Performing in the Grove
Since the beginning of 2019, I have been lucky enough to have held a weekly piano residency at the Grove restaurant in Bradford. I usually perform between two and three hours with the most common times being between 6pm and 8.30pm. In this time, I have played a range of corporate and themed nights at the Grove which have provided an interesting mix of circumstances.
Here are a few pictures of the restaurant and my set up.
Repertoire
My repertoire has included a mixture of styles throughout the weeks that I have performed at the Grove. I mainly use whatever music books I can find either at home or at college. My main base for repertoire is the real book which contains hundreds of jazz standards. Currently, I probably know twenty – thirty tunes from the real book that I can play to a high enough standard at the Grove. These range from blues, ballads, bossa novas and more up tempo tunes.
I have also delved into the Beatles songbook, the La La land soundtrack and a Sam Cooke songbook.
Overall the Grove is amazing practice for my sight reading and gives me an incentive to work on a range of material every week. It is for me essentially public practice and has a lowed me to grow more confident when playing in front of people.
Equipment Arrangement
As I live quite far from the restaurant and can’t drive yet, I rely on taxis and lifts to get me to and from the restaurant. This means that I can’t carry all of my gear and therefore I needed to make alternate arrangements in order to be able to perform at the Grove. Luckily the Grove is part of Bradford college meaning that I can use college resources in order to help me out. When I begun doing this, therefore made an agreement with the media department for them to supply me the pa system. This has worked like a dream and has allowed me to take on this job with way less hassle.
Italian Evening – Thursday 14th March
The Italian evening was one of a few themed evenings that spanned my time as a cocktail pianist at the Grove. The restaurant had been changed up a bit and there were interactive activities including a photo booth. Unfortunately , I hadn’t had enough time to prepare for the Italian evening, however I managed to just about get through a version of Bella Ciao.
Other themed evenings included Valentines day and a Las Vegas themed evening with which I had to share the stage with a Cher impersonator which was an interesting experience.
Parents Evening
Parents evening was taking place in the cafe space in the Lister building of Bradford college. Nic had asked if a few of us could play at this event, however Leah and the rest of the band were unable to make it and therefore I played a piano set of about 30-40 minutes before going to the Grove to play my weekly slot.
Ual Standardisation Event
For the UAL standardisation event, I was asked to perform with the covers band consisting of Fraser on drums, Cain on bass, me on keys and Leah on vocals. We put together a thirty minute set consisting of a mixture of jazz and pop covers.
It was lovely to play with this band again and hopefully we’ll be able to do some more events like this in the future. The performance had a few holes in it, however due to the fact that we only had one practice before this it went okay. I do think we might be able to work on some more exciting and original covers of pop songs in the future, and it’ll be interesting to see what we can come up with.