[Dixielandjazz] charts, gigs, songs

[James Kashishian]

Steve wrote:
Any, repeat ANY competant Dixieland Musician should have at least 250 tunes
in his/her memory banks. 

And, I remark.....

During our marathon gig the other day while Tom Cruise did his marathon
autograph signing (!!), we just kept playing as long as he kept signing.  I
had anticipated a relatively short gig, but Tom's 2,5 hr signing habit seems
to be a bit of a legend now.
Anyway, either I called up a tune or our pianist embarked on a 4 bar intro
to a tune he had come up with, and we did so (without repeating, without
delays, without a song list, without charts) for the full 2,5 hours.

Once, on a 7 night gig which included two 45 min sets each night, we (on
purpose) never repeated a song....just to see if we could do it.  Actually,
we did repeat a few of the real favourites, and when there was a request,
but in general we got through the 7 nights without repeating.

We have head charts, some quite complicated, but they have all been worked
out while on the stand, sometimes quite by chance.  When something nice
happens, we say "keep that one".  Might be a lick, a riff, an ending...  We
use chord sheets for a new song...sometimes a lead line.  I have words
written in fairly large letters to back up my bad memory for vocal lines.
(Someone else mentioned that!)  

That's all our secrets out in the open.  Starting 8 nights tonight in a
local club...11pm to 1:30am.  It's nice that the weather is still warm and
we can go out onto the street ("watchin' all the girls go by") between sets.
A very "young" area, and extremely crowded with all ages up to 3 & 4 am.

Jim