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In November, I participated in 5 jam sessions and one open mic. This journal includes my reflections on those events. 3 sessions and the open mic were at Venue C, and two sessions were at Venues A and B. I begin this journal with a detailed account of one session at Venues A, B and C, and follow with short notes on two additional sessions and open mic at Venue C. Background info on the venues can be found my previous journals.
The first session was at Venue C. There were 9 participants and 1 spectator. The participants, including myself, were 2 guitarists, 2 drummers, 3 pianists, 1 bassist and 1 trumpeter. The spectator was a friend who stayed about an hour. The same bassist played the entire evening; everyone else rotated, 2 tunes each. I played the Westville Aruba through a JC-120 with a bit of reverb.
There’s no leader at Venue C, so participants rotate of their own accord, usually playing two tunes and then inviting the next up.
The tunes called were as follows, listed alphabetically with approximate times:
All of Me (played twice, once in the first hour called by PF1, and once in the 2nd hour after a new drummer joined).
Alone Together (early in the first set)
Autumn Leaves (3rd hour)
Blue Bossa (toward the beginning)
Blue Bossa (second time, toward the end)
But Not For Me (around midpoint)
Feel Like Making Love (one of two “funky” tunes toward the end)
Look to the Sky (I called this in 3rd hour)
On Green Dolphin Street (around midpoint when I sat out in the second set with GT2)
One Note Samba (around midpoint)
Polka Dots and Moonbeams (toward the end)
Shadow of Your Smile (PF2 called around midpoint)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (PF1, 2nd or 3rd hour)
Softly as a Morning Sunrise
Sunny (called by PF1, as part of a set of two “funky” tunes)
Yardbird Suite (PF2, last song in 3rd hour)
These were all called, and read as needed, from the Jazz Standard Bible, vol. 1, except “Sunny” (from the JSB2) and "Look to the Sky” (from an old 1980s Real Book, some of which are used in Japan mainly by older players who studied at Berklee at some point).
“Look to the Sky” was the only tune I called but played on about two thirds of the other tunes. My total playing time was about 90mn straight from 8-9:30, then alternating two tunes apiece with GT2 from 9:30-11. Took a tea break around 10PM, so I would say perhaps played an additional 30 minutes while alternating, bringing the total play time to around 2 hours this session.
The first hour included “Alone Together,” one of the most common jam sessions tunes in my experience. The 14 bar A section caused a little confusion during trading fours. I think what happened is we just extended the drum part 2 bars, but not sure. We got it together with some non-verbal communication to return to the head. Basically, the form is 14 bars on the A section. With Dmaj7 in bar 13, one can pick that up by ear. The B section is 8 bars, as is the C section. I noticed this because of how it impacts trading fours.
After having studied several versions of “Look to the Sky” (I posted about that in our JGO “The Songs” forum recently), I called it for the first time at this session. It worked nicely as a jam tune. I handed out charts from my old 1980s Real Book to PF2, BS and TR. Playing the theme for the first time with a group, I got off to an awkward start but got into the groove as we proceeded. Afterwards, PF1 noted that Jobim tunes are beautiful and then called “One Note Samba” so we did two Bossa tunes in a row. I was better able to keep up with the changes than the last time it was called, though the ad-lib was meandering and I lost track of the form. I was able to more or less end on time, but seemed to be a little out of sync with bar lines. The comping went nicely, using the same shapes, with the initial theme keeping the repeated F note as the top voice of each chord.
I noticed that when I’m comfortable with a tune, I could better control the dynamics by taking care with pick attack. However, when I didn’t know a tune well, sometimes I would lean into notes too much. The guitar volume knob was mostly wide open, and I noticed it had more sustain at stage volume. On some tunes I dialed back the tone knob.
After a tea break, I joined again around 10PM. We played “Autumn Leaves” in Gm and one other tune. I’m relatively confident on “Autumn Leaves.” We played the usual format. The trumpet took two choruses, but then started a third and stopped part way through, so I think he got lost. It happens from time to time, since the A and B sections are similar.
After these tunes, I sat out and GT2 joined. TR called “On Green Dolphin Street,” though it was slower than the usual up tempo.
In this session, I had a lot of eye contact with PF1 and a few times we locked in but I’m still not adept at comping with a PF1’s busy style, so I played less and listened more.
There was only one guitar at a time at this session, so I sat out again and GT2 called “Softly as Morning Sunrise,” playing the theme. As we approached the end of 3rd hour, PF1 suggested doing a “funky” tune or two. The first was “Feel Like Making Love,” which was followed by “Sunny,” called by PF2, closing the session.
