On Jam Sessions:

I have been thinking about the nature of Jam Sessions. In New York, jams are dominated by professionals, as perhaps they should be.  In London, apparently, there is a jam every night of the week, mainly for professionals, but with amateur sit ins; some with a cover charge for the audience and musos in for free; others where they pass a bucket round and everyone tosses in a coin. Here in Melbourne, deep south capital of culture (not),  jam sessions seem to come and go, and vary between the deadly serious rendition of (normally) bebop,  and the entirely light hearted mangling of whatever tune springs to mind. No prizes for guessing where the Melbourne Jazz Jammers sit.


We have no jam sessions for professionals, for the simple reason that those few professionals that survive on Melbourne gigs are way too busy trying to earn a living and/or claw their way to the top. It shouldn't take long, as the top is remarkably close to the bottom.


It is a pity really, as jam sessions, free or not, are an easy entry point for people interested in listening to, or playing, jazz. I feel that they really help promote the jazz scene, and build an audience for up and coming musos.


The MJJ sessions are squarely aimed at the enthusiastic amateur. This invites disaster as there are always a few whose self esteem runs way ahead of their ability(*) . But in between the train wrecks, are moments of ballad mangling delight - a bunch of incompetents having fun is always entertaining, and the Jammers often have the audience numbers to prove it.


(*) It is often said that to be a good jazz piano player, you need a very high opinion of your own ability. True enough, and as they say, in my case, entirely justified...
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Sunday Arvo at the Lunatic Soup Kitchen

Sunday Arvo at the Lunatic Soup Kitchen, mouldering pile and watering hole of distinction in the grubby backstreets of Melbourne, Australia .  Glen the Landlord was giving away free beer, but that was yesterday.


Ah yes, the jam, now let's see. Started well enough with the usual suspects Col, Frank and Brian, joined shortly thereafter by meself, Al The Jazz (drums) and Jack the Lad (trombone).  Ali (tenor sax) joined the Captain, and then Keef sauntered in, as he does. Very good sauntering from Keef, we all thought.


The music ranged from Naima (Coltrane) to When My Baby Walks Down the Street (tin pan alley). Ali's friend/sister/complete bluddy stranger got up and sang My Funny Valentine followed by the Eva Cassidy arrangement of Autumn Leaves.. McCue played well until  he fell for the old make-it-hard-for-the-piano-player trick, and got lumbered with You Don't Know What Love Is, played in entirely the wrong tempo by all concerned. You Don't Know What the Tune Is, played by all unconcerned,  more like. Rob retired to the bar to contemplate the sight of four sets of feet tapping away, to four different beats..


The Jazz was so good on the sticks, we had a struggle persuading Hirsh to take over, but eventually he conquered his nerves (hah!) and positively ripped through Bernie's Tune, One For My Father, and a coupla others. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a young lady aged about 10 got up and played some solo piano. Precocious brat, disgustingly confident, quite good. Shouldn't be allowed. Then Noriyo from Kyoto stepped up and played keys for fine renditions of Ipanema and Satin Doll, and will hopefully do so again.

An entertaining afternoon, with an audience that stayed, drank and gossiped as they should. It  ended with the usual riotous assembly ripping out a fine version of  Doxy then comprehensively murdering Route 66, We'll probably do it all again next week, only better, or worse, or backwards.

My Funny Valentine , by the way, is no laughing matter. Autumn Leaves, but it keeps coming back. We didn't play Summertime., and most of the other tunes weren't much better. There is nothing wrong with a jazz waltz chart that a box of matches couldn't fix. Captain Chaos could organise fours without total confusion resulting, but he prefers not to, and from an entertainment value standpoint, I think he is on to something.

Sunday at the Leinster: A Jam Session perhaps

Sunday at the Leinster: All chips and nonsense really. What had started as a quiet afternoon with Frank, Brian and Col performing the opening stanza for the benefit of Don and meself, turned out to be one of those typically chaotic ballad mangling sessions with the likes of Maria, Deb, and Kay taking it in turns on the tonsils, whilst the rest of us (that is once Keef, Jack, and Jim had joined in)  had a quick loop through the Captain Chaos book of songswhatcolknows, some young drummer turned up , turfed the world's 4,578th worst drummer off the skins, tweaked the tempo and entirely disconcerted the string section toasting by the fire. Then a casual passer by got up to sing Summertime as casual passers by occasionally do, only she really could sing.

Frank the indefatigable played Route 66 without resorting to his Melways, Debbie sang One Note Samba so fast it sound like half a note samba, and the evening ended in style, with Maria, Deb, Kay and POCKOTL taking turns round Bye Bye Blackbird. A wonderful song sung with such vigour that by the end of it, there was not a single blackbird left in the Leinster Arms Lounge Bar and Lunatic Soup Kitchen, and not many paying customers either... so we all rolled out into the gathering dusk, reflecting on the fact that some jazz tunes might sound better with a bossa, swing and country feel all emanating from different corners of the pit orchestra, only we don't know which ones.. and nor, given the afternoon's entertainments, which proved many and varied, should we care....

For the benefit of casual readers from somewhere other than Melbourne , Australia, I append some helpful explanatory notes:

The Leinster:: this is a pub styled in the manner of a 1950's recreation of a midland counties 1923 hotel gone to seed.
" Frank the Indefatigable played Route 66 without resorting to his Melways" The Melways is a locally produced book of maps, whereby one can tell exactly where one is lost in Melbourne, which is a sprawling city of some 3 million souls, all of whom wear black.
And Frank got lost, by the way.

