If you get a group of musicians together, it isn't long before the "road" stories come out. Contrary to what you might think, the best stories are not about the great successes, but about...those other times! The times when everything goes wrong, and you just have to keep going...no matter what! I have more than my share of these. So, here's one of my favorites. Just pretend you're backstage, and you've listened to a few stories already, and then I jump into the mix...
After college, I joined a traveling Christian Music group that played a different church every night. (OK, so this is a pretty "tame" story compared to some...). Anyway, I was playing Bass Trombone. We had six singers, rhythm section, and 5 horns, including another trombone, two trumpets, and a sax/flute player. The other trombonist was also our Music Director. After about 10 nights, he announced at soundcheck that we would be playing the entire concert without music.
A side note: I consider myself to be a good sight-reader. In fact, reading something for the first time, without rehearsal, is one of my favorite challenges. However, I approach it like bad speed-reading. I'm all about accuracy, but have very little idea afterwards, as to what notes and rhythms I actually played! So, as you might imagine, this filled me with dread.
However, for the first part of the night, I did remarkably well! It probably helped that I could follow the other trombonist (who had played some of these songs for a year), and I could recover from any mistakes quickly! Until..
We had a song called "Tell 'Em Again", by a singer named Dallas Holm. It had a kind of Jamaican/Reggae feel to it, and the introduction was just the horns and rhythm for eight measures, which were then repeated. The trombones would hit the first note together ("Bomp"), which was then answered by the trumpets and sax ("Dwee-op"). S0, you ended up with Bomp, Dwee-op, Bomp-bomp, Dwee-op, etc. for 16 measures before the singers came in with the melody. Easy, right? Well...
What I hadn't realized, was that the other trombonist, our Music Director, was announcing this song. In fact, he had put his horn down while he was speaking, and I would have to play the first note alone.
As this dawned on me, I also realized that I had no idea what the first note was, or even what key we were going to be playing in. But...I did remember the rhythm, and I figured I would likely pick a note that was at least in the chord, and could make a fast adjustment, and everything would work out. Another daring daylight escape!
Alas, it was not to be...I heard the count-off (One, two, three, four!) and I hit it! "Frap" "Dwee-op", "Frap Blatt" "Dwee-op" and proceeded to miss every note in the first eight measures! But, I thought, "Surely it will come to me on the 2nd pass!"...Nope. Just as bad. And my "partner" on trombone never did join in. He was probably laughing too hard!
Of course, now, I still had to pretend that every note had been played perfectly ("The show must go on!"), even as the sweat poured down my back! So, I bravely carried on, with a weak smile, finally joined by the other trombone, who was probably still laughing! How the singers made it through without busting up, I still don't know. As one of the vocalists told me later, "I knew something was wrong, but I wouldn't have known it was you, if your face hadn't been so red!".
Now, in retrospect, this was great training for all the crazy things that musicians encounter in "Live" performances. There is always going to be SOMETHING that is completely unexpected ("The bagpipes are going to accompany you on the first song"), goes wrong, or even is just plain funny. And you have to roll with it!
So, this was actually a very helpful life lesson...yeah...that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :-) Hey, Great Jazz, Great Fun, right? Just keep swingin'! JL
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