Live Jazz...at Home Depot?
sg...@hotmail.com
home supply, or anything having to do with a home, then you're in for
a rare treat!
I will be leading a HS Jazz Ensemble (and playing) next week at a
local Home Depot Store to play at some type of event (I didn't even
bother to find out what we're playing for).
I'm sure you home supplies out there will be grooving to our splendid
versions of jazz "staples" such as "Donna Lee" (which we'll call
"Doora Lee" for all you wonderful doors out there!)and our Herbie
Handknock medley of "Laytex Voyage, Chamelehome, and Canteloupe
Fireplace"!
Has anyone else played at an unseemly venue such as this?
Gerry
Well it depends on what you think of as an unseemly venue.
I played a beer garden of sorts in San Angelo, Texas, an open air place
with a wood roof, that was more or less on a pier out on a lake. The
band-stand area was set up right next to the bathrooms. It being
outdoors-ish, the walls of the bathroom were wood slats about 1/2 inch
apart. so you could see from the outline when somebody was in there. I
was a keyboardist then and I was set up with my back to this wall. I
could lean back against it between tunes. So it mostly smelled like I
was working inside a urinal. That was pretty unseemly. From time to
time somebody would go in there and unload a bad batch of tacos or
something, and the band would have to take a 15 minute emergency break
and hope for high wind. It was absolutely intolerable.
The audience sat at the far end of the beer garden, sometimes quite
appreciative, but they were as far upwind as they could get. So much so
that when they applauded we could hear it echo off the other side of
the lake.
We were booked for three weeks, but by day 3 we had threatened the
dismissive manager of the complex enough to get him down to the
bandstand. We made him sit at stage-side for a set. After 5 minutes he
said, got up, called a plumber and moved us across the green to the
restaurant that night. The restaurant was an elegant lovely place
where Blind George was doing a solo act with his Wurly and a kickboard,
singing Lightin' Hopkins while folks ate cordon bleu. It made no sense.
So Blind George went to the beer garden and we went to the restaurant
where I fell in love with a waitress and a week later her boyfriend
(who knew?!), kicked my ass so bad I couldn't laugh or sleep lying down
for a month. That's another story, but you've heard the funniest part
already.
--
Dogmatism kills jazz. Iconoclasm kills rock. Rock dulls scissors.
myle...@gmail.com
My high school jazz combo played the grand opening of a Home Depot my
senior year of high school. I wanna say we were playing next to the
patio furniture. I'm not sure, I'd been playing jazz for maybe 6
months at that point, so I was pretty focused on that Blue Bossa
leadsheet and trying to figure out what the hell a Dm7b5 was.
I also remember us playing in a little pizza place by the high school
around that time. We got paid in pizza, and spent the whole time
getting made fun of by kids who wondered why we were a) dressed up b)
in the corner of a crappy pizza place and c) playing that nerdy
music.
I guess very little has changed since then, except that I know how to
put that flat 5 in the D minor chord now...
myles
charles robinson
The year before last played at a Home Depot mini jazz festival that was
held at a large hotel here for representatives from all over he country.
There were three stages and alternating groups all night.
Charlie
Joey Goldstein
I opened Toronto's first Wal-Mart several years ago, wearing a straw hat
and strolling with my acoustic guitar from department to department. It
was easier for me than the poor string-bass player though. God that gig
depressed me. (Not a jazz gig btw.)
We also used to have jazz, on a regular basis, at several outlets of the
Loblaws supermarket chain. The guy who was responsible for Lenny
Breau's Cabin Fever recording, tenor player Glen MacDonald (it was his
cabin and his tape recorder), started it off. Many of Toronto's best
players used to do these gigs. $75 per man. Often out in front of the
frozen meat counter. Oiy.
--
Regards
http://www.joeygoldstein.com
tonyde...@gmail.com
Let me see, Myles, at Home Depot you were playing for the door and at
the pizza joint you surprisingly didn't make much dough?
-TD
myle...@gmail.com
> the pizza joint you surprisingly didn't make much dough?
hmm...i don't remember. i think the bread on the pizza gig was pretty
cheesy. seems like i left home depot with a bad case of shingles.
myles (ducking and running away in shame)
Gerry
> Let me see, Myles, at Home Depot you were playing for the door and at
> the pizza joint you surprisingly didn't make much dough?
Did you have to? Did you?
oasysco
That has to be the strangest venue for any mind of music I have ever
run across. Makes playing Borders Book Sellers seem normal :)-
Greg
gant...@comcast.net
furniture store on a busy road into Frederick, MD. 18 wheelers and
Harley's thundering by while we played for... No one? It was a Not-So-
Grand Opening.
Gantt
On Mar 16, 1:25 pm, sg...@hotmail.com wrote:
Chip L
I'm feeling a lot better about my recent Target Grand Opening gig
Chip L
Lumpy
> Has anyone else played at an unseemly venue such as this?
More than one physician/dentist/chiropractor office.
More than one drive-in movie theatre at intermission.
Health food store.
New subdivision model home.
Lumpy
In Your Ears for 40 Years
www.LumpyMusic.com
charles robinson
once a week for about a month.
Charlie
tonyde...@gmail.com
wrote:
> I just remembered that I did one at a massage parlor last year. We played it
> once a week for about a month.
> Charlie
>
>
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Just curious Charlie, each week that you returned , did the girls ask,
"Have you been here before?" (I won't explain why)
-TD
charles robinson
"Have you been here before?" (I won't explain why)
-TD
It wasn't that kind of place:) It was a weekly deal where they served
litte snacks and the band played while people wandered around checking out
the different services.
Charlie
Mark Guest
> It wasn't that kind of place:) It was a weekly deal where they served
> litte snacks and the band played while people wandered around checking out
> the different services.
> Charlie
Isn't that voyeurism? Ew...
All the best,
Mark Guest
Jazz Guitar
www.myspace.com/markguest
Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do
without."
Confucius (c.551-479 BC)