Rehearsal, Gig, Thoughts, Piano

The rehearsal on Wednesday went well. I thought there was some good playing all round. Some nice interplay between the rhythm section behind the soloists and also a couple of blinding solos by the two Andys.

The gig in Stockton went fairly well. I was the first Thursday night jazz session at the venue so the audience could have been bigger but apparently those who were there had positive things to say... more importantly the guy who books the gigs was very complimentary!

I didn't feel particularly free when comping. I felt like I was just treading water a lot of the time - playing the same few ideas over and over rather than making any kind of meaningful statement. I think I need to spend a lot more time practising at around the 200 bpm and up tempo range. A lot of our tunes fall into that bracket so hopefully this will help.

My own soling didn't feel particularly good. I felt I was too tense and anxious to allow myself to play 'properly.' Again more practice should improve this. The tunes I solo on are all uptempo numbers so it might be good to solo on a slower tune instead which would bring out some different ideas. I also thought it might be an idea to do a free/open solo leading into one of the tunes.

Piano wise I am starting to get much more comfortable with the first half of the Bob Mintzer etude and I have now worked all the way through the Reinecke piece (at a verrry slow tempo) I now need to move onto the next section of the Mintzer piece. This has more varied voicings and different bass line so it might take a while!

I bought the new Mintzer big band CD this week.

Bob Mintzer = insanely talented and hard working genius... Me = none of the above