I had an amazing jazz afternoon today. In fact I didn’t expect to play very well today since I barely practised anything this week. I arrived at the studio with ten minutes to spare, and looked around for an empty room to tinker around in the futile hope that suddenly, everything would sound all right.
Instead, Ben (another musician who co-runs the studio) spotted me, and, wielding a bass guitar, called me to jam with him. Er, I said, could we play Girl From Ipanema as that’s the only song I’m really familiar with? Sure, he replied.
He even started the pre-programmed drum pad, and away we went! Then he told me to improvise the next verse. Eep, I thought, but managed to come up with something. We did Autumn Leaves and a few other classics, and my jazz teacher popped in to listen. He looked pleases and told me to play on – the lesson could start later.
We were reading from score sheets that didn’t have music notes in them at all. Just key signatures like A7 D7 CMAJ7. I didn’t realise jamming was such fun. Lastly, Ben asked me to transpose a Christian song which had Jewish (?) words in it, down one key. I’ve never the tune before, but managed to hack my way through.
Then my real lesson began. Fortunately so far, Victor has been kind and encouraging to me, despite my aforementioned lack of practice. I guess it’s partly because I can bullshit my way through since much of my work requires improvisation. Which, I am thankfully picking up. However I think I need to listen to BB King for some blues inspiration.
After the lesson, Ben, who worships at St James, suggested we jazz up a few church songs in future sessions. Sounds good. I told him that St George’s is still looking for a music director and he said he had a friend who might be interested. I certainly hope we find one soon!