Jam sessions and experiences

[kris]

What do you do when you are on stage and you don't know exactly the proposed jazz standard?
For example: three musicians know but you played the proposed standard a long time ago and you don't remember exactly.
Tablets, reall books and other helpful gadgets - this is not the case at the moment.
What are your valuable comments and experiences?
ps.
I don't mean simple standards that I am able to play after hearing them.

[Lionelsax]

What do you do when you are on stage and you don't know exactly the proposed jazz standard?
For example: three musicians know but you played the proposed standard a long time ago and you don't remember exactly.
Tablets, reall books and other helpful gadgets - this is not the case at the moment.
What are your valuable comments and experiences?
ps.
I don't mean simple standards that I am able to play after hearing them.

Nowadays it doesn't really happen since everyone has got tablet except me.
So, you can watch what they are reading.
In the case of everyone knows it by heart... I prefer leaving the boat except if they are insisting.

[kris]

Nowadays it doesn't really happen since everyone has got tablet except me.
So, you can watch what they are reading.
In the case of everyone knows it by heart... I prefer leaving the boat except if they are insisting.

Risky jazz playing....
How are you?
Best
Kris

[gvurrdon]

What do you do when you are on stage and you don't know exactly the proposed jazz standard?

I'd be interested to hear suggestions on this as well, particularly from a guitar perspective.
Pretty much any time a jazz standard is called at a jam then there will be charts, as iReal is pretty much ubiquitous now. As I am usually on bass at jams I wouldn't have any problem following the charts for a standard, which is lucky as there may well not be other bassists.
But, there is a jam where a small but significant number of attendees call tunes that aren't in iReal, either because they're "not really jazz", are obscure, or are original compositions. These people don't bring charts or even know how to explain what the changes are, it seems.
Having nothing but a key name to go on I can't do much but try to listen for root movement (the pianist will be playing the roots anyway, when this scenario occurs) and chord quality and trying to fit this into the sort of patterns I might expect, e.g. I-IV-V if I've been told that it is "a blues" etc. Useful practice, but not much fun.
If I am on guitar I would sit out for these tunes.

[grahambop]

As it happens I was thinking about this recently, so as an experiment I tried playing along to some standards which I had heard but never actually played, using the Ireal app. I didn’t look at the chord chart but I did see the key at the bottom of the screen. So I had no idea what the chord changes were, but I thought I might be able to play some of the melody purely from memory.

The first one I picked was Almost Like Being in Love. At first I couldn’t even remember the melody very much, but after a few bars it suddenly came back to me a bit, so I just about managed to play at least a rough version of it (with a few wrong notes!).

Then I tried playing a solo, and again I was surprised how much of it I was able to get to sound reasonable just by ear. Of course there were still some wrong notes, but after a couple of choruses I was getting better. Also where I was getting lost I ‘got out of jail’ by paraphrasing the melody for a few bars, until I got my bearings again.

I couldn’t really comp the chords though, I was just playing by ear and relying on hearing familiar bits of progressions without thinking about individual chords.

Anyway this might be a way of practising for such a scenario.

[kris]

Recently, I have been to a few jam sessions.
This is quite strange.
Despite the fact that some people look at the tablet, they still don't know the tunes well.
Sometimes there are problems with playing simple blues.You add a few substitution chords and the fun is over.
I don't know, maybe bad places...

[gvurrdon]

Recently, I have been to a few jam sessions.
Despite the fact that some people look at the tablet, they still don't know the tunes well.

Do you mean that they are playing the tunes badly despite having a crib sheet before them, or that they can't remember them?
If it's the latter then it would fit with my experience of having great trouble remembering the tunes if I only play them by looking at a chart.

[Lionelsax]

Risky jazz playing....
How are you?
Best
Kris

I'm really fine, thank you.
I saw you were playing again.
I became a double bass player... No time to play the guitar or something else with people.

[kris]

As it happens I was thinking about this recently, so as an experiment I tried playing along to some standards which I had heard but never actually played, using the Ireal app. I didn’t look at the chord chart but I did see the key at the bottom of the screen. So I had no idea what the chord changes were, but I thought I might be able to play some of the melody purely from memory.

The first one I picked was Almost Like Being in Love. At first I couldn’t even remember the melody very much, but after a few bars it suddenly came back to me a bit, so I just about managed to play at least a rough version of it (with a few wrong notes!).

Then I tried playing a solo, and again I was surprised how much of it I was able to get to sound reasonable just by ear. Of course there were still some wrong notes, but after a couple of choruses I was getting better. Also where I was getting lost I ‘got out of jail’ by paraphrasing the melody for a few bars, until I got my bearings again.