POCKOTL: Princess of Cool and Keeper of the List: she who has the e-mail list for the jammers newsletter. Has been known to dance on the tables with an inverted salad bowl on her head, and swearing like a trooper in Greek. Most of this is completely untrue.

Jazz v Blues, Corporate Gigs and 27

Jazz v Blues

I read the other day that the difference between jazz musicians and blues is that blues musicians play three chords in front of thousands of people, whilst jazz musicians play thousands of chords in front of three people.

Three people! Jazz audiences must be getting bigger....

Corporate gigs

I keep getting asked to do corporate gigs. (Well, if you count once in a blue moon as keep getting asked). I have always liked corporate gigs because they pay well, but I have never been quite sure what "corporate" means. Body or something, I guess. Whatever, these are gigs attended by people with cloth ears and high disposable income. They have the high disposable income because someone else is paying for it. I don't know where they get the cloth ears from, but I am not complaining.

27

All that stuff about musicians dropping off the perch at 27.  I can't help feeling that it is not the music that kills them, but the management. Amy Winehouse is going to be a very profitable industry judging by the record sales. She was a real person before she became a pop icon with a habit. Thankfully, most jazz musicians do an absolutely marvellous job in avoiding the pitfalls of making too much money.

I think there is a review of a Jam Session in there somewhere...

Before her Bairnsdale ballerina debacle, Madge from Altona was fairly keen on a young bicyclist by the name of Francis.. His aim, apparently was to do the Tour de France, Madge's aim, was of course to do something several degrees lower. She could never resist the offer of a Ploughman's lunch, especially if there were pickled onions and cold tongue involved. Whatever, she would have settled for the Tour de Francis, and very nearly did. That was in her early days, when she could still get into a corset, (although she preferred getting into trousers). 

Their favourite haunt was The Stuffed Parrot, which  was at that time in full swing. The music was hot, and the  jazzeurs were, by their own estimation, somewhat cool cats, who had taken to  affecting foppish looks, wearing a slouched berets, thick black framed glasses, and smoking cheap American cigarettes. Of course, the good folk of Altona do not take kindly to that sort of thing, so they also learnt to play every tune very fast, and run even faster. Especially if Madge was in the audience.

But I digress. The Leinster Arms, ah yes, that was what I was getting to. Got there Sunday arvo actually.   Frank and Brian starting off, with a bit of key from meself, and sax from Keef.  We took a tour through the Jack the Lad chartbook, Sam came in and played some drums, and we all managed to massacre Bernie's Tune, before blithely ignoring the fact that Chega De Saudade has two pages. Captain Chaos put us right on that one, Don wielded the axe for a while and Miss Sonya took out the tonsils and waltzed through a coupla ballads as you do. Then as the headcount/chaos factor mounted, Sam whipped out his organ.

We eventually got the life ban from the Leinster Lizard Lounge and Cabaret Club lifted, by explaining that it was a Hammond; and stepping over the prostrate form of a deeply disappointed Hortense, or not as the case may be, resumed with what is sometimes laughingly referred to as music for a splendid little session. I might try that again next week.

Happy Birthday is in F and Hortense has been out shopping

It is almost gratifying to hear people ask after Hortense, she who hovers in the nether recesses of the room, acquiver with excitement at the thought of yet another jam session; or not, as the case may be. She would not, as it turns out, have been disappointed with Sunday's shenanigans at all, leavened as it was with the 76th celebration of Alan's birth. There was an afternoon of fine music making, aural delights, wild jazz and blues, artistic creativity of the highest order etc etc. or she could have gone to the Leinster Jam Session instead, and heard the usual suspects mangling the usual tunes in the usual way, whilst the rest of us gossiped maliciously, spread doubtful rumours and sipped the occasional lunatic soup by way of diversion.

Al "Papa" Jazz is, as we are slowly realising, a natural on drums - you can tell he has never had a lesson in his life. He is so good he can play drums just as well in his sleep. . It seems like only yesterday that he discovered that drumsticks come in pairs. It is indeed a rare talent that takes seventy six years to reach this level of competence.

All in all, this was The Leinster Arms at its finest: packed to the gills and rocking. If you were there, and I haven't mentioned your name, it is because you are young, good looking and talented, and the rest of us are jealous. If you weren't there, then we were probably talking about you anyway.

But I digress. Hortense spent Sunday furniture shopping. (ah yes, that was the point I was getting to), so she may not have been at the Leinster after all. Intrigued by an ad that said all furniture was 50% off, and "Hurry!!! at this price the stock won't last long!" she rushed out and bought a sofa. Truth in advertising: the legs fell off on Monday morning.

See ya at the jam.

Thomas G Crapper and the Jam Sessions

The Leinster Arms jam sessions, possibly one of Australia's finest gathering of amateur jazz talents, but probably not, bring to mind the lifetime achievements of Thomas G Crapper. Thomas G Crapper, was, as many would know, the inventor of the modern flushing toilet. We are all deeply indebted (particularly when you think the alternative). Sadly, Thomas, flushed with success ,(sorry about that) did not possess the good sense to quit whilst he was ahead.

He went on and invented the toilet seat! And men have been copping it from women ever since. Idiot Crapper!

Jam sessions can be like that: an indifferent tune, played indifferently is often, in the minds of its exponents, best exhumed by the big BIG BIG ending, where everyone endeavours to play as many notes as possible, in the hope that they can get to play the last note of all.

Big deal! -  it generally sounds like crap. The audience does not just clap when  you stop - they are clapping because you stopped.   Just like Thomas G should have done, why not quit whilst you are ahead?