Posts tagged trio

Post Mortem on the Grille 116 gig goes like this: we’re finding our legs, but we’re doing it together.  Now, for the details.  First, the whole finding the sea legs thing.  I love the phrase, by the way (like, “where did I put those sea legs again?”).  It has just been a process to play at a whisper for at least the first half of the night.  I mean, literally, I’m playing brushes for 2 hours, and I always question when is the right time to bring out the sticks.  Even then, the first swing tune I play with sticks is invariably too loud (I think).

Anyway, we’ll figure it out.  But it is fun, once again, to play under those constraints and try to find a way to groove.  Just a little awkward for me, sometimes, since I don’t have a volume knob.  Playing softer actually requires a different kind of playing…different muscles and techniques.  Totally different, say, than the stage at GFC, where I’m basically bashing for 20 minutes a set.  Like it’s a totally different instrument.  I look forward to having a couple nights a week to figure out how to play this new instrument.

I had a friend and his wife come by to hear the band, which was super cool.  Great time was had by all.  But he made a curious remark that I have been thinking about ever since.  I forget how it came up, but he was talking about our set and said it was pretty much “realbook” stuff.  What he meant was that we pretty much play standards and more conventional jazz tunes, vs. whatever his band is doing (like arranging pop tunes in a jazz context).  He was totally right, and it wasn’t meant as something offensive, although it could have been taken that way.

Some people will put us in the category of “realbook”  jazz, as a way of saying that we aren’t charting any new ground, or stretching any boundaries.  And while we aren’t stretching any harmonic boundaries, or pushing the artform, we are playing what we love.  The boundaries we are breaking are relational and emotional boundaries.  We are striving for an intense and deep connection to the music we are playing, and the musicians we’re playing with.  These are more subtle and often more difficult boundaries to cross because playing increasingly difficult and progressive music can actually inhibit this kind of relationship.

I’m not suggesting that playing “realbook” jazz is the only way to develop relationship, but maybe it is for us.  These tunes are conventional, sure, but they are like comfort food.  They are as conventional as a warm slice of pie, or homemade spaghetti and meatballs.  We play music that people like to listen to, and that also challenges us in other ways…it challenges us to serve one another, to play more honestly, to really care about the community of it.

We may not be breaking any musical ground, but we are having the time of our lives.  We are playing from the deepest parts of the soul, and are continually working to become a single organism that works interdependently.  You don’t learn that in school.  There are other contexts and other people who are more willing and capable of stretching musical theory, and pushing to the furthest reaches of the musical galaxy.  And, honestly, we are indebted to them because the further they push music outward, the more space is created in the middle, where we live.

Didn’t think that innocent, little comment would produce so much philosophical musing.  Cool.

Also, we named the band, Trio 116, because we are awesome.

Adam