Gear up!

It had been quite a while since I bought music equipment. In 1986, while I was living at my parents', I bought about $10K worth of stuff and built a small studio in the basement. I even glued acoustic panels and shag carpet remnants to the walls to help with the sound deadening in the tiny room. (We had formerly used that room to raise Discus fish, so it had plenty of electrical outlets all around the wall - perfect really - for a recording studio.) Back then, I even had travel cases for everything custom made so I could carry everything to Japan when I went back. Out of necessity, when it came to buying music equipment, I was a bit of an expert back then.

So, two week ago, when my ensemble instructor gave us all of six days' notice that we had to have our own equipment at the concert, I was a little pissed. Pissed because I would have to go through a lot of extra work to get my piano removed from its semi-permanent stand, but mostly because I knew that having to buy equipment can be a pain - pain which I was not looking forward to. Back 22 years ago, we didn't have the internet, so gathering information on equipment, researching prices, and all that took a long, long, long time. Using the internet to research what I wanted and how much it would cost me this time around was a breeze. The only catch was the narrow time frame. I would not be able to order off the internet and get everything sent to me in time. (Well, technically, I could have, but the first case I looked at had a retail price of $129 with free shipping, but expedited two-day shipping was $69 more. Who would pay that for what could be a one time gig?)

Long and short of it is, I did my price and product research online, but I was going to have to do my actual buying in the real world. I really only needed to buy a case and an 'X' stand, and it was pretty easy to see there were limited options for the former, but basically unlimited options for the latter. As far as the stand goes, a stand is a stand is a stand, so price was my only real criteria (I didn't want to spend more than $30, as they are usually available online for around $25). As for the case, my piano only cost around $500 in the first place, so I was not going to buy a $300 hard case for it. That just didn't make sense. Nope, a $99 soft gig bag was going to be the way to go. I called around to the three or four major music shops in the area, only to find nobody had what I wanted. This was on the Thursday after the announcement that we had to supply our own equipment. One shop told me they had a used gig bag, but when he went to make sure they still had it, he discovered it had been sold.

In the end, I was able to find one store that had 'X' stands reasonably priced (around $35) and another store that had a custom Yamaha case not unreasonably priced (around $165). So, I figured I was going to be in for $200, and I let it go at that. On Saturday, I decided to physically make the rounds of the stores, just to see what I could see. Since I had already called around, I knew where I could go to get what I wanted, although not necessarily at a price I wanted to pay, but I thought there was at least a chance I might see something that would work or that I would talk to somebody who could steer me in a different but acceptable direction. I set up my itinerary, and decided to make a stop at a place that over the phone told me they didn't have what I wanted, and from there, I would go in order to two other stores where I knew I could purchase what I wanted.

Well, there's something to be said for doing legwork. The first place I stopped at, although they had said they didn't have stands, happened to have one really nice one, still in the box, that met my needs perfectly. It was more than I wanted to pay ($65), but the salesman said he could knock it down a little. I asked about a case, and he said he didn't have any, but he might have a gig bag that would work for an 88-key instrument. I told him, that's what I'm looking for, even though I said "case". (This is probably where some confusion hindered my search: these guys differentiate between bags and cases. I just consider a gig bag as a "soft case". Oh well.) Again, he had one that was still in its wrap, and again, it was more than I wanted to pay, so I asked him to do a package deal. I ended up getting the case and stand for around $175, tax included, out the door. List for both would have been between $200-225. Online would have been around $130, or $200 with fast shipping, so all in all, I got what I needed when I needed it, pretty much within budget. I didn't even bother to visit the other two music stores.

I guess I still know how to do procurement of music equipment after all.

A new practice routine

Pretty soon, I'm going to write about my experience in buying music equipment. It will, I believe, be very practical and useful for readers of this blog, especially those who are truly new to jazz and the world of music, maybe need to shop around for and buy equipment, but haven't done so in a while. But first, I'm going to put down my practice plan.

This plan is to get me playing better, not to learn tunes (so much), as to just get better. My piano instructor says I need to know more chords and I need to know them more fluently and naturally to play jazz, and he's right. Plus with jazz ensemble being over (for now), I don't have to jam certain tunes into my brain. I can just do what my nerves, muscles, tendons, and will tell me. So, here it is:

-Play three note chord voicings through the cycle of fifths until I've got them down.
-Go through the Real Book and play every song I could play before the concert but haven't played in the last three months (there are a lot of them).
-Work completely through the jazz styles book that I bought and haven't even cracked yet.
-At least once during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (each), go through Hanon in one sitting, front to back.
-Listen to (carefully) and review all the new music that I picked up over the last few months that I haven't reviewed on Amazon yet.
-Go through the piano chords newsletters I've received over the last two months and pay attention to them and work on them
-Work on Christmas songs
-Play four note chord voicings including the 9th and 13th through the cycle of fifths until I've got them down.

