Final set list and order
The final set list I decided on for the concert was as follows:
Autumn Leaves
Blue moon
Take the A train
Fly me to the moon
Satin Doll
The days of wine and roses
Georgia
Blues piece – Mactaggart’s Mood
However just before I was set to go on I was asked if I could remove a couple of songs so that we wouldn’t run over. The two songs I decided on removing were blue moon and satin doll , although in Satin Dolls case, it made its way into the final cut via the encore.
I’m slightly saddened that Blue moon didn’t feature, however it was amazing to be given the chance to play a gig like this at all and it went really well, therefore I’m not too disappointed at this.
Overall I think I organised the set list perfectly, and the feedback given about it was very positive such as the space between the songs featuring singers creating a good balance to the performance which was great to hear.
Equipment list
Luckily the venue that I was playing at had a piano, otherwise I would’ve needed to bring down a keyboard and mic that up. Instead we used the Grand piano at the Delius center and miced that up. For the piano we used two dynamic microphones which were connected to a Pa and controlled by a mixer at the back of the room. Darren was using a bass guitar which he bought and was plugged into a bass amp which wasn’t miced up. Fraser was playing on a drumkit which also didn’t need to be miced up. Other than that, all we needed were the lights which you can see behind me and extension chords and wires. We were using an online tickets system, so there were a couple of people on the door checking tickets. Other than that, the venue staff set up the seats and the bar and we just came in set up and the teachers packed down the next morning.
If I was to put on a professional gig like this, I would need to bring all of this equipment myself. A PA system would cost me about 300 pounds upwards, as well as a good keyboard and amp set up which would probably be around 1000 pounds. I would then have to pay door staff, bar staff as well as hire out the venue and if I was paying for two session musicians to play with me, it could’ve cost me 200 pounds upwards per person, as can be seen in the link below.
https://www.lastminutemusicians.com/agency/musicians_london.html
The beginning of any concert is pivotal to how the crowd receives you and will judge you for the rest of the concert, therefore I’m happy to say that we started really strongly with probably my strongest track on the whole set list, autumn leaves. Although I made a couple of mistakes throughout the song, at 2.00 minutes you can hear me make a slight mistake, I think that I rectified these mistakes well and they didn’t take away from the overall flow of the piece. I was quite nervous before playing and towards the beginning of the concert, however starting with autumn leaves and playing it very well as a band allowed me to relax and enjoy the performance. An excellent atmosphere from the crowd gave me a huge boost in confidence and I took this forward into my playing and improvisation which I think I did to quite a high standard. I also have to give huge credit to Lewis who was on sound for this gig, we decided to mic up the piano in the end and I think that it sounds really balanced overall. Listening back to my performance, there are parts where my soloing doesn’t flow as well as it could, however for the most part I think I did really well when improvising and more practice and experimenting in the future should improve my standard of playing in this field.
For Take the A train, I think we started the song incredibly well with great timing and accuracy. Points for improvements on this track for me include playing softer with my left hand and improving my comping, both of which I will have mentioned throughout this project. Listening to Darren’s bass solo I could’ve played some scarcer more interesting voicing’s when comping as it sounds a bit heavy handed, overall comping is definitely an area I’m looking forward to improving on in the future.
Fly me to the moon was incredibly fun to play as Veronica’s voice sounds absolutely amazing. Overall I thought we sounded very strong on this song and we all played to a very good standard. A minor criticism for my self on this song, is that when improvising I only used the A blues scale and I could have experimented with other scales. Other than that I’m very proud of how Fly me to the moon sounded.
Although The days of wine and roses began in the last video I’m going to review the whole song here just to make it easier to keep a track of. After a slightly wobbly begging, it definitely picked up, however I feel that my soloing technique on this piece can definitely improve as well as my comping technique as they were both a bit shaky. The actual melody sounds really strong and I think we ended the piece really well as a band. There were a few mistakes in some parts of the piece, however I think I recovered well from these.
After having some problems with Summertime earlier in the process I was happily surprised with how good it sounded on this occasion. I think my solo was pretty good, however I could still improve my soloing technique on this song for future performances. There was a bit after my improvisation where Leah came in slightly earlier and we as a band had to readjust to deal with this. You can definitely hear the mistake but we recovered really well from this in my opinion. I think we ended incredibly well on this piece.
For Georgia, the iconic Ray Charles intro sounded for me really great. We struggled as a band at first to get fully in time but when we did I think we produced a great performance of this song. The stride piano really fitted the atmosphere we were trying to create and I didn’t make too many mistakes. The improvisation sounded quite fresh as it cut through the sound from the rest of the band and built over time. Overall I was really proud of how this version of Georgia sounded as it was probably my favorite out of the whole set list.
Mactaggart’s mood – This was probably the funnest song to play on the night, the clicking that turned to clapping later on in the song was slightly surreal. However I really enjoy playing the blues and loved improvising on this song. As I had written the head, I felt very proud that it had been received so well by the crowd and this inspired me to do some great improvisation overall. The comping again sounded slightly overpowering , which is definitely an area I’m going to be working on after this project. After the set list change before my performance, this was going to be the last song, however due to a great crowd response we decided to play an encore. At the end I can be seen discussing whether or not to play another song with Darren and what it should be.
The last song I played was originally cut out a few minutes before we performed in order to cut the set length down, however it was reintroduced for an encore after high demand which again was quite surreal.
The final song we played was Satin Doll which was a great way to sign off a great night. It started very strongly and overall, it was a very strong performance of this song in every aspect. The areas I feel I could have improved are areas I have already covered many times through out this project which are comping and improvising. However these are techniques that take professionals years to master so I shouldn’t really be ashamed at the level that I am playing as it sounds quite good overall.
Summary of my performance overall
Overall I don’t think my final could have gone much better. I feel that we put in a really strong performance and the crowd feedback was really positive. I feel that I engaged well with the audience and got across the general message that I wanted to convey. I think that as I was facing the crowd and the way the rest of the band were set up, we created a very intimate atmosphere which is what I was aiming for with the genre I was playing. The venue worked really well and we virtually sold out the Delius which was incredible for a first Jazz gig for myself. Of course, as I talked about earlier in this page, my technique still has a huge way to go before I can be doing this professionally, however I think we created a really positive atmosphere which is what you generally want from a gig and people seemed to be really impressed by the level of our playing. The band communication was great in this performance, as we were always in contact with one another visually meaning that when any mistakes arose, we easily dealt with them and got back on track. This performance gave me a massive boost in confidence overall and huge new levels of self believe in what I can achieve through music. I felt very nervous before my gig but these thoughts mostly evaporated when I got on stage and I just sat back and enjoyed the evening. I can’t wait to do more gigs like this!