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After shedding Pent Up House and making sure I was really ready to go uptempo at last nights gig. I was surprised to see how much people reacted to Girl From Ipanema.
So, what are your crowd pleaser songs?
Girl from Ipanema and So What are standouts for me. I think the people liked Moanin’ too but I might be biased because it’s a favorite of mine.
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01-07-2024 11:03 AM
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People think they know what they like, but really they like what they know.
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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So what tunes have been good for you? I feel esoteric even for a jazz crowd. Like... A Smo-o-o-th One and Without Your Love aren't in ANY of the Hal Leonard real books.
Maybe I'll just have to keep tossing things out and see what sticks.... I need more bossa that's for sure.
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Bossa always works...people can appreciate music they don't know if it grooves. For a non-jazz listening audience If it gets too fast you lose people even if it swings...if it gets too slow be careful of getting boring... Originally Posted by AllanAllen
If it's a "not jazz" crowd, and you're playing jazz, I think it's nice to "throw them a bone" every now and then...something Sinatra sang, an instrumental take on a Beatles tune, etc.
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Singing a blues usually gets people going. If you can't sing a blues, learn. Louis Jordan, Cleanhead Vincent, and T-Bone Walker are great sources .
Other than that ...
As an alternative to GASB-style standards:
In the Moanin' vein: Sugar, Jeanine, Work Song
Funky: Cold Duck Time, Red Clay, Watermelon Man (a la Mongo, rather than Herbie), or actually go full-on funk and play Cissy Strut
Caribbean: St. Thomas, Fungii Mama
For some reason Speak Low played fairly uptempo usually gets a response.
If you've got horn players, something fairly energetic that they can harmonize on will get a good reaction -- e.g., Record Me, Invitation, Moments Notice, or a bop head -- people respond to the energy even if they don't really "get" some of these tunes, but not if you just stumble around on them.
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The last band that I performed with always got a good crowd response when we played the tune Meditation, if you are looking for another bossa. It's easy to learn and easy to take somewhere once the soloing starts. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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It's true. It's an evolutionary advantage to like/trust what you know and be skeptical of what you don't. "I love Journey"...no, you probably just like the chorus to "don't stop believin". We don't like what's good, we like what we know. When in doubt something they can tap their feet to works, blues works, and "fly me to the moon" works. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I’m good to sing some blues. I’ve been booking us as jazz and blues. But I’m hoping to emphasize the jazz. Originally Posted by John A.
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My experience is that mixing the two gets a better response than jazz alone, and there are tons of blues tunes that can be done in a jazz style with | I | VI |II | V | in bars 7-10 and a swing feel. Audiences like vocals and variety. I'm not suggesting you do just blues, only that it makes for a great palate cleanser in a jazz set, so to speak. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I recall one night, playing Brazilian music on a gig with my teacher -- we played all this stuff I thought was great. The audience was largely indifferent. When we played Ipanema, they started dancing. So, now, we play a lot of stuff we like that the audience probably won't know, but we throw in some familiar Bossas.
I agree with MrB that people like the familiar. Also that unfamiliar goes down better if it grooves -- the harder the better.
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I agree and Duke Robillard and Little Charlie Baty are just as influential to me as Miles Davis and Benny Goodman. Originally Posted by John A.
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Agreed. The last times I played jobs (not on guitar, but in a little organ trio...an outstanding, versatile, musical drummer, a phenomenal guitarist who was just as happy to play straightahead as pretty much anything else....huge ears for harmony....we never had to write anything down, and never rehearsed, ever...at most a few chords written on a bar napkin... and me using a clonewheel), the things that got people in a stir were a lot of blues-based tunes with real hooks to them, like Jack McDuff's "Rock Candy" (blues in C) or Jimmy McGriff's "All About My Girl" (blues in Ab)....and the occasional dead slow pretty ballad. Variety, really, but those were the ones that upset people. Originally Posted by John A.
Actually, I preferred to write contrafacts to melodies/changes like the above at the time....not exactly sound-alikes, but just that a few smaller places didn't pay ASCAP/BMI/SECAP fees, so covers were verboten, and I wouldn't want to "profit" (tcheh, right!) off some of my heroes' compositions.
That and Ray Charles covers, Aretha covers. Those worked all the time on piano as well. Kind of a boomer crowd, I guess, but younger hipsters as well were present always, and I'm on the wrong side of 45 as well at the moment, so not exactly as young as I could be!
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singing.
I've been gigging for over 35 yrs and learned a long time ago that unless you're playing in a hardcore jazz dedicated club people want to hear someone sing. you can play instrumentals all night and might get a decent response but it's vocals the average listener relates to.
the last 2 organ players in my trio wanted to play instrumentals all night long, especially my previous organist. he had a great voice but when I asked him to sing something he'd roll his eyes and say "I'm an organist, not a singer"
then he'd reluctantly sing something to appease me and the crowd would fall out.
you don't even have to be a good singer but people just react to vocals, so if you really want to get over, sing something.
