30s, 40s, 50s….jazz, swing….upbeat for dancing….. romantic and smoochy…we do it all!
Well, last night’s rehearsal was a stomping success! We had great fun trying out different numbers at different tempos, aiming for 150 bpm – and it was really surprising how well they worked! I was dancing, the band were dancing, so much energy in room 10 last night!
We’re buying some more upbeat songs to add to these, so our dancing set is well on its way.
And lovely Ailsa, playing her alto sax, has decided to join us, so it seems we didn’t scare her too much last week!
Remember that party I mentioned a few weeks ago? Well, Karen, the organiser, came along to our rehearsal the other day, to see if we were the sort of band she was looking for, and…… we are! But we have to get more dance-type numbers to play, which is great, as that’s what we should be doing – people want to dance and have fun.
And Ailsa came along for the first time too, playing her alto sax. She was brilliant! Though I suspect she was surprised at the amount of sight reading she found herself doing…! Well played, Ailsa, I hope you weren’t put off!
Although we were down in numbers this week, we decided to meet up anyway – it’s often interesting doing songs without some of the instruments ..concentrates the mind! And tonight was no exception…
As Dan said – it looks like Hazel does everything! I think the rest of us could just stay at home, and let her play…we missed her so much tonight! And with Joël away too (we missed you, Joël!), our music was very ‘bare’ tonight – we had to lots of counting, timing our ins. And that was just when we weren’t laughing! (With each other, not at each other. Of course….!)
Hopefully a full house next week though. And a bassist coming along for a try-out, which should be interesting.
Sorry, no recordings yet – the quality of the recording wasn’t good enough.
Mark made a few recordings of us last night, as he seems to think we’re beginning to shape up (at last!) – we hope to add some snippets to this site soon, to give potential clients a taste of what we can do.
I missed last week’s practice as I was away, so this was the only sax I’ve seen for a fortnight! Back to work for last night’s practice though, and it was a great one. My friend Aladar came along to play his double bass with us, and it was amazing at the difference it made to our sound! Of course, he won’t have time to join us very regularly, as he’s so busy, but hopes to get to gigs, which is fantastic!
Now, all we need is a pianist/keyboard player…..anyone?!
Well, hopefully for a lot more nights than that – we’re starting to plan gigs! One at the end of July, but hopefully another before that, in Chipping Sodbury, and possibly a party in June. And lots of exciting ideas and plans! I can’t wait!
It’s been great just playing together, but we’ve always said, right from the start, that we’re not going to be just a rehearsal band – it’s just that there’s so much rehearsing to do, when all the material is new! But we do seem to be bedding in really well together now, our set is taking shape, and having some dates to work towards will be a terrific way of concentrating the mind…!
Ben the drummer had a holiday from us tonight, and he’ll be delighted to learn how very difficult it was to do without him! But with a combination of electronic metronomes and optimistic counting, we got by…!
And Dave, one of our alto sax players was away too (these men are so romantic, having Valentine’s Day hols!) so there were lots of…well…quiet bits in our tunes! But as I’ve said before, it’s good when musicians are occasionally away, it pares down the music to the bare bones, there are no hiding places! (Something I myself was very aware of tonight, having to count beats before starting to sing)
One person who bravely came along was Joel, our lovely French guitarist. There’s loads of music for him to learn, but he’s starting to plough through it, and making us sound much better already, a much fuller sound.
Joel, a guitarist, came along tonight to try out. I think he found all the new music he’ll have to learn rather overwhelming….or maybe it was meeting us which had that effect on him! Anyway, he seemed keen, and made lots of notes, so I’ve high hopes of him joining us.
A fun practice tonight – we enjoyed laughing at…no sorry…with Dan, and his disintegrating trombone mute….!
Dan the drummer brought along his new recording kit tonight, to try it out and get an idea of how we’re sounding. And we’re sounding pretty good (she said, modestly..!) But we won’t be sharing any of it just yet, Hazel (tenor sax) was away, and the elusive new bass player still hasn’t shown up, so some of our numbers were sounding a bit bare in parts. But it won’t be long, I’m sure! 🎤 🎶🎵
We’ve had some fairly major changes of personnel since my last post (did you notice it had gone quiet?!)
Mike and Emma have left us, due to lack of time, and John decided to go too; we’ll miss them all hugely, and for a day or so thought we might fold…but we’re not to be got rid of that easily! David has definitely joined us as a second alto sax player, which is fantastic – it allows Mark to really show what he can do, with fewer restrictions than before.
We had a brilliant, useful practice tonight – thoroughly getting to grips with four of our favourite numbers, ironing out some kinks, and polishing them up to performance standard. And the confidence levels are noticeably rising…fast!! I’m sure it won’t be very long before we’re playing in public….
room 10 