Live at Smalls - The New York Jazz Workshop

I thoroughly enjoyed the performances of the 5 groups that performed at
Smalls Jazz club yesterday. The team work within the groups was stellar
and everyone rose to the occasion of the performance. I realize playing
in a classroom is very different than playing in front of an audience
and I was so impressed with the professionalism everyone brought to the
event. I enjoyed playing with my group and was very proud of how we
performed our pieces. The improvising was very melodic and musical
which is what we have been working on along with keeping the form of
the piece in tact. I also enjoyed hearing Andreas play bass and hearing
his group play since I had never met
him in person. He has been a great
sub for me when I had a gig during the time of the workshop. It was
great to meet the people in the audience and find out how excited they
were to be at Smalls.  There was a lot of excitement in the air.

How high the Moon and Ornithology

Yesterday in class we ran through everything we will perform for our Smalls gig next Sunday. There was great energy and really nice interaction with the band. Our new alto player Kenji, fits right into the group. I especially enjoyed "How high the Moon" and "Ornithology" being played by both horn players simultaneously. Not an easy thing to do but they did it. I have to thank Andreas for taking over last week when I was out. I'm looking forward to our next class and the concert.

Preparing for Smalls

On Saturday the students came back after a two week hiatus for the holidays. We started playing over F blues and worked on transposing the changes from Bb. Everyone soloed over the form along with trading four's with Luke, our drummer.

We segued into an up tempo version  of Blue Monk and really worked on keeping the tempo steady. I've asked everyone to play the melody even the drummer. We worked on accenting the melody as a rhythm section.

We broke up sections on the ballad "In a Sentimental Mood"

for everyone to play on and played through the d and g harmonic minor scales. Since we had never played through the tune as a group I was happy to hear the band play through seamlessly. Our last tune of the day was How High the Moon. The challenge is keeping the form and using the melody in solo's. 

The students are progressing every week and I look forward to hearing them next Saturday.