I still can't decide if it was just a super easy-no pressure gig, or they forgot that they hired us. We got there, set up, and hung around for about an hour. No word from the client. Finally, I called and said "We're here! Just checking in." They were like, "Cool, it'll be great," but no directions or timeline or anything. Do your thing! Use excellent corporate jazz judgement!
People started to trickle in, so we played for about forty-five minutes. Just super casual--calling standards out of a fake book. I once had a handler/agent tell me that any longer than ten seconds between songs was too long. This was not one of those gigs!
At that point, the group meandered into the other room. Soooooo...now what? I tracked down the contact--"Where do we go?" She was fine with resetting the band wherever, so I picked an outlet on the wall in the other hanger and we brought our instruments in. After about forty-five minutes of tunes, we were passed the end time, so we stopped playing and hit the buffet, and everybody was cool, and then they had a Q and A while we munched in the corner. Easy gig!
The trio was Scott Glazer on bass, Nick Rosen on keyboard, and myself. As we were loading out, Nick mentioned that he was going to hit the jam session at Venkman's on the way home. I wanted to go, but I was also anxious about it--I thought I did a good job playing host Joe Gransden's big band a few weeks ago, and I didn't want to spoil my impression by stinking it up at the jam session.
But I went, and Joe saw me and called me up, and I played on a blues (Sandu), and actually played really well! Success! Huh! Maybe I can do this after all!
Then Joe called Nick and I up to play a tune together, and I called Invitation, and then played a good amount of bullshit, and I was not feeling so good about going to the session! I should've gone home after my gig! I have stuff to do at home!
I went to the back of the room to kind of hide and possibly sneak out, but I got called up to play on Caravan, and I felt like I mostly redeemed myself. Two out of three ain't bad?
So anyway, now I kind of feel like a goober for avoiding this jam session for so long. Joe does a tremendous job of making everybody feel welcome, and I was comfortable with the vibe and everything. Guess I'll have to make a point of coming through here a little more often.
