I wrote a contrafact. In a jam, I wouldn't dare play it as a head, but..

[brent.h]

would it be acceptable to play it on my final chorus of my solo?

What's the etiquette here?

[pamosmusic]

would it be acceptable to play it on my final chorus of my solo?

What's the etiquette here?

It would probably not be acceptable if you asked. But if you didn’t ask, it would require someone to notice and to care enough to call you out which is unlikely.

Do it. Why not?

[brent.h]

Aight.

[Cunamara]

If you snuck it into a solo, who would know that it's a contrafact? In fact, all jazz solos are contrafacts. How can anyone call anyone out on that?


Contrafacts are a long-standing tradition in jazz. Virtually everything attributed to Charlie Parker is a contrafact. Unless the melody you wrote sucks, why wouldn't you bring it up to play at a jam session? Just announced "hey man, I wrote a melody over the changes to Night and Day. Could we give it a shot?" It's a little bit of a risk, but unless you are playing with assholes that shouldn't be a problem.

I love playing new tunes that someone brought into a gig or jam session. The guys that don't want to play them are also the guys that don't want to have to play anything they don't already have the heads memorized. I have a couple of dozen tunes that I've written, some of which I think are really very good and people have responded quite favorably to them. Some of them, not so much. Most of them are fair to middling.