The next session was at Venue A, which holds two open jams a month. I arrived around 7:45 and there were some familiar musicians, and a group of women who stayed all evening, talking, drinking, eating but did not play music. Several people ordered dinner, so the session started later than usual. Including spectators, about 20 people attended. Musicians included a local pro pianist who hangs out here when not gigging. There were 3 guitarists (the two beside me are semi-pro), 3 bassists, 4 drummers, 4-5 pianists, 1 tenor and 1 vocalist.
Venue A is a hangout for pro and semi-pro musicians, though amateurs are welcome. Sessions often begin with a well known tune or two as icebreakers. Tonight, a piano trio did “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Blue Bossa.” Both were nicely done, smoothly easing everyone into the session.
The drummers swapped and I joined, along with a pro pianist. I asked if it was OK to play “Look to the Sky.” The drummer and bass are also top notch players, so I was a little out of my league but it was a good opportunity for me to play with seasoned jazz musicians. Overall it went very well. I had to listen very carefully, especially with the way the pianist played across bar lines. The steady Bossa groove helped, as did my knowing the tune well. I think there’s an edge to knowing a tune well but not well enough to feel no trepidation. Maybe the combination of preparedness and trepidation is important. I don’t remember much of what I played, but did the theme and took a couple of choruses, followed by piano, bass and fours. There was a resounding applause. The pianist asked me to call another tune, so I chose “Beatrice” next, which also went very well. I’ve played this on and off for years, and we did the usual jam form. From this short set, I got a good feel for how it is to jam with pro-grade players. Overall, both tunes went well and were appreciated. I needed to listen very closely and also rely on my intuition to keep things together. I was constantly looking at the pianist, somewhat forgetting the audience, and also closed my eyes to really listen and feel the tune while playing at some points.
After that two tune set, a tenor player stepped up to play with a new pianist and drummer, but no bassist. After they began “All the Things You Are,” one of the other two guitarists stepped up and joined, followed by a bassist.
Next, a regionally well-known pro singer took the stage, with the guitarist and bassist continuing from the previous tune, and joined by a pianist. They sang the bluesy ballad “Feeling Good,” as popularized by Nina Simone, followed by “Feel Like Making Love,” though played less funky than at Venue C.
The guitarist gestured for me to step up, joining them and a piano trio. I handed out charts for “Summer Samba,” followed by the pianist calling “There’ll Never Be Another You.” “Summer Samba” didn’t go very well. I played the theme, we did solos, but it was some how not popping. Perhaps the tune’s getting tired, or perhaps since it was no longer summer! For “There Will Never be Another You,” the pianist was reading from iReal Pro, which I also used, though I should know this oft-called tune better. For ad-lib, I got lost basically noodling around with Cm pentatonic and experienced one of those awful moments. This set, for me, was a let down compared to the previous one.
Next, another guitarist, who I know from Venue C, took the stage and did “Have you Met Miss Jones?” Most people were talking at this point and the music seemed to recede into the background, but at the end of this tune there was a nice applause. The guitarist then called “Polkadots and Moonbeams,” for which the pianist was reading from iReal. Though the guitarist seems to know the tune well, their eyes were locked on the JSB1 chart. The previous guitarist then joined and they did an extended guitar centric jam on “Stella by Starlight.” There was trading fours, and at some point an extended drum solo.
It was near 11PM, and the crowd was thinning out, so the two guitarists wrapped up the session with“Alone Together” as a guitar duo with drums and bass. As noted from the Venue C jam, there was difficulty with trading fours on the 14 bar A section. I spoke to one guitarist after the session and they admitted they got lost. Nevertheless, they were able to regroup and all got back to the theme.
The next day, I joined a monthly afternoon session at Venue B. It was a smaller session than usual, with 9 people, 3 vocalists, 1 trumpet, 2 pianists, 1 guitar, 1 drummer and 1 bassist, in addition to Mom and Pop. This session was low key, but the music was good as always. The trumpet began by calling two tunes, “Black Orpheus” and “Song for My Father.” The latter has a 12 bar AAB form, the chords are fairly straight forward, and I stuck mostly to chord tones and F blues riffs.
Next, I called two of the tunes I had done the night before at Venue A, “Look to the Sky” and “Beatrice.” Although with different players this time, both tunes felt good and went well, and there was a hearty round of applause after each. I think these tunes are winners and I feel comfortable and happy playing them. I took 1 chorus on “Look to the Sky,” and a few on “Beatrice.” On the latter, I’ve been experimenting with quartal harmony in comping. For intros, I used a vamp on EbMaj7 on “Look to the Sky” and an Fm7 - GbMaj7#11 vamp for “Beatrice.” For ad-lib, I explored triads on both tunes.
That was followed by several vocal tunes, including “That’s All,” “Mona Lisa,” “Nearness of You,” and “Night and Day” (with the m7b5 initial chord for the intro, but for the verse it was the Maj7 chord). The three singers were those that I played with at the jazz festival last month. Another vocalist did a Japanese song, for which I sat out to have a cup of tea.
