Playing the Saturday afternoon set at the Jazz Festival in Chichester was great. The best gig we've ever had. 300 people, no one played a bum note. Wonderful. Pity the band split after that. BE NICE TO EACH OTHER.
If you are coming to the new Jazz Smugglers workshop, then you need to be nice to each other.
That's all I ask.
Yeah, I know that sounds funny. But I'm serious.
If someone plays well - for the standard they are at, then please tell them. This is not about good players getting praise, yes they get told too, but they have to be playing above their usual standard. Everyone needs encouragement for the level they usually play.
Everyone is nervous at a jazz workshop, particularly when playing at one for the first time. We'll have all different levels of ability on January 11th from beginners to advanced. The advanced ones tend to drop out of their own accord after a couple of visits. I've got about 11 possibles, and I have not personally reached everyone yet.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN
I'll take a look at those folks who have said "yes" to coming - some I know, some I don't. I'll sort out some music and appropriate songs and try them out. No pressure - if someone does not want to take a solo they have no need to do so. So long as you can read a bit, you'll be fine. Raw beginners have too much of a problem though.
THE COSTS
For the first couple of visits, it will not cost anyone anything. After that we ask for £2 to go in to the kitty from those turning up. Nothing really, and the purpose of this is to cover costs which arise. Any surplus goes into a workshop meal fund.
THE TIME
Can you be ready to start at 7.30 on Sunday 11th Jan - set up around 7.00 perhaps?
SINGERS
Experience shows that having singers at a jazz workshop seriously limitis what the players do. Singers usually take the melody at the front and the back end, leaving the front line with just solos. But we can involve players far more than that, if they play the melody.
One evening we can have a special workshop for singers later in the year.
THE BAND
We might re-build the band from the new workshops, but that will take a couple of years. Trouble is, later on the band players become really good, that puts off beginners at the workshops. Then the workshops turn into rehearsal sessions for the band. That puts the nail into the workshop coffin except for experts. I prefer to be working with everyday people who want to get better and to practise playing in a group. That is a workshop.
WHO WILL BE THERE
Here are the acceptances so far
bass/drums/guitar/flute/horn (2)/alto/tenor (2)vibes
VIC/STEVE AND ROBERT, YOU'LL BE THERE WON'T YOU? I've deliberately not duplicated the rythmn section and have asked no other drummers, bass players or guitar players. But we need you there folks.
TALK TO ME
Please tell me what you think, e-mail me, everyone has a chance to organise the thing if they want. I can't get it right unless you tell me what is wrong. (You can always put it into syrupy words)
JAZZ SMUGGLERS BAND
I've been asked what is the situation with the Jazz Smugglers band
What happened was that I used to send a congratulatory message to everyone who played, and picked out their best playing bits Then it was discovered last August, that I needed to have an slip road put around four arteries to my heart. No big deal, surgeons were wonderful. But I could not play the other six or so gigs we had lined up, but the rest of the band did.
We scrapped the workshops for the Autumn. I laid on the settee watching re-runs of Property Ladder wondering how people could be so stupid as to argue with Sarah Beeney about the property they were renovating.
(Property development is not an ego trip, it is about doing up places and selling them on. Why pay out an extra £5,000 for a high end kitchen, when you are going to let out the property anyway and it will mostly be destroyed after five tenants in two years.)
Anyway come December, I let the band go. Some of them wanted to do other things anyway, but I did nothing to keep them together.
You know why? Childish reason really. We started the first workshops in January 04. I got us some regular gigs at the Woolpack pub in Fishbourne. When we got to play well, the band asked if we could get some more gigs outside at other venues. So I did the work of publicising them, and making contacts all over the place - it is hard work as anyone who has ever done it will know. The band members got some private gigs themselves. We did about 20 Woolpack gigs, then about 8 others in our first year. We did over 22 gigs this year, 18 last year, and no one ever said thanks. Organising 60 gigs takes a bit of effort.
The band all have to be contacted each time, asked if they were free for the gig. Most replied without chasing, but two hardly ever replied. Can you imagine how tedious that is? No one gets paid for organising these things, the vast majority of gigs are done for free, for charity. Yet the band earned about £3,000 for paid for gigs in the past year. Still no one said thanks
They are a nice bunch of folks, personally very pleasant, but musicians are not good on the human relations bit. Steve, the guitar player, not only produced the CD recording for us in his studio, a huge amount of work, he also took all his amplification equipment to and from gigs. That is one really big job to do. But no one thanked him, unless I privately reminded them each time.
So, lying on that settee, I got fed up with it and let the band fall apart. Told you it was childish.
Hope to see you on Jan 11th.
John Winkler
Quiet jazz for your wedding reception in the South of England
