You know how (if you’re a musician) when you start drinking, long before you’re too messed up to drive you start to loose the edge needed to play at a virtuoso level? Well today I worked at home cuz it was a cold, dark January day and I’ve been nursing a sore back all week. So when five o’clock rolled around I figured rather then get on the train for the trip home I could just have a drink or two and play me some piano in my extra found time.
My backache was alleviated, but I couldn’t play about half the tunes in my set. But it’s not just a question of speed. I couldn’t play my Monk stuff, for example, but I could play a bunch of stride-adapted Beatles songs. The diff is complex jazz harmony vs straight triadic harmony. But some kinds of tunes really work. I ended up playing Darkness by The Police until I was able to do all three parts (bass, ostonato and vocal) together, then an interpretation of Miami 2017 and Erik Satie’s 1st Gymnopedie, none of which are in my usual lineup.