After that, one of the pianists called “Autumn Leaves,” and I joined part way through, comping and taking one chorus of ad-lib. The pianist then called “Blue in Green,” for which I sparsely played a few chords and fragments behind the piano. I find this tune very evocative and took a shot at ad-lib and found some nice pathways through the changes.
After a short break, we began with “Candy” and “Bye Bye Blackbird,” both of which I called. I played “Candy” more or less from memory and I’ve gotten better at feeling the theme and navigating changes. For “Bye Bye Blackbird,” I used an intro vamp from F6 to Cm7. The theme went nicely, with some variation and well placed expressive pull offs. However, the ad-lib was a little aimless at first, but then settled in on the second chorus. The descending 7th chords are fun to navigate.
I stayed on stage for the second vocal set, which included “My Funny Valentine,” “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,” “Moonlight Serenade" and “Bye Bye Blackbird” (this time in the vocalist’s key). I comp lightly on these tunes, and perhaps take a half chorus (known as “hanbun” in Japanese), alternating with the pianist. There were also a couple of Japanese folk songs, which the pianist covered, so I sat out.
The last set began with my calling “Out of Nowhere,” followed by the pianist calling “Blue Bossa.” The latter was fast and a bit funky, for which I played minimally.
Over the next 2 weeks I jammed at Venue C, where there’s a core of amateur regulars, with occasional participation by newcomers or those that haven’t joined sessions here in several months, and a few semi-pro players. At one of the 2 sessions here (I’ll turn to the open mic acoustic session later), in addition to the regulars there was a bassist who came to sessions earlier in the year but I hadn’t seen in months. There was also a new vocalist, a friend of a regular pianist who brought their book of charts, and a new drummer, who I hadn’t met before. In the second week, a familiar guitar trio of semi-pro musicians did a short set of three tunes, perhaps as a rehearsal for a gig, which happens sometimes at jam sessions.
On the first evening, I was the only guitarist for the first hour so played non-stop, and when a second guitarist arrived we swapped two tunes apiece.
Tunes I called over these two Venue C sessions included: “Out of Nowhere,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “Freddie the Freeloader,” and “Look to the Sky.”
Tunes on which I played but which were called by others included: “All of Me,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Beautiful Love,” “Black Nile,” “But Not or Me,” “Candy,” “Feel Like Making Love” (called by PF1, who asked me to play the theme), “Fly Me to the Moon” (with a vocalist), “How High the Moon,” “I Can’t Get Started,” “Lover Man,” “Lullaby of Birdland,” and “Rhythm-a-ning."
Tunes I sat out on were: “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Night in Tunisia,” “Yardbird Suite and “Blue Bossa,” though at times I was in the cafe having tea and chatting with Mom and Pop and didn’t hear everything played.
A few thoughts on some of these tunes: On “Lullaby of Birdland,” I had trouble navigating the changes. I got confused or off time with the two chords per bar. Also, the chart is not laid out with 4 bars per line so it takes extra attention to keep up with the changes. The tempo was just fast enough to make it difficult to read cold, so this one needs some comping strategy. I think for the ad-lib I fiddled around the Fm blues scale.
I also had some trouble with “Lover Man,” although I played it in the past. I used shell voicings and kept a G on top for the first 4 bars, then Ab on top for the next 2 bars, but took a few tries to get the descending 2 bar pattern turnaround. The B section is basically in Am for 4 bars, and then Gm for 4 bars, but I couldn’t grab voicings. This chart layout is also not 4 bars to the line, so perhaps I should mark these charts as such.
Lately, one of the Venue C regular pianists has been calling “Rhythm-a-ning," Monk’s take on rhythm changes. Each week we do it, the tempo increases. This time I couldn’t keep up, it was a bit too fast and the changes are similar but not the same as the standard rhythm changes. For ad-lib using a Bb blues with a flat five seemed to work well for the A sections, and then outlining the chords on the cycle of 4ths beginning with D7 for the B section. Although based on rhythm changes, it’s got Monk’s stamp on it, and the theme is unusual. It doesn’t get called at other sessions, but PF1 calls it at the Venue C sessions so it’s worth spending some time on it.
A couple of thoughts on intros: PF1 tends to play the last 8 bars, sometimes the last 4. Although on “But Not For Me,” they used an intro referred to as a “reverse” progression (“gyakujun” in Japanese), which seems to be iiim7 - VI7 - iim7 - V7). For “Out of Nowhere,” I used the last four bars, though on other tunes I like to use vamps taken from part of the chord changes.