I should be playing pretty good by the beginning of next year if I stick to this plan. I'll let you know how it works out.

Now, to work!

Debut as jazz musician complete

Debut as jazz musician complete - recording contract still on hold, pending actual reception of an offer...

Well, last night The Flying Monkey played host to three bands from UAH, one of them the Wednesday night ensemble that I play in. At our designated start time of 7:00, only two of our band members were there, but nobody else was ready to play, so when we had everyone but our singer present (some time long about 7:20), we went onstage and began. We opened with Have You Met Miss Jones, which went servably well, with no major goofs and no outstanding lines or anything. My Funny Valentine was next, even though it wasn't on our playlist, and it too was adequate without being professional. Our third song was Wave, which was very sharp, fun, driving, and right on. That was the definite highlight of our set. Then our singer showed up, so we went to Lady Sings the Blues, which again, was clean and crisp without being impressive. We closed our set with Michelle, and unfortunately, that was our mistake. The bass and guitar got out of sync, and the sound set-up wasn't good enough for me to be able to pick up what was being played and choose an instrument to play along with. I played a few notes in spots just to "fill", but finally had to sit out as the wanderings got more and more convoluted and distorted. We managed to get back to the head and plow through the song one more time, before we more or less just stopped, and what the applause lacked in enthusiasm was made up by politeness.

It went about as expected.

I guess that looking at the positive, there's a lot to be said. First, it was my first concert in jazz, so I've got that under my belt. Second, everybody made positive remarks. Nobody said anything like, "You guys sounded great except for that last song" or "What happened?" Everybody just said, "You sounded good" or "Good job", and I like that positivity. Third, I learned that if any band is going to sound good, a minimal amount of organization is required, but there has to be some, and that, in the future, if the organization is lacking, someone (maybe me) can just take charge and bring in the necessary level of planning and focus, in order to at least have a complete set of songs, in a specific order, that everyone can play.

If my expectations aren't met and I need to take charge, I'm okay with that. At any rate, I'll definitely be a better musician for last night's experience. It will still be quite a while before I'll be recording anything, though.

How to prepare to give a jazz concert

Here's a list of things a jazz ensemble should do to prepare for a concert:

1) Make sure you have a designated practice space that will not be commandeered by other musicians or groups, forcing you to cut short or cancel your own practice sessions.
2) Decide well in advance where the concert will be held - don't wait until less than one week before to finalize the venue.
3) Decide the date of the concert also well in advance - don't wait until the week before to decide, "Well, Tuesday, not Thursday." (This, together with #2 is also important in being able to tell folks who might attend your concert when and where it will be held - two of the critical factors in getting people to show up for... like... ANYTHING!)
4) Practice together every week for four weeks leading up to the concert. That is to say, one group session a month before is probably not enough preparation.
5) Decide on the songs you will play at least a month in advance so everyone can work out everything to their satisfaction. Whatever you do, do not wait until less than a week before the concert to finalize the repertoire.
6) Make sure everyone knows they are responsible for bringing their own equipment or otherwise making arrangements for having equipment at the gig - again, don't wait until a week before to tell everyone and expect them to be able to comply.

I'm sure there are a number of other things a jazz ensemble needs to do to get properly prepared for a concert. I'm sure our jazz ensemble didn't do any of those things, either. We sure didn't do the six listed above...

Our concert is Tuesday, Nov. 18. Hey, baby, it's jazz. We're going to make it happen, and it will be all right.

Zero to sixty in about eleven months

As attentive (and not-so) readers of this blog well know, since discovering jazz some two years ago, I have primarily relied on the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide as my key reference to help me select jazz recordings to buy. I have used that book's Core Collection of 185 recordings as the list of what I should buy, basically using it as a checklist and picking up recordings by artists that catch my attention and have a selection (or two, or more) in the core collection. This has been helpful in selecting both dreams (like Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown and Portrait of Sheila by Sheila Jordan) and duds (such as The Magic City by Sun Ra and Sound by Roscoe Mitchell) to add to my collection - of course not knowing they are dreams or duds until after I get them - recordings that I never would have otherwise have thought or known to buy. Well, two days ago, I received After Midnight by Nat "King" Cole and yesterday, "At the Golden Circle" by Ornette Coleman, giving me a total of 60 recordings from the core collection list. (I have many more jazz CD's than that, however.) Pretty soon, I'll be adding a couple more, but the majority of my recent purchases are other things I have wanted that do not appear on the list. Anyway, I always wanted to mark the 60-point in my acquisitions, since it is almost one-third of the list and is quite a milestone in and of itself. I'll have to get on the Macintosh and check our iTunes and music database software to get a count of my entire collection for my next entry.

Nat Cole, by the way, kicks ass. It will definitely end up on the Yoity Tot list before long.