The Dappled Cat - The Music Place Jazz Summer School 2008

About two weeks ago I once again attended the annual Music Place Jazz Summer School hosted by the kind folk at The Cinnamon Club in Bowdon. It was another exhausting week of scales, arpeggios, triplets, grooves, vibes and mixed emotions. Don't get me wrong, it's a really great week but it can expose the raw side of one's ego when you realise what you (still) can't do, though it's all too easy to forget what you have actually learnt. I have to say I found this year quite a tough one as I wasn't really all that happy with my playing during the week. That's not to say I didn't have a good time and learn a good deal to boot. The evening jam sessions in particular were excellent, being expertly facilitated by Suzanne Higgins.

I had originally made the decision not to attend this year as I went on Mike Walker's fab guitar retreat in Andalucia, Spain. However my other 'arf, Jane has taken up jazz ivory tinkling and decided to do the course this year so I figured I'd go along partly to keep her company. The set up for most days is 'sectionals' in the morning which is based on your instrument, and ensembles in the afternoon roughly grouped by standard. The course tutors this year were Mike Walker (guitar), Iain Dixon (horns), Andy Schofield (horns), Les Chisnall (keys), Caroline Boaden (drums) and Alec Dankworth (bass).

Having been on the summer school before and having had one to one lessons from Mike, I suspected the guitar classes might be going over stuff I'm fairly familiar with but it was a pleasant surprise to find that he took a different tack this year. One thing that's been noticed is that the general standard has improved over the last few years and the bar has definately been raised. In the guitar class everyone had attended the course at least once before so we were able to look at some new areas including the finer subtleties of triplet swing feel. We went into this in quite some detail and it was clear there's a lot to getting this feel spot on. Mike employed the phrase 'Dave the dappled cat' to good effect to help master the timing of the swung '2 and' beat of the charleston groove landing on the word 'cat'.

Some interesting exploration of the melodic minor scale was very welcome too, with it's altered and lydian dominant modes useful over certain applications of dominant chords, and the Hitchcock/Debussy favoured mystical locrian natural two mode. For sure no one was left in any doubt as to how to swing the metronome on the 2 and 4.

There were some great players in my group for the afternoon ensemble sessions. This was good for keeping me on my toes and I was sometimes left for dead if asked to play the melody for a tune. Mike had us running down the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th notes of each chord of 'Solar' [I never got his "they say so-la in Liverpool" joke] and I came up with some particularly tasty 'clams' [= very wrong notes] when forced to improvise just using these notes of the scale. It's surprising sometimes how the slightest rearrangement of a scale or arpeggio brings you to a grinding halt. We did a lot of work on swing feel in the ensemble class as well, alternating between playing all of the '1 and a, 2 and a' triplet beats and then dropping playing but still feeling the 'and's to get the quaver swing feel.

The final evening of the week is always the school concert to which family and friends come. A nervous Jane did really well trading eights and fours on an Abdullah Ibrahim tune in Alec Dankworth's ensemble. In the end I think I chickened out a little by choosing to solo on the straightforward blues of 'Thing's Ain't What They Used To Be' a la BB King. Nevertheless it seemed to go down well so I guess it must have come across OK. The rather shattered tutors then sent us home with some mellow renditions of a few standards. Now it's time to practice...

Maiden Voyage (Slight Return)

After faffing about and making excuses of one sort or another I finally dragged myself down to the Matt and Phreds monthly jazz jam run by sax player Ed Kainyek last Monday. My first experience of this was a good year ago now and hadn't gone too well but that's the way it goes with jams I guess.

This Monday went pretty well I'm pleased to say. First up was a slightly funky version of 'Maiden Voyage' that I think was great. I'm historically a trained funkster having been part of the London 'Acid Jazz' scene when I had the luxury of being a full time musician. Not surprisingly then, this sort of vibe sits nicely under my fingers and I can generally pull it off pretty well. After this track Gavin Barras joined us on bass. We agreed it was nice to finally get to get to play together after having met a little while ago. He seemed into the Maiden Voyage vibe which was good to hear. We then had a crack at 'My Favourite Things'. We did the straight form version without the Coltrane E-7 to F#-7 long modal vamp so it was medium concentration all the way. It's quite a long form without many harmonic signposts so fairly easy to get lost in, but it more or less hung together. By no means my most inspired improv but no disgrace either.