In addition to the weekly jam sessions, which are mostly jazz, funk and blues, Venue C holds a weekly open mic. It’s primarily acoustic music, featuring Japanese and American pop and folk songs, and original music by singer songwriters. Performers are invited up one at a time to play a couple of tunes. I used to frequent these open mics, but had not gone in some time.
When I arrived, along with the Mrs. who had not seen Mom and Pop in some time, there was a guitar and vocal duo doing Japanese pop and folk songs, and another singer doing American pop and folk songs, and a third doing some Japanese oldies with Pop joining on guitar.
For my turn, I used iReal with the drums and bass only (no piano) to play “Look to the Sky,” which I had also played at the jam sessions this month. But for this solo acoustic version, I transposed it to E from Eb so I could make use of open strings. Later in the evening, Pop and I did a couple of tunes as a guitar duo, including “Freddie the Freeloader.”
A gear note for the open mic: I recently put TI Plectrums (11-50) on my Taylor 712-CE, replacing the phosphor bronze Elixir 12s I used for years. First time using Plectrums, and what a difference! The Taylor really came alive, was easier to play with the lighter tension, and I like the feel of the thicker round wound low E string with the G, D and A flat wound, and plain E and B. The Taylor has a K&K Pure Mini under the bridge, no onboard electronics, and I plugged it into a Fishman Loudbox with a bit of reverb.
As always, thank you very much for reading. I’d love to read your thoughts on this journal, and am particularly interested in comparisons with your own jam session experiences, especially regarding session format and repertoire. Thanks again!
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12-02-2023 05:58 AM
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Long… but very readable and interesting. I like the honesty and the detail. Rings very true to my own (limited) experiences at local jazz jams. One thing I especially noted was your comment about making eye contact versus being absorbed in a chart. The latter is me all too often, I’m afraid. I think it’s mainly out of habit from practicing at home. I really need to make more effort to look at the other players - it seems to make a big positive difference when I do!
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Thank you very much for reading and for the kind words! I'd hoped that my reflections might be interesting to others. And I very much enjoy reading about the jam session experiences of others.
Originally Posted by geoff23
When I checked videos of my playing from when I started going to jam sessions, my eyes were always on the chart. Even if I knew the tune well, eyes were on the chart. I noticed some players here, too, as I noted in this month's journal, seem to know a tune well but still keep eyes on the chart. Perhaps it's a confidence issue, I don't know. I still read charts for tunes I haven't internalized well. There's only a handful of tunes that I don't need charts, but once I'm away from the charts, it really does make a positive difference! I now make it a point to at least internalize the few tunes that I call at jams, and I make note of tunes that are often called by others to try to work on internalizing them.
Thanks again for reading! I hope others will chime in to share their own jam session experiences.
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This song?
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I went to a session and it was run much like yours with people coming up as they know songs. It worked well for the horns, but with 4 guitar players there I just kind of sat it out and watched everyone, only going up for songs I didn't need a chart for like Oleo and Freddy Freeloader. I like to play but I also like to listen and watch how other people do things.
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That's what came to mind the first time someone called it in a jam session. But it's the soul R&B song popularized by Roberta Flack in the 1970s and the 1980s funky synth-pop cover by George Benson. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Singers lean toward the smooth Flack version, while guitarists prefer the Benson cover. But like a lot of tunes it takes on a life of its own when it gets distilled to a one page lead sheet. It gets called when there are participants from a rock or funk background joining a session and guitarists like to jam on it.
It's in the Japanese "Jazz Standard Bible" (something like a Real Book), along with a few others known as "crossover standards," such as "Sunny," which is also in the JSB.
Last edited by JazzPadd; 12-04-2023 at 08:42 PM.
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Same here, I enjoy playing at jam sessions but it is fun, and interesting, to watch others. It varies by venue and other factors. Sometimes I'll be at a session for 2-3 hours and only play a couple of tunes. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
There are multiple guitarists at sessions sometimes here, too. If the session is hosted, the leader calls up one at a time, and sometimes two if there aren't horn players. At the open sessions it often depends on the participants. Some guitarists like to hog the stage, but more typically guitarists swap out doing two tunes apiece, and occasionally, as in the November journal, two might play together.
I haven't gotten around to learning "Oleo" yet, but that's a staple when horn players are in the house. "Freddie the Freeloader" is one of my go to tunes at a jam session. For the JSB chart, they use both the 1st and 2nd ending (1st with the Ab7 and 2nd with Bb7 in the last two bars) for ad-lib. When I call it, I note before the count in that we'll use the A section alone (with the Ab7 in the last two bars) for the ad-lib.
Edit: Fixed Freddie form. Thanks AllanAllen!Last edited by JazzPadd; 12-05-2023 at 02:43 AM.
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I thought the Ab7 is the first time around.
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Indeed this is one of my favorite jam session tunes :-) Originally Posted by JazzPadd
... and Bob James does such a nice job with it
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