Re: [Harp-L] RE: Harp-L Digest, Vol 36, Issue 43




On Aug 22, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Tom Stryker wrote:


Hi Randy,

A number of things were wrong with the Jam.
1. The foremost was that the attendance was very poor. It started at 9:30
and that was while the ballroom show was going on. I would be surprised if
10 people attended.
2. Lucky if there were six players in the room. Of the six, the majority
were heavy hitters on jazz which could be intimidating.
3. Getting the players up to play was also an issue right from the beginning

*** True, I have a Klepto for 'everyone plays', and it didn't seem like anyone wanted to get up to START things.


4. The sound system had no attendee on the first night and it about killed
you

*** I had no problem with the sound, but then I'm used to it.


5. The second night, we were only allotted 45 minutes. It was also very
poorly attended. At the morning management meeting, I expressed concerns
about the lack of participation. However, we all agree that it will
continue.

*** That would be nice. I becoming very very afraid that this whole jass deal was going the way of the passenger pidgeon. It was around 1991-92 when I attended my first SPAH. I noticed what the blues guys were doing and thought the same could be done for jass. I mentioned it to Gordon Mitchell and Norm Dobson. It didn't go anywhere. Sooo, jass became a matter of Randy Singer (and me) leaning around the piano in the bar while Ronny Kalina played. Ron was from way back in the old days in Reading Pa. and had a proclivity towards going through about 42 keys, and that wasn't conducive to a good roundabout.

6. The location was quite poor and it was not easy to find. It should have
been where people could not miss it. A lot needs to be done to bring it into
focus.

*** Yes, big big yes, SUPER yes and indefatigable yes. Hidden on the dark side of the moon (or bar) so to speak, we had no 'walk by' traffic. In Dallas, we were along the main hall in the library and we were PACKED. This, by the way is my ONLY complaint. More below.

From the beginning, players were encouraged and invited to participate, but
it was tough to get them up.

*** This is true. I, myself, didn't intend to play on every tune anyway. I wanted to hear others. But, it was hard to entice anyone? I wasn't sure if it might have been the material? With an impromptu jass jam, where the players aren't USED to playing together, unusual tunes that aren't familiar to EVERYONE, can become a wet blanket. You almost HAVE to play 'jassified-pop' or pop/swing rather than jass.


The opening announcement and subsequent
announcements were "if you want a chorus our more, jump in and play." This
included the diatonic guys. Since there were so few people there, there was
no limitation on the choruses the first night. The second night with only
45 minutes, a limit of one chorus one was put up. Jelly and PT both
attended and stayed for most of both sessions, although they not
participate. Their take on all of this would be interesting.


For the diatonic players that were there for the entire session," I am
confident that they would say that they were quite welcome although we did
not play blues.

*** Without attempting to be a trouble maker, and beings that I am opposed to adversity, I hesitate to stick my neck out here, but there are several diatonic players who can flat bust a spleen when it comes to jass. As a matter of fact. I have a CD from a jass jam late in the last century (1999), where there are 2 diatonic players and 8 chromo players, and the 'tonics' made the chromo players look silly, (MY opinion) AND to make matters even more morbid, some of the chromo players are STARS.


  Yes, some had to wait to play because there were previous
commitments, but certainly no bias as I am a great supporter of all
harmonicas and other instruments.  Jimmy brought in a college girl who
specialized in jazz and did a vocal with us.

*** This is true, When you already HAVE a tune scheduled to play, you can't just tell the requester that he looses his turn in line. Everything has to go by who asked first. If people don't understand that, they don't understand seniority.

Finally, Joe's remark about being lame is curious. It may be because of the
setting and the lack of participation. The backup band was very good
though.

The sentence with the word Lame didn't come from me originally. It was from a previous post by Chris that I had erroneously scrubbed while trimming the message. I then thought it was important to RE- place, and so I re-typed it in. Therefore the color of the printing would have been the same as MY answer. On the second night I DID refrain from playing as I wanted the P.T. boat, Kirk the Jelly, sherlock Holmes, or some OTHER fresh face to play.


