[xochgtlm]

I've asked this elsewhere, but I'm always curious to hear people's opinions first hand. If you have the time to answer, what do you think the most important standards are to know for jams and/or pickup gigs? And which are your favourites? I sometimes wonder if I am not learning the best tunes for jamming as I don't hear them played all that much. But maybe I just like cheezy old tunes ... ( Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern, etc ) Maybe rank them somewhat in order of usefulness?

One two three argue!

[Fertionbratte]

Well, I would unfortunately characterize myself as a guy who doesn't know nearly enough tunes. I'm actively working to change this, but it's still really embarrassing to me to be sneaking fake books on the gig or, even worse, drying up on the bridge to something and having to pass it to the piano player.

My students sometimes ask me stuff like this, and after identifying myself as a fellow sufferer ("we both need to learn some tunes") I usually make a few basic suggestions, like:

1. Learn 'Rhythm Changes" in a few keys, starting with Bb and F. That and the blues will get you through half of Bird's repertoire right there. Learning the heads to be-bop 'rhythm' workouts is helpful too, and if you still want to play the original Gershwin melody you can pretty much get that by ear the first pass.

2.There's really two catagories of 'tunes' in my opinion. The stuff you'll use for casuals involving background music (those Gershwin-Rogers-and-Hart-Cole Porter numbers you alluded to) and the jam-session/head-cutting stuff, which tends to run to things like "Cherokee" and various Monk things, Joy Spring, Solar, and that biggest of jam session big sticks, Giant Steps.

As to this last one, if the session leader is a real bastard, he'll want to do it in 6/8. In F#.

[MattJargin]

Whenever anyone asks me to call a tune, suddenly all I can think of is "The Long and Winding Road."

But aside from that, in no particular order:

But Not For Me

It Could Happen to You

Body and Soul

Come Rain or Come Shine

Someday My Prince

How Deep is the Ocean

Wave

Embraceable You

Rhythm, of course.

Like Someone in Love

Those are some of my most frequent calls...

[Fertionbratte]

Hey Mike,

How's Montreal welcoming you back?

Last spring I played a trio gig at the chancellors house at Tulane, an insanely huge 'Gone With The Wind' style mansion on Audubon Boulevard here in New Orleans, a neighborhood so posh you have to report to a little guardhouse before you can even get onto the street.

Anyway, at the end of the gig they wanted 'one more' (don't they always) and I was considering what to play, and the piano player (Jesse Mcbride) did one of those psych-out things where he said "that tune! The one you're thinking of right now!"

Well, the one I was thinking of was Muskrat Ramble, which I don't really know, but I thought what the heck. I've heard it, I should be able to play it.

I struggled through it by ear, and afterwards NPR radio host Nick Spitzer came up and said, "hey, nice call. I haven't heard "the Fish Cheer" in years."

( for those not familiar with Country Joe's ouevre, it has the same changes).

[MattJargin]

Things are going pretty good. I haven't really been playing much; just a couple of little gigs here and there.

I'm really excited to be coming back to play with Bill and Oliver next weekend in Vanouver though. That's going to be great.

You done that PhD yet?

[Fertionbratte]

Nope. They don't seem concerned though. Tulane hired me as permanent faculty last septmember.

Quote:

[Nifoziyfar]

Quote:

[rNr5Di3S]

When I first went down to New York, fresh from high school in Qualicum (with a couple of months seasoning over the summer at the Joint) everyone was calling Stablemates, Moment's Notice, and Woody'n You, none of which I can really play to this day. The big session in those days was at the Star Cafe, in Chelsea. It was a a real dive, but fun. They had sessions there 2 or 3 nights and then on the other nights various guys had steady gigs. Junior Cook was there a lot and I used to go down and bug him to let me sit in. He had heard me at some of the jams and so he finally agreed to let me play a tune with him. This was back in 83, but I recall that it was Ed Howard on bass, and I think Bennie Green on the piano. So I get up there with Junior, and another tenor player of his vintage, Charles Davis. Junior looked at me....."blues?" "Sure", I said, much relieved. He turned to the rhythm section, said something I couldn't hear, and then kicked off Blue N' Boogie at about 420 bpm, key of Bb. I had never really played that fast before, but having memorized all the solos from both Tenor Madness, and Dex/Griff Great Encounters, I was pretty handy at blues in Bb.

Anyway, we get through 2 screaming choruses of the head, Junior points to me and heads to the bar just as the band goes up a semitone. A valuable lesson, one of many which I picked up from the great Junior Cook.

It's You Or No One
My Shining Hour
I Hear A Rhapsody
Star Eyes
Good Bait
Tune Up
Ugetsu
Bolivia
Theme for Ernie

Those are others I remember playing at sessions back then. I was playing at a jam session, either in a club or at someone's house, almost every day, sometimes more than once a day. I took cab's all over the city with Grossman going to sessions with all these guys I didn't really know, and then figured out later than they were guys who had played with Coltrane etc. Unreal.

[xochgtlm]

Thanks for the great stories and suggestions. Keep 'em coming! ;-)

John, yes I think we are in a similar boat there. From the lists given I seem to know many of the pickup/casual/crooner standards and none of the cutting session tunes ...

[MattJargin]

I don't make much distiction between the "cutting session tunes" and the other ones, personally. More changes going by faster, doesn't mean more music necessarily. In my case I find it usually means less music. I like making up melodies. The complexity of the chord and phrase structures has always struck me as potentially interesting, but also a potential distraction from what I like best about music, jazz or otherwise.

But this is kind of a big generalization. I like hearing Moment's Notice as much as the next guy.