The Croydon Reading Room Jazz group

P1000566, originally uploaded by jassray.

This is a group I play in every week. It is only an amateur band but it is great fun and the emphasis is on learning.

I have learnt a great deal playing with them and this photograph is taken at our first concert.

Jazz Workshop

We had a great night at the Royston Jazzworkshop last night. I am not sure if it was the heat or the music but everyone seemed to be in the mood for a good blow. As we play our repertoire alphabetically we are currently ploughing through song starting with the letter 'S'. Last night was Satin Doll, Straight No Chaser, Song for My Father and Sidewinder.

I think I did fairly well. Satin Doll I have played a couple of times now and slowly getting the feel of how to change the rhythms so that they are interesting. I had never played Straight No Chaser before so just fell back on playing the blues scale. I would prefer to play something different but until I know the songs better it will do for now.

Song For My Father is a song I played for hours with my jazz teacher so am confident with it but still have lots of work to do.

Side winder was a new one too and just struggled through.

All in all I had a great night and felt very high afterwards. this is the music I want to play. The Harlow Concert Band is alright but it does not compare with improvising and jazzing like this. It may only be at an amateur level but it will do for me.

Harlow Concert Band

At the Jazz Workshop

Last night I attended the jazz workshop that I have recently joined and I had had another great night. I have been messing about with playing jazz for some time now but never had an outlet for my playing. I have a huge amount to learn but had nowhere to put my theory studies into practise.

This workshop has solved that. Don't get me wrong I am still struggling with the chords and sales but each week getting more and more confident to be experimental.

Last night we played, Summertime, Now's the Time, St. Thomas and Sister Sadie. Summertime I tried to play just the b minor pentatonic scale (I play alto sax) and it sort of worked but I did not quite like what I was playing. But it felt like good experience not just messing the melody.

Now's the Time was for my instrument a d blues which I am familiar with and had a good time with he d blues scale. But now I understand what others have said about too much use of the blues scale can get boring. I will find other scales that I can use to make it more interesting. Both St Thomas and Sister Sadie were a bit of a disaster for me as I had no idea what to play over the chord progression. But that is the value of a workshop like this. It shows your weaknesses and gives you something to work towards.

I drove home with a real buzz and sang along to the Miles Davis CD ' Kind of Blue'.

I love jazz.

Adam Glasser

On the 25th June we went to GoogliesJazz to see jazz harmonica player Adam Glasser. We had a fantastic night and I thoroughly enjoyed his music. The chromatic harmonica is a rare instrument to be heard and even rarer in the jazz world. But this guy created great sounds and deserves a wider audience.

His repertoire was a mixture of jazz standards and South African jazz. In fact a particular South African number was the highlight for me. The tenor player Bill Yeomans of the house band had obviously never seen some of the chord charts before that night but this did not put him off. After the melody which, had a very african taste to it, he got down to improvise. He done a great job and it was clear that he did struggle at first but once he got the harmonies in his head he hit the right notes.

The whole audience errupted at the end as did Adam Glaser himself.

A night to remember.

MondayJam

One day whilst browsing the web I googled the keywords jazz workshop and came up with one not far from where I live. after a couple of e-mails to the organiser I got an invite to join them and last night I attended my first jam with them.

I have to say from the outset that i had a fantastic night. The people were very friendly and of about the same ability as me. There was a nice range of instruments being played with tenor and alto saxophones, clarinets guitars and a trumpet. The rhythm section was good with a very enthusiastic drummer.

We played a good range of standards and I think I improvised well on most. The songs I did struggle with were 'The A train' and 'Blue bossa'. But that is the point of a workshop, learning. There was no pressure to play a solo, it was left up to you and everyone was supportive.

This will be a regular thing for me and I hope that my jazz education will now flourish.

The White Hart Jam jazz

Well I have finally done it. After all the practise, studying and lessons from various people I have at last performed some jazz in front of an audience. This important event in my musical education took place last night at the White Hart Public House, Wimbish, Essex. To get there has been a long journey, rather like the trip we had trying to find the Pub. My jazz journey started a couple of years ago with a lot of enthusiasm but very little direction. After a while I started to find my way although very slowly. It helped to have a good map. I used the Jamey Aebersold play-a-long books a great deal and read them over and over again. I learnt how to practise my scales and arpeggios with a purpose in mind and with every turn and new road began to understand more and more. I played tunes at home and struggled to improvise over the chords. I studied jazz theory and tried to get my head around dominant 7th’s and ii-v7-1 sequences. I also attended a couple of jazz workshops at the Benslow Music Trust which were fun but really only highlighted my ignorance and what I needed to know to progress further.
Eventually I recognised the need to stop and ask someone the way. After a lot of searching I found a great teacher in Hannah Horton who has helped me enormously. She has given me better directions and taught me exactly which roads to take during my improvisation. I still have a great deal to learn but last night I was able to exorcise a ghost of the past (See Half Moon link) and now feel that I am on the right road to continue my mission.
The White Hart PH is in the wilds of the Essex countryside. It took us ages to find it. We seemed to be going round in circles in the dark looking for a sign. Backwards and forwards we travelled until eventually we gave up looking and asked someone the way. We discovered we were just yards away. This is just like my music; I was close but not close enough. But now I feel I am in top gear and on my way.

No more Ray's Jazz Cafe

Yesterday was a sad day for me. I went to one of my favourite places in London and found that it had gone. At least in the form that I loved.

Ray's Jazz cafe was a CD and Cafe located on the first floor of Foyle's Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London. Whenever I descended the stairs from the street the smell of roasted coffee greeted me like an old friend. After passing through the grey double doors into the cafe the wonderful warm sound of jazz hit my ears. The combination of both of these delights seemed to transport me to heaven on earth.

Ray's was an independent record shop selling Jazz, Blues and World music. It was a great place to browse and look for discs that the mainstream shops like HMV did not stock. It sold jazz books and magazines, in was a place that if you looked carefully you always thought you might rub shoulders with a jazz great.

But sadly yesterday all I found was a larger cafe selling coffee but without the music. Signs on the walls directed me to the third floor for the CD's where, I found CD's but no coffee. The record store had been turned into a grey lifeless Cd's store. No warmth, no music playing and no place for me.

I left and will never return.