Category: c) Musicianship
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How Not to Sit In
Don’t like to be personal round here, so I’ve kept the following story as anonymous as possible (so as to protect the guilty). But it’s absolutely true and it illustrates almost perfect technique in how to piss any band off… Anyway, on a gig a while ago, a guy approached me during a break and…
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I’m Sorry…
There are many institutions of British humour that have achieved international recognition – Monty Python, for instance, and for a slightly older generation, The Goons. This post is about a radio classic that has been running longer than both and is every bit as wonderful but perhaps not quite so widely acclaimed abroad. It’s called…
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Lies, Damn Lies & Marketing Part IV: Is That So?
File this one under personal attitude, because we’re not going to be diving knee-deep into tritone-infested waters here. More of a generalised New Year type reflection, really. We’re all prey from time to time to concerns about how we’re perceived by others – band members, other musicians, management, audience, the press, the world, the dog… It’s…
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Pausing for Breath
Here’s another video. Apologies for writing less recently, but it’s that ho-ho-ho time of year and I’ve got other things on. Anyway, this video is a stone-cold classic. Here’s Bud Powell in Copenhagen doing Anthropology (not, as a friend of mine who played with us the other week and cocked up the head described it…
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Circling the Square
I’ve been asked to post something on piano fingerings for jazz. I’ll do my usual – half-answer the question and then talk about something I think is far more important. With precomposed music, you work out a fingering in advance but it’s largely based on standardised ways of working with scales and arpeggios. With improvised…
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La Mer… Qu’on Voit Danser…
Got a few projects on, so I’m taking a little holiday from blogging for a couple of weeks. Hope my dedicated 51.2531 readers (it says here) will be able to handle the disappointment. Hey, I’m sanguine about it – the only time a jazz musician is ever going to be on a yacht, it won’t be…
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Carry On Regardless – er, no, Regardfully
I sometimes teach a bit of piano. It tends to be informal, and while I’ll certainly sometimes get waist-deep in technical or harmonic subtleties, it usually involves silly analogies with pint glasses and boxes of matches, sometimes even inventing a daft personality for your left foot – Tony the Tapper… Did a little impromptu one the other…
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The Silver Bullet
Adios then, Señor Blues. We did a couple of numbers as tributes to Horace Silver on the gig last Monday. Didn’t even know someone had written lyrics to Nica’s Dream. Cool though. Horace came up in the bebop era, but really hit his stride in the aftermath. Hard bop – the more accessible, downhome, bluesy,…
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Have You Listened to the Recordings?
Simple enough question. Have you? Or did you just learn Blue Bossa, All Blues, GDS, Canteloupe Island, Blues for Alice, ATUR and, um, all that jazz from courses? C’mon, be honest, I’m not going to set the dog on you… Jazz is as much a tradition as it is a means of personal expression. Or rather,…
Jason Lyon Music 