February 3, 2019

We meet again on February 3 to play with Ken Hoffman (ts), Dave Stoler (pno), John Mesoloras (bs) and Rodrigo Villanueva (dr). The featured tunes are Miles's "Freddie Freeloader" and Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye." The former is a straight-up, I-IV-V, mid-tempo blues in Bb that appeared on Kind of Blue. The only wrinkle is that each chorus resolves to Ab7 rather than Bb7. The latter is an old tune that I first encountered on Coltrane's My Favorite Things album. The tricky thing about this one in my opinion is that the melody in the first half of each section is a single pitch. It's not easy to play several bars of the same note while sustaining interest and not sounding lame. The lead sheet for this tune is in Real Book III.

We'll see you at North Street Cabaret on February 3! FYI the February 17 jam is canceled due to a prior booking at North Street.

 

Mike


Wednesday, January 23, 6:30-9pm, OMJ Jam, Common Ground - Middleton

Houseband will feature: Sally de Broux - on the big tone, Sarah Vaughan vocals, Cliff Frederiksen - (George Benson-like) guitar/vocal, Laurie Lang - bass and Chris Sandoval - drums

We will warm up the stage will some blues and some extended vamps to solo over, then invite others to join us. There is always a sign up sheet, bring your favorite tune and your instrument, we'll make some fun music.

Common Ground serves good family food and drink and you can even get a beer and nice fries. No Cover.


Jan. 23 - Wednesday - 6:30 -9pm more blues and extended vamps for improvisation exploration.

a Great houseband will set up some good foundations for improvisation. Plan to join us for music and community jazz hangout.

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January 20, 2019

Join Paul Dietrich (tpt), Paul Muench (pno), Ben Ferris (bs), and Matt Endres (dr) for our next session. The featured tunes are Miles's "All Blues" and Billy Eckstine's "I Want to Talk about You."

Most everybody knows "All Blues," a 6/8 blues in G that appeared on Kind of Blue. It differs from other blues numbers in part in that you play both the V7 and bVI7 in bars 9 and 10. In other words, Miles has us play a bar of D7, then three beats of Eb7 and three of D7 before returning to the I. The last time we played this as a featured tune, trumpeter Dave Cooper suggested combining D7 and Eb7 arpeggios into a single scale to play over both chords (I guess that would be a half-whole diminished scale?).

I know "I Want to Talk about You" from Coltrane's Soultrane album. A lead sheet for this pretty tune is available here. There's also a backing track on iRealPro. The tune looks pretty basic, but it might take some work to memorize the progression.

We had a great jam at North Street Cabaret this past Sunday on the 6th, and we look forward to seeing you again next week!

 


Jan. 9th, Wednesday 6:30 -9pm OMJ will feature the sax of Chance Stine and the music of John Becker at the Common Ground in Middleton

We will play tunes from the Real Books. Improvisation will focus on vamps - small, repeated sections of music to "blow" over.

Come ready to play or just listen-- GREAT place to hang out and meet friends.