local gigs, the Real book, and sitting in..

[BGinNJ]

I went to a local jazz trio gig of a guitar player I know. He's a good player and gigs a lot, though mostly rock & acoustic. On this one, both he and the piano player (when she was even playing) were using a Real Book on EVERY tune. The bass player seemed to be looking on occasionally. To their credit, they played pretty well together.

Well, another trumpet playing friend came, too, and he sat in on a couple of tunes, as did I, and at the end of the evening we finished with a blues. The audience liked it, and people told me I sounded good, too.

I guess there's people here who'd love to have that available to them, and also pros and people in regular bands who wouldn't bother with it. Me, I'm a bit frustrated and sad that this is often what the "state of jazz" is, at least for me.

[lakejw]

I would rather have somebody look at a book and play a tune well than the alternatives, which include but are not limited to a) s***ting all over the tune or b) playing the same 8 tunes every night.

But yea, I get what you mean.
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[zackh411]

[ktag]

[SatchmoGillespie]

[Brad361]

[razeontherock]

[SatchmoGillespie]

[aluckyitalian]

[horntooter]

The point of playing a gig is making good music, not demonstrating you have a good memory. Now I realize you used to have to cut your teeth in jazz learning and playing standards by ear, but it just isn't the case anymore. If you sound good reading, so be it. If you sound bad reading, then maybe you need to consider playing by ear. At the end of the day, if you got the job done, then you did what you were supposed to.

I used to play in a musical where the 2nd chair hand wrote in all the sharps and flats even though they were in the key signature. He didn't miss. Was it really that bad of a "crutch" if he played well?

[homecookin]

[horntooter]

I'm in total agreement, homecookin. Absolutely. That was not my point though. My point was not to judge someone for reading music if they are playing the music well.

It's not my personal approach. I have probably hundreds of tunes memorized (I honestly have no idea since I've never listed them). Many are not "memorized" by rote but simply because I can play by ear and know how the song goes. Once you learn this, memorization becomes MUCH easier!

[BGinNJ]

I play guitar, too, so I agree the rhythm section really needs to hold it together, and if you have to read to get it done, so be it. Hey, I'll even watch another guitar players fingers to follow along on a (3 chord rock) tune.

The thing that disappoints me about this is, jazz is a creative art, not about just getting through a song or an infrequent playing opportunity with a pick-up band. To improvise, you have to know the tune. To sound at all like a band that interacts and swings, not just reading chords from a book, you have to know the tune. And for a trumpet player like myself to get better at playing jazz, one needs to play with a good rhythm section.

The idea that memorizing a tune is obsolete because you can look it up on an iPad sounds like another nail in the coffin of jazz.

[oljackboy]

Old school jazz players never had music in front of them on a gig. People had to know a lot of tunes. Really know them. If you played your own music, you certainly knew it. Times have changed.