Keeping the personnel in a jazz group intact.

[Hardbopjazz]

Today’s jazz scene it must be truly difficult to maintain a steady band. Up into the 1960s artists would do long engagements at clubs. I saw a web site that listed the shows at the Village Gate for about 6 months. Wes Montgomery played there 4 weeks straight, followed by Cannonball Adderely Quintet for another 3 weeks and the Horace Silver Quintet for 3 weeks and then Monk and his band. At what point did these long engagements cease to happen in jazz? Did this contribute to musicians jumping around and playing with other bands and leaders? This is my take on why group leaders have different musicians almost every few months. A musician needs to make money to survive, so finding gainful employment would mean joining someone else’s band to play at a club this week and going into another group the following week.

If this is so, how do you get tight as a working band if you're not playing always with the same musicans?

[fasstrack]

......how do you get tight as a working band if you're not playing always with the same musicans?

You listen louder.

It's almost impossible to maintain an exact personnel gig to gig. Probably it's easier if you're a well-known leader with young players eager to make a name or, better, committed to the music. Still something's (can't refuse offer, situation the player wants to broach or keep alive, a personal matter) always gonna come along and a sub will be called. This is not a bad thing. To an astute, seasoned, prepared, and open bandleader it's an opportunity for many things: You get to feel out a new person musicially and personally; what they can, can't, or won't handle. You reserve the right as bandleader to call the person again or move on. If it works out, and it usually does (in my long bandleading experience anyway) you have another name to add to the talent pool and they will have had one gig already to learn the material.

Often today and of necessity, especially in these days of fewer stable-personelled working groups an improvising group at a very high level and with the greatest players can and do meet (as people and players) and hit on the bandstand and make damn good or even great music. Again, the greatest improvisors listen the loudest, are the most open and trusting, musicially speaking and are also, again at least musically, ready to surrender their smaller selves to the musical journey. It's also a given that they will know hundreds of tunes and possibly some or many of each other's. At that level the main thing is the listening and the openness.

For me, I got used to changing partners long ago and love it. I enjoy shifting gears, thinking on my feet to adjust to new people and having new strengths come into play each time out. As a composer, in a showcase setting for my material I can't wait to hear what the newest bad mo fo in the band will bring to my pieces. I also want to hear and try my wings on their songs if they write.

In what I call 'service music' i.e. gigs where it's important to reach people first and last with material they know (this is a large part of my gig income as I've been leading groups in the mornings and afternoons for the Jazz Foundation of America in schools and homes for the aged, etc. It's also something I believe in to the marrow and am proud and thrilled to be part of) professionalism, punctuality, knowledge of tunes in all keys without the music and a desire to want to do a great job for the audience, bandleader and JFA become very important. But listening loud, going with the flow in situations where the gig itself is fluid and can turn on a dime again are paramount. I'm so lucky to live in NY where the talent pool and level of professionalism are pretty much par---and make it so easy.

Finally, the greats we know and love, especially 'back in the day' were all really good friends. That helps a lot as good music and friendship are like ham on rye. It's still that way a lot of the time.

Hope some of this helps.

Edited November 18, 2008 by fasstrack

[JSngry]

Today’s jazz scene it must be truly difficult to maintain a steady band. Up into the 1960s artists would do long engagements at clubs. I saw a web site that listed the shows at the Village Gate for about 6 months. Wes Montgomery played there 4 weeks straight, followed by Cannonball Adderely Quintet for another 3 weeks and the Horace Silver Quintet for 3 weeks and then Monk and his band. At what point did these long engagements cease to happen in jazz?

Mid-60s is when I understand that it began happening. by the end of the decade, it was pretty much over save for the bigger & biggest names, and even then, I don't know of too many people who were playing more than a week at a time.

Also gone was having multi-band bills. You look at the bills in the 50s, it was nuts, almost like a festival at one club.

Culprits? Again, as I understand it - the mass/massive popularity of rock, not just as music but as cultural phenomenon; urban turmoil; headliners' fees increasing past the smaller clubs ability to sustain them; stuff just moving on.

[Teasing the Korean]

I have found that it is easier to keep a group together if there is a shared sense of identity, purpose, and/or aesthetic. If it's just a general "jazz" project that attracts general "jazz" players, folks are more likely to come and go.