Week 14 - Otis and I do a show

As the title suggests, I have jumped straight into my jazz studies by prepping for some shows with Otis. This is a great way to get started again, as literally every song I will be doing my own improvisation. My solo's have become rusty, as well as my applied theory, but what better way to learn then to just play and play.

Our repertoire believe it or not does not comprise solely of Jazz standards, actually, out of the 20+ songs we have got, about 6 (at the most) that are Jazz Standards. You see, we are playing for the people's in cafe's and so forth, so as Otis says... It has to be "easy listening". Jazz is easy listening sure, but you will never see a hard bebop band playing as a Sunday brunch hour band. So we have got a collection of Bossa/Samba's including Girl from Ipanema, One note Samba, Blue Bossa and Orfeo. Then we got the Pop/Old school TV show theme songs such as If, Thats what friends are for, Here there and everywhere. Funk we have loads, Otis likes his fusion funk, so we have some Sadao Watanabe, Billy Cobham, Four Play, Shakatak. Then lastly we have our Blues and Standards.

*a jam on Summertime

So this works for me as I have a bunch more songs I can add to my Jazz repertoire list, It also shows me to listen to the music and solo accordingly. You won't hear me doing a bebop solo on "Thats what friends are for".

Otis is also guiding me on how to improvise. He is taking the role of the rock/fusion sound, and I will try to get the smooth bebop classic jazz sound. Some of the best advice he has given, which might sound rather ridiculous and obvious, was that I "must not play bad notes". It really does seem ridiculous, but, its so true. Often I would try to start off fast, and do all these technical licks and most often I will hit a note that is not on scale, and although Jazz is about that, I must try as best I can to stay clear of those notes. I'm not Coltrane yet, so I can't expect to play bad notes well. So instead, I slow down, make sure what I am playing is in key, and accurate. By slowing down, and really concentrating, I avoided hitting those bad notes.

We have our first show this coming Saturday at a local cafe in Hout Bay where photographers (friends of Otis) will be showcasing their art, and we will be showcasing ours!