I couldn’t really comp the chords though, I was just playing by ear and relying on hearing familiar bits of progressions without thinking about individual chords.

Anyway this might be a way of practising for such a scenario.

And what can happen if each of the musicians has the same song, but there are different versions of the chord functions?
Sometimes there are original versions of outstanding artists, which are a challenge.

[kris]

Do you mean that they are playing the tunes badly despite having a crib sheet before them, or that they can't remember them?
If it's the latter then it would fit with my experience of having great trouble remembering the tunes if I only play them by looking at a chart.

It's hard to say.

[AllanAllen]

And what can happen if each of the musicians has the same song, but there are different versions of the chord functions?
Sometimes there are original versions of outstanding artists, which are a challenge.

Yes, the Miles Davis effect. In the moment, do you go with the more popular Miles Davis bridge, or the less often played "technically correct" bridge.

I personally think it's better to have some self awareness and talk to each other before the tune starts. We aren't Lincoln Center level musicians, have some humility and talk with each other before you start. The goal isn't to impress the band with your ability to keep up, the goal is to make music that sounds good.

[kris]

Yes, the Miles Davis effect. In the moment, do you go with the more popular Miles Davis bridge, or the less often played "technically correct" bridge.

I personally think it's better to have some self awareness and talk to each other before the tune starts. We aren't Lincoln Center level musicians, have some humility and talk with each other before you start. The goal isn't to impress the band with your ability to keep up, the goal is to make music that sounds good.

That's why jam sessions are a specific way of getting to know jazz music.
It happens that there is no time to explain the tune during the jam session.... The title is dropped and you have to play.
When you play with random musicians, it is usually a lottery.
I guess it just has to be that way.... This is not a jazz concert.
I'm not sure if famous jazz musicians often appear at jam sessions.

[RLetson]

Not a jam situation, but I encountered a version of the which-version question when I was sitting in with a stable combo (3-5 pieces, depending) that had evolved their own set of preferred head arrangements. Most of them were built on Real Book/iReal changes, but intros, tags, tempos, styles and such tended to reflect their collective favorite recorded performances, most often Miles, Bird, or Bill Evans*. While I know most of the GASB tunes, I wasn't always aware of the band's particular models but absorbed them anyway. It was an interesting process of fitting in. (Fortunately nobody expected me to solo, and the band already had two accomplished singers, so I could safely chunk along behind the drummer.)

* I keep hearing the Parker-Gillespie intro to ATTYA inserted somewhere in performances of that tune, most recently at the tail-end of a Chet Baker Quartet version.

[olejason]

Depends on the tune. If I'm playing bass and don't know it there are a few options. Someone can run me through the changes really quickly and I'll remember them or if the tune is simple enough and there is a guitarist I'll ask them to comp very simply the first couple of times through and I can watch their hands to anticipate the changes and catch things that way. If it's a complicated Jobim tune or something and I can't look at a chart I'd just ask someone else to sit in. Personally I don't like being asked to "hear the changes" on bass because I can't know what to play before I hear it.

I kind of object to the idea that rhythm section players should never use charts in a jam setting because as a rhythm player you will be in situations where you're asked to accompany someone on a tune you don't know. Knowing how to have a chart in front of you but still listen, react, and play intelligently is a valuable skill every rhythm player should have. Obviously you don't want people reading heads note for note from a Real Book, I think that's where the "no charts" thing often comes from.

[AllanAllen]

That's why jam sessions are a specific way of getting to know jazz music.
It happens that there is no time to explain the tune during the jam session.... The title is dropped and you have to play.
When you play with random musicians, it is usually a lottery.
I guess it just has to be that way.... This is not a jazz concert.
I'm not sure if famous jazz musicians often appear at jam sessions.

It does not have to be this way. If it’s not a concert there is time to explain a tune.

If some arrogant guy is trying to push songs nobody knows on a jam without explaining anything. I would say nothing, pack up my guitar and go home. Sounding bad isn’t remotely as enjoyable as watching Columbo.

[kris]

It does not have to be this way. If it’s not a concert there is time to explain a tune.

If some arrogant guy is trying to push songs nobody knows on a jam without explaining anything. I would say nothing, pack up my guitar and go home. Sounding bad isn’t remotely as enjoyable as watching Columbo.

James Bond-I saw it on TV recently and I missed one jam session.

[AllanAllen]

Which one? I watched Dr. No through For Your Eyes Only before Bond left Netflix. Dr. No is the best, some of the other ones are really fun, none of them are bad.

