Jazz Resolutions

Hello, 2010!  I have a feeling you're going to be a very good year.  I need to do more as a jazz musician this year.  The last several years have kept me busy outside of music, which has been good in a lot of ways, but there's no reason to lose touch with music.  So I've come up with a list of things I can do to keep jazz in my life and balanced with everything else I'm trying to accomplish.

Get out there as a sideman

I stopped booking my own gigs a while back because I was too busy for all the bandleader responsibilities.  However, playing as a sideman is just as rewarding and much less time consuming.  I love playing other people's music.  Guitarists (and fellow bloggers) David Ullmann and Will Sellenraad, for instance, write wonderful compositions that I always enjoy playing.  Even just getting together for a session here or there to share tunes is great.  Ultimately, though, it's most rewarding to play for an audience.

Master more jam session tunes

The number of songs I have committed to memory is deplorably low.  Part of the problem is it just takes a lot of time and dedication to memorize music and keep it readily accessible in your mind.  Also, some people just seem to have a knack for long term memorization.  My mind works better at recording abstraction.  I studied for a while with Bob Mover, who knows probably 3,000 songs and can recite lyrics, melodies, and chords in any key on demand.  Not only does he have a freakish aptitude for this, but he's devoted his entire life to learning jazz, so it's no surprise he's mastered this.  He's taught me methods for learning tunes, but I don't have the time to devote regularly to it.

Instead, I've set the bar much lower.  I figure mastering 30 tunes on the saxophone, on the piano, including the lyrics, and playing through them regularly will be a meaningful exercise for the year.  Jam sessions aren't really my scene, but I'll feel a lot more confident if I master a short list of tunes I know I can make a creative and substantive statement on.

Wear my new hat a lot

And by new hat, I mean promote Jazz Commons as much as possible.  This site is one way I can contribute to the advancement of jazz that does not involve my instrument or endless hours in the woodshed.  Since much of my time is spent developing software, promoting jazz online meshes these interests rather nicely.  So I will wear my hat and work at making this site a useful resource.

Help renew the NYC jazz scene

I've been admiring the work of Adam Schatz from a distance.  His Search and Restore project has been actively producing and publicizing jazz events in New York City for a few years now.  In fact, I credit his work with some of the inspiration for Jazz Commons, for while I'm too busy with other projects to drive such a grass roots effort as his, I wanted to find my own way to contribute.  Not only that, but something original that doesn't duplicate anyone else's efforts or step on anyone's toes, but can symbiotically exist towards similar ends.  This resolution is sort of a placeholder for whatever else may come up this year that I can do to help jazz.

So there's my list of Jazz Resolutions.  Care to share yours?