It was great to catch up with pianist Sam Smith of Mrs Columbo, recently returned to Manchester after a years sojourn at the Birmingham Conservatoire. He was a great player before he went and continues to get even better. We had a good chat about various inspirational books on music. It was the first time I've come across house band drummer Ben Gray who seemed a pleasant chap. On the last track of the second set (can't remember it's name) I got up with Jo McCallum and local stalwart, drummer Rob Turner. It was another groove track that I hadn't played before with a few key shifts but looked manageable. It ended up being a long version so I passed on the improv (or I had my head down at the wrong time or something).

All in all a pretty good evening and I'm looking forward to getting out again. Next stop I think will be Ed's weekly jam at The King's Arms in Salford if it's still going.

alt.didsbury.tea

Having moved back to Manchester a few years ago now (I'm originally from Stockport), I couldn't help but be amused by references to 'leafy boho' Didsbury, as nice a place as it may be. A Cafe Rouge and Slug and Lettuce do not bohemia make. This for sure is not Hoxton or Prenzlauer Berg (no doubt London and Berlin scenesters will dispute the boho cred of these places too). Having said that, the opening of a fantastic new cafe, The Art of Tea, may nudge it a little more in that direction. As the cafe's MySpace says it "promises to put some much needed alt. back into the Didsbury scene!" - [everybody and everything now has a MySpace - apparently the cafe is male and 29 years old]. You can find this great new place at 47 Barlow Moor Road in Didsbury. The cafe offers "wholesome and hearty food, speciality drinks, wifi access, regular events, rotating art work, an awesome soundtrack and somewhere to pick up a classic novel".

This all began as sad story. We headed down to Zero Records a few weeks ago to pick up a second hand CD and maybe a novel from the The Village Book Store at the back of the record shop only the find the place closed, seemingly another victim of bittorrent mp3 file sharing and Amazon. On returning from holiday in Lakeland we drove past to see the Zero Records sign back outside the shop and the new Art of Tea frontage. One of things myself and friends have been moaning about for ages is the lack of a decent cafe and here it now is! The next day we duly patronised the establishment and I can recommend not only excellent tea, but great coffee and a fine cream cheese and sun dried tomato bagel. Even the side salad garnish excelled with rocket leaves and a decent balsamic salad dressing instead of the usual pointless ice berg lettuce . The decor is a sort of alternative granny style with small knitted doilys on the tables and 1950's standard issue retro sofas.

Not only this but The Art of Tea is hosting free Sunday afternoon 'Red Deer Tea Sessions' run by the The Red Deer Club. Local folk fave, Liz Green will playing there on Sunday the 7th of October at 3pm along with Aidan Smith & Sally Murray. Promises to be a good one, Liz being the winner of the Emerging Talent Competition at this years Glastonbury festival.

A Hard Days Night in Tunisia

I've been off the MCR jam scene for ages now. Last year and the year before I used to go probably every other week or so to the 'All That Jazz' jam at The Arch Bar in Hulme and Po Na Nas when it was happening. The All That Jazz jam has had mixed fortunes over the years as detailed on some earlier posts on this blog. There's been all sorts of rumour mill about what happened but sadly this jam has been shut down since about November of last year. It's a real shame as The Arch Bar was under new management and they'd done the place up nicely with new sofas and even provided a decent PA for the vocalists. However, the council stepped in due to noise issues and installed a noise limiter. This basically cuts the power to the stage and PA if the volume level goes above a certain point for more than a few seconds. When I was based in London playing in a funk band we played at a venue in Camden Town called 'WKD' that had one of these and they do seem to be set to very low volume levels.

Anyway, so in Manchester we seem to have three jazz jams now; a latin jam at Lamarrs every Wednesday run by Kirsty Almeida, Ed Kainyek's straight ahead jazz Jam Session at The Kings Arms in Salford also every Wednesday and a monthly one at Matt and Phreds. I decided to give the latin one a go last night, not that I'm especially into latin jazz but thought it would be worth a try. Turned out to be a tough evening and left me quite dispirited. I went down there on my own and didn't really know anyone apart from Richard Iles who I don't know that well. We chatted briefly but he was playing in the house band and with a bunch of other people. I had to wait a while to get a shot as well. First track wasn't too bad but my playing was a little shaky and my timing wasn't great. Next was 'Oye Como Va', a simple tune but the vibe in the group didn't really allow me to have a shot at improv so that was disappointing. Then a couple of other guys got up and went into the standard 'A Night in Tunisia'. At this point I crashed and burned and had to step out. I left feeling a bit like a useless beginner sadly. I guess it's par for the course and to be expected as I've still got lots to learn in the jazz sphere and I'm clearly not match fit playing live inevitably. Nevertheless it was a bit saddening so I've gotta make sure it doesn't knock me back too much. It's frustrating when you know you can play well but feel like you can't play anything.