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Don't know about crowd pleasers, but the regulars and drop-ins that make up the audience for the four/five/six-piece band I've been sitting in with for five years respond to a nice mix of standards, jazz standards (Miles, Monk, Rollins) of the boppish kind, Latin tunes (generally bossa novas), and vocals that tend toward the ballad and soul ends of the repertory. (The band has two very strong singers.)
Those regulars are not what I would call a hardcore jazz audience, though there are a few (amateur) musicians and musically sophisticated listeners. It's interesting to note what they react to strongly, since it ranges from the hard-boppish to Kern, Berlin, Loesser, et al. As a special treat when the trumpeter is available they'll call "Second Line" ("Joe Avery's Blues") and play it loud and raucous. (These are the times I wish I were wearing ear protection.) Nobody doesn't like Second Line.Last edited by RLetson; 01-09-2024 at 07:57 PM.
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Do any specific tunes come to mind? Standards and Bossa novas is pretty generic. Originally Posted by RLetson
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Looking at my iGigbook history to jog my aging memory. Here's a random list of the tunes that get called often and that the audience seems to enjoy:
Chitlins con Carne
In Walked Bud
How Deep Is the Ocean
Days of Wine and Roses (Bill Evans version)
If I Were a Bell
Blue Monk
Sidewinder
The Preacher
Red Top
Sweet Lorraine (vocal)
Old Devil Moon
Cold Duck Time
Black Orpheus
Blue Bossa
Just in Time
Flamingo
Billie's Bounce
Pent Up House
St. Thomas
Moanin'
The Work Song (vocal)
This Masquerade (vocal)
But Beatiful
Au Privave
Five Spot After Dark
Perdido
I'll Remember April
Autumn Leaves (and "Winter Blossoms," a contrafact written by the pianist)
Moonglow
Mr. P.C.
All the Things You Are
B-flat Blues (ad-libbed and generic)
I don't know how this compares to the repertories of big-city jazz players--these guys all have day jobs and do this on a semi-pro basis mostly because they love playing.
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thanks! some of these I know, most of the rest are on my to learn list. Originally Posted by RLetson
The guys you play with match me. Gigging hobbyist.
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Though I have always enjoyed singing, I never considered myself a lead singer, and over the past 12 years always sought female lead vocalists to form duos (I'm a hobbyist).
About five years ago my vocalist was about ten minutes late for a gig, so I had to sing and play two songs solo. I was nervous to say the least, but nobody got mad or left, and in fact one guy in the audience was very encouraging.
After my partner arrived (the one and only time she was ever late), she apologetically quipped, "Now don't go solo on me!"
That offhand comment went off like a slow burning skyrocket in my mind. I realized that, while she was more experienced and had formal training, her voice quality was not that much better than mine (though admittedly she was younger and cuter).
So I joined a choir for several years then took private vocal lessons for a year. That made a world of difference as there are a number of basic singing techniques that can dramatically improve your vocals regardless of the essential quality of your voice. Learning these basic techniques boosts your confidence in singing, which is half the battle.
So about 15 months ago I started gigging solo with voice, electric guitar, and backing tracks on most—but not all—tunes. Now I'm gigging three to four times a month, sometimes more, which is more than I ever gigged over the past 30 years before putting myself forward as a "lead vocalist."
As Wintermoon mentioned, vocals are what people want to hear: 99% of listeners couldn't care less about your guitar playing, and the ones who do usually just want to know what's on your pedalboard.
So the lesson I learned from all this is, if I want to gig more, I need to put more of my energy into vocals than guitar.
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Myself and a vocalist buddy did several gigs last year, pubs, markets etc. We are a couple of old geezers that covered GASB, 70's pop tunes etc. with just guitar and vocals. Not Jazz per se but some 'jazzy' stuff (ie more than 3 chords!). We got positive responses on most popular tunes, suprisingly even from young folks.
All of Me
Ain't Misbehavin
Me and Mrs Jones
Fly Me to the Moon
Moondance
It's Not Unusual
Cry Me a River
Just the Way You Are
Summertime
Summer Wind
Sway
Girl From Impenema
Blue Skies
Etc etc etc
Well known tunes from any era seemed to go over well.
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Exactly this, very good selection. I do a number of these. Originally Posted by Guitlifer
For most venues, every song should feature a vocal, in my view. Maybe one or two instrumentals for variety...
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Okay I’m going to do One Vocal a set at the next gig. That’s easy enough to add.
Thanks again, this is really helpful.
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Just made a playlist from this. It's 62 songs and 5 hours long.
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Mongo is doing the original Herbie version. Originally Posted by John A.
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The feel is different - the original Herbie version swings it more, the MS version is more funky/straight 8, plus he accents/phrases the turnaround differently, and of course the band shouts out "water melon man" Originally Posted by AllanAllen
... sometimes very differentt
[Obscure jazz trivia alert: the bassist on the live one is Lee Smith, Christian McBride's father.]
There's also the Headhunters version, which might actually be the most crowd-pleasing-est way.
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As mentioned above, the familiar... Fly Me to the Moon, All of Me, What a Wonderful World, Summertime.
And I'd add Desperado, which has a surprisingly good chord progression for a pop song. And I believe you said you sing, all the better. And Here, There and Everywhere is also a good one. And Blackbird by the Beatles.
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