Saturday At Smokin Joe's Cafe

Saturday night I went to Smokin Joes. Brought the recorder but I didn't turn it on. Don't know why...

Ended up jamming most of the night. Played guitar with Isaiah and Halley. And Gary... Remember Gary? He was the blues vocalist in my first entry here. Quite a character. He was our band leader Saturday night. I was able to work with him because I came with the attitude I just wanted to play a little and learn what I could.

Gary's an 80 percenter. He's a hundred percent blues but only worries about getting 80 percent of the song right. He taught me a version of whipping post which only marginally resembles the tabs I've seen from Allman Bros. but it was close enough so everyone knew the song. And we could jam on it for a while.

Came out nice.

I was brought up on the idea a song was written and the player, if he was properly prepared and properly trained, would perform the piece as written, exactly with no mistakes (ie no notes not provided by the original arranger/composer). Even my days in the Jazz band in high school made me think improvisational music was still composed music. (Mr. Worden, may he play duets with Louis Armstrong forever, would no doubt shake his head at me and think I'd let him down.)

Gary recognizes a song as a moment of expression. If he doesn't happen to have all the tools in his tool box the original artist had, well that's OK, he's got his own set, and he's got the blues.

I dig the blues

The Blues is a musical form described as 12 bars in 12/8 (shuffle) time based on the progression I IV I V IV I which is fancy musician speak for root, fourth and fifth chords of any key. One of the other key elements of the blues is the use of only five notes in the major scale. This is called the pentatonic scale and is well documented elsewhere on the web.

I've been told these limitations make the blues boring to play. After all how much can be done with only five notes?

Guess the answer is in the blues.

Nothing is set in stone with the blues. You can play the most basic melody or a complex variation of notes and tonics and still get the blues. The blues itself is emotion in music. Whether it's sadness or anger or just the energy of life running through your fingers the blues touches the players and the audience on an individual level.

And on a good night a this connection can be with the line of a song or a single note held and pulled and mauled until every nuance is found.

And that's the blues.

Band Work

OK. When I started this blog I didn't have a band to play in and now I do. Zech and Ron and Mikey are some guys from Smokin' Joes I've played with. Zech asked me to play guitar for them and I was quite overwhelmed by their faith in my ability.

It's been an experience being in a band. I've never, in the 40 plus years I've played, actually played lead in a band. It's a trip. We've worked up a few songs and have played out at open mic nights. We're hoping to get some paying gigs for the summer in Alex Bay. That would be cool. I don't think we've got our song list together yet, but we've got some interesting tunes.

My daughter taped us the other night at Smokin' Joe's doing Midnight Rider and Black Magic Woman. We also do a version of Come Together I really dig, but I haven't got that posted to u tube yet. (The one that's posted isn't very good... not like the new versions).

The biggest problem with the band is that it has an expiration date.

Maybe I'll carry on after Zech goes to florida and build a real blues band... "I'm Better off With the Blues."

Dog House Jam

Some times I play piano. When I play at the Blues Club sometimes people sit in with me. I try to record everything because these moments are unique.

A couple of weeks ago I played at the Blues Club with the boys in my band (well it's really Zech's band since he started it and directs it. I just play guitar....) but before we could play some other people were noodling around so I sat in at the piano. Ant, this kid who's a musician to the bottom of his feet, had a Strat he'd been working on. We picked back and forth trying to find something but I don't think the first tries were very good.

Really I only play one thing on the piano. It's a four chord walk down Em, D, C, B7 that repeats. Occasionally and unpredictably I add the Am in for good measure but Ant knows it as the walkdown. He usually plays base on it... Not today.

I really didn't get into it until Ronny sat in on the drums. Then we started burning up the place. I wish the piano went through it's own amp or the PA at least because it gets lost under the drums and guitar as the sound swells but the music was good. I like.

Posting it to www.youtube.com\writeman57 under piano jam....