[Dixielandjazz] How to get started improvising

[Bob Romans]

As an aside to this whole list...John Farrell could play in ANY band in the
world!! How many of you out there have actually gotten into his Web page to
hear some great piano playing?? If you haven't...DO IT!!! :~)
Romans
-----Original Message-----
From: John Farrell <stridepiano@tesco.net>
To: DJML <dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com>
Date: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 11:00 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] How to get started improvising


>As a teenager I became totally obsessed with jazz and allowed nothing to
>interfere with my pursuit of it. I resigned from more jobs than I can
>remember because I could not get the time off to attend a favourite band's
>gig.  I had taught myself to play a few of the most shopworn tunes but
>eventually I yearned to progress from that to playing with a band, however
>without some sort of track record it proved to be an almost impossible
>ambition. These were the days of the trad boom, there were plenty of bands
>around, vacancies occurred quite frequently. I would call the numbers given
>in the the various advertisements, the first question I was asked was
always
>"Which bands have you played with?" to which I was obliged to reply,
"None".
>That was as far as my band job applications ever got.
>
>Around this time I was living in Chadwell Heath, Essex, where there is a
pub
>called The Greyhound. I wandered into this place one Thursday night and to
>my delight there was Kenny Ball and his Chicagoans (as his band was known
>then) playing the most heavenly music. During the interval I got chatting
to
>his piano player (Pat something-or-other, who used to run a sports shop in
>Woodford) and told him that I played a little piano too - and to my delight
>he asked me to sit in for a couple of numbers. That experience spurred me
to
>improve my playing and learn more tunes. From that moment on I became a
>fixture at the Greyhound on Thursday nights, always being invited to sit
in,
>I gradually got to understand how the interplay between the various
>instruments worked and heeded the advice of the band's experienced
musicians
>as to what I should or shouldn't be doing.
>
>I couldn't have been much of a pianist in those days but nobody in Kenny's
>band ever criticised my playing (at least not in my presence!). I never
used
>any books or music-minus-one recordings to learn how to play jazz, I found
>that the best teaching aid for me was playing with a band and listening
>carefully to what was happening around me - and a lot of luck.
>
>John Farrell
>stridepiano@tesco.net
>http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm
>
>
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