Many thanks to Derek Nash for coming to the Jazz Co-op despite his car suffering a flat tyre on the way. Whilst Derek was sorting that out, we got ourselves warmed up with:
“Yardbird Suite” by Charlie Parker
“Triste” by Antonio Carlos Jobim
As we were getting to the end of “Triste”, Derek arrived and took the last chorus with a barn storming solo. We then covered the following tunes:
“This Here”, sometimes known as “Dis Here” by Bobby Timmons
“Draggin’ on the Ground” by Derek Nash
The first tune is a 3/4 Blues-ish composition with a tricky-ish dominant 7 descending chromatic section in it. Derek pointed out that we should be able to play anything in any key, especially if you intend to accompany singers and gave us an example of his warm up routine where he takes a phrase and plays it in every key, dropping a semi-tone every time.
The importance of stagecraft was raised and we were reminded that in the end, our aim should be to engage and entertain an audience. This this end, we replayed “This Here” with only the rhythm section providing a grove, gradually getting louder, building excitement and then stopping abruptly to allow the opening phrase to be played by the horn section before rejoining for the rest of the tune.
“Draggin’ on the Ground” is a funky, Derek Nash original for which we were supplied with parts for each instrument – even the trombone. Impressive. Everyone had a great time playing over this and it made a nice change to have a bit of funk going on.