Basically, the items 'I' thought were lame were 1... the aforementioned LOCATION of the venue. ( i.e. there's an old axiom in the business that when the number of players exceed the number in the audience, it's time to think about folding the tent). And 2... while hurting people's feelings isn't high on my list of entertainment value, there ARE some players who are there to show off. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with strutting one's stuff, but some times you have to put a lid on it. We're supposed to be a team up there.

Bottom line, the jam requires a lot of work and this year was quite
disappointing. It needs more participation and a better venue at the right
time.

*** Only because there aren't a lot of jass lovers present as there are blues, bluegrass, celtic, irish, country, pop, 40s big band, classic trio. It's almost like dixieland, trad, or ethnic. The crowd can't be expected to be large to begin with, and having it somewhere on the outer fringes of Zenobia didn't help. These things can all be fixed. What CAN'T be fixed are people who monopolize or are lax on ettiquite. This BS of 'Hey. I came a long way, and I'm gonna play ALL day, EVERY day, until I make you sick of hearing me' is just that. BS. I belong to the church of 'Everyone Plays', one man one vote, everyone equal. The stars have all year to be stars, the little people only have a couple days.


MY only rule would be: 1...After you're done with your solo, replace mic in stand and step back a couple feet to signal that there is a mic available for the next person who wants to ride this train. Don't stand there and hold it like it's yours. There have been jams in the past where you couldn't blow a mic your way with nitro.

It goes like this: A person calls the tune.
That person does the head and everyone else does harmony (Bb runs to his Eb runs..third person does Ab runs etc)
Backup people do NOT blast at higher volume NOR add extraneous fancy runs.
Lead out man takes an improv followed by everyone else
The tail is played by everyone in harmony... everyone at same volume
No 'squirrels' on the finish. Lead man on waterfall, everyone else on harmony drone


*** I tried to place people in an order so that there weren't 2 similar styles on TOP of each other. Easy to do with horns because of the timbre, but hard to do with harmonicas. I'm sorry if it was misunderstood. I meant no harm. SOOOO, style can be used as a delineator. I noticed this used to good effect at the blues blow off.

Next year, I will not run the session and welcome volunteers. The
goal will be to position it so it will meet everyone's expectations, be
inclusive of all players and have good attendance. My apologies for it not
being what it should have been.

*** NO reason for that. The location was the killer. Closer to the 'action' (instead of TWO floors and the length of the building away) and it would have worked.
smokey joe



  After all, to have players like Chris and
George sit in is a treat.

Thanks for asking,

Tom

======================
Message: 13
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:58:38 -0400
From: Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] SPAH 2006
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <318B7110-F58D-455A-ACA7-F92F5D14A246@xxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed


On Aug 21, 2006, at 1:09 PM, Chris Michalek wrote:
I woke up in time for the jazz jam. George Brooks and I tried to
participate but were met with fairly heavy and negative resistance,
I truly felt like I was in a strange town where I had to convince
the jam leader that I could play jazz on the harmonica.  We were
told to wait until the break.

Strange, I dropped out specifically so you COULD have room to play. While there were some players who don't know when to put a lid on it, I am not one of them.

During the break I asked again to play and then was told the band
would do a few numbers before they brought up the blues guys.

I was unaware of that. This saddens me.


I skipped the jazz jam as it was quite lame and uninviting the night
before.

I agree, and I myself didn't play.

Stu Hunter was damn impressive as well.

Actually Stan Harper (p.s. last name is a stage name)


Tom Albanese (damn!!!!)

Tom was there? Somehow I missed him. :(


smokey-joe


-----Original Message----- From: randy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:randy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 10:51 PM To: Tom Stryker Subject: jazz club review

hi tom

i read this a few times.

any idea why?



Begin forwarded message:


"I skipped the jazz jam as it was quite lame and uninviting the night before.

I agree, and I myself didn't play."





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