[rpjazzguitar]

What do you do when you are on stage and you don't know exactly the proposed jazz standard?
For example: three musicians know but you played the proposed standard a long time ago and you don't remember exactly.
Tablets, reall books and other helpful gadgets - this is not the case at the moment.
What are your valuable comments and experiences?
ps.
I don't mean simple standards that I am able to play after hearing them.

If I don't know the tune, and there's nothing to read, I don't play it. If I can listen to a chorus and figure out the changes, then, I know the tune and I'll play it. But, my ears aren't that big so I have to be careful not to screw things up.

Lately, I've been going to a jam. The leader knows me, so I get called up and then, once I'm plugged in, I find out what the tune is going to be. So far, they've all been in my phone, IRealPro. But, the group doesn't necessarily follow the Ireal chart.

What happens instead is either that somebody makes a roadmap mistake and the group fumbles to get back on track. Or, there's a widely known arrangement from some record which is different from the Ireal chart. And, because I don't play all the styles that can get called, I may not know the arrangement that everybody else does.

So, there I am, reading from my phone, and suddenly everybody (but me) is doing something that my phone doesn't know about.
The only advice I have is "keep your ears open", as if saying that is helpful to people without big enough ears.

Here's a situation that occurred some years ago. I'm on stage at a jam and Aqui Oh gets called. Toninho Horta. Multiple motifs and a lot of chords. I'd played it before, but I didn't have it down cold. Still, I thought I could hack through it. Then, I looked around the bandstand. There was another guitarist there - very good but I knew he couldn't read. The pianist was maybe intermediate and was timid. The bassist was a monster who could follow anything. My guess was that he'd follow the non-reading guitar player.

I was not confident that they would end up playing the roadmap that I knew and the tune was complicated enough that I was I concerned that I wouldn't be able to follow them if they diverged from the arrangement I was familiar with.

So, I put my guitar down and took a seat in the audience.

At that point, the bassist offered the bass-chair to any bassist in the audience who knew the tune. A friend of mine volunteered. Either he didn't know the tune well enough, or the non-reading guitarist changed it up, or something. He screwed it up badly. As he sat down, the monster player said to him, "If you don't know the tune, it's okay not to play it". Ugh.

In the great scheme of things, not playing is a vastly better choice than playing badly.

[kris]

Which one? I watched Dr. No through For Your Eyes Only before Bond left Netflix. Dr. No is the best, some of the other ones are really fun, none of them are bad.

Old one with Roger Moore...I do not remember the title.

[kris]

If I don't know the tune, and there's nothing to read, I don't play it. If I can listen to a chorus and figure out the changes, then, I know the tune and I'll play it. But, my ears aren't that big so I have to be careful not to screw things up.

Lately, I've been going to a jam. The leader knows me, so I get called up and then, once I'm plugged in, I find out what the tune is going to be. So far, they've all been in my phone, IRealPro. But, the group doesn't necessarily follow the Ireal chart.

What happens instead is either that somebody makes a roadmap mistake and the group fumbles to get back on track. Or, there's a widely known arrangement from some record which is different from the Ireal chart. And, because I don't play all the styles that can get called, I may not know the arrangement that everybody else does.

So, there I am, reading from my phone, and suddenly everybody (but me) is doing something that my phone doesn't know about.
The only advice I have is "keep your ears open", as if saying that is helpful to people without big enough ears.

Here's a situation that occurred some years ago. I'm on stage at a jam and Aqui Oh gets called. Toninho Horta. Multiple motifs and a lot of chords. I'd played it before, but I didn't have it down cold. Still, I thought I could hack through it. Then, I looked around the bandstand. There was another guitarist there - very good but I knew he couldn't read. The pianist was maybe intermediate and was timid. The bassist was a monster who could follow anything. My guess was that he'd follow the non-reading guitar player.

I was not confident that they would end up playing the roadmap that I knew and the tune was complicated enough that I was I concerned that I wouldn't be able to follow them if they diverged from the arrangement I was familiar with.

So, I put my guitar down and took a seat in the audience.

At that point, the bassist offered the bass-chair to any bassist in the audience who knew the tune. A friend of mine volunteered. Either he didn't know the tune well enough, or the non-reading guitarist changed it up, or something. He screwed it up badly. As he sat down, the monster player said to him, "If you don't know the tune, it's okay not to play it". Ugh.

In the great scheme of things, not playing is a vastly better choice than playing badly.

+1
Jazzingly
Kris