First off, the weather has been really confused lately. Last weekend it was all warm with promises of spring, and then it turned cold and stormy and just plain weird. Saturday it snowed the whole day, but it melted almost as fast, so it really just made everything wet. I had meant to rake the yard as the first part of the spring yard cycle, but had too punt. Sunday it was cold, but by late afternoon the sun came out and it felt nice to be outside, so I took care of the front yard. But then yesterday it snowed again. This time it picked up when night fell, so by morning it was something like 6” of snow that had tuned into 3” of slush the consistency of wet cement. Oy.
Saturday night Jeannie and I went out to hear Mike play piano at the Underhill, a local restaurant/bar. It turns out it’s a pretty swanky place – we’ll have to go back for dinner sometime. Mike’s wife (who’s also Lizzy’s algebra teacher) and some other friends were there too. We heard the end of Mike’s middle set, which was mainly standards, and his last set, which was mainly rock/pop. Heavy on the Billy Joel and Elton John, which is his thing. Mike says he does mainly standards during the dinner, and mixes it up later when it’s just folks at the bar. As far as the standards go, he didn’t really solo on any of them, and his voicings were pretty trad, but sometimes he got into a good Red Garland kind of vibe.
It turns out the owner of the club just installed a grand piano a few months ago, and they have live piano music five nights a week there. He’s trying to make the piano bar thing happen. So now I want to see if I can get a gig there. Mike says I should go for it. Only thing is I don’t know that many standards. I know a few, plus a handful of modern jazz numbers, but not two set’s worth. Here’s the list:
East St. Louis Toodle-Loo – Duke Ellington
Pannonica – Monk
Round Midnight – Monk
Powerhouse – Raymond Scott
Cantaloupe Island – Herbie Hancock
Letter From Home – Pat Metheny
So I decided to learn a few more:
Manhattan – Rodgers/Hart
My Romance – Rodgers/Hart
My Funny Valentine – Rodgers/Hart
Someone to Watch Over Me – Gershwin
Naima – John Coltrane
Dolphin Dance – Herbie Hancock
As you can see I picked mainly ballads. This saves me from having to learn to play them fast. My intent is to solo on them. It turns out most of the ones I picked are by Rodgers and Hart. They just have a brilliant sense of melody and how to back it with great harmonies. Pop music definitely lost an important dimension when rock’n’roll came in as far as that goes.
I’m at the point now where I’m working thru them, trying to get up to real time. But as I do I’m also working thru how I want to approach the voicings. This is no small matter. It gives me a chance to put into effect a lot of what I studied earlier this winter with the Metaphors book. I definitely have a sound in my head I’m going for. It’s fairly Monk influenced and rides the cusp between lyrical and dissonant. Manhattan feels like it wants to have a stride approach, cuz that’s the main way I know for an uptempo song without a rhythm section. This whole thing is also good cuz it gives me familiarity with some new jazz chord progressions, so next batch of standards I learn will be easier.
Still, it will take a few weeks to get these songs together. But with these, and the ones I already know, and the not-really-jazz-but-work-in-a-jazz-context ones I have, I ought to be able to handle it. I’ll let you know if it pans out.
