so I am no expert on Jazz or anything else in the world. My memory is too poor and my interests too varied to ever become an expert. But I love jazz, so lets start.
My friend in Cleveland once said that she would appreciate if I wrote on the topic: where to start an adventure in jazz. When I got to Cleveland last month, I handed her two CD's filled with ...
covers.
To be invited to a gig as a jazz musician you better have a musical memory of billions and billions of standards and be willing to play with them.
Yes, play. Have fun. Use your imagination and your talents to create something new from a melody that has been around since, lets say 1933 when Harold Arlen went to Hollywood to compose tunes for Let's Fall In Love.
I was drawing a card for Mosaic Woman while retreating at Wernersville when a tune arose through my ear phones, I hit repeat and it played until the piece of art was finished... a wonderful version by Johnny Hodges and Duke Ellington on this CD and the first gift CD began there. Then there was a night at the Deerhead Inn when Virginia Mayhew played the same tune with a bit of a Latin swing. At a break I asked her if she had recorded it that way and we drove home with the CD. The second gift CD ended there.
Since I can't find either version on video, let me end with other jazz musicians having fun with Arlen's classic tune..
"wait up," you say... "No I want it fast and forget those vocals please...
NO, you scream... "I want slow and keep the vocals." I can do that for you, tis jazz after all and like I said. They love to play with wonderful tunes and make them their own.
Usually I listen to the Kent State NPR station, which mostly plays classical music. But I seem to have added the Cleveland station to my repetoire - its signature music is jazz.
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