice weather pulls me away when I'm not teaching. And I'm dissappointed to report that my trio is essentially dead. I decided I didn't like pushing so hard to get a gig and nothing was working out, so our bass player split. He doesn't have time to play unless he's getting paid. So my hope is to find someone else to replace him. My drummer and I are on the same page that we want to play, but aren't concerned about gigs. We just like working out tunes and developing our sound. So we may be out of luck trying to find a good player who's not worried about playing out and has time. We'll see. Otherwise I still practice a bit most days and I'm still trying to get my timing more solid.

Jazzwee, sounds like your gigs are going well. Enjoy it!

Knotty and Chris, have fun at the jazz camp! I've never been to one, but it definitely sounds like a good time.