Monday, August 13, 2007

Fall returns

After a summer on a cruise in Alaska and directly to New Orleans (wow what a weather contrast) I am back and ready to start the new semester. My teaching schedule will be mostly online -- who would have thought I would be teaching online when I started with orchestra and jazz band over 30 years ago.

On the cruise I heard several musicians playing tunes from the Real Book (still after all these years). These jazz standards were not really understood by these young musicians. I wish they would have played "their music" instead of what they thought the old timers on the ship wanted to hear. These tunes were 30 to 50 years old at least. I sat in on a tune when a good jazz pianist happen to be in the lounge (we played a Miles Davis tune).

In the piano bar was a "sing along" performer. He played songs from the 60s to the 90s. He was a good entertainer. Funny how all the old songs in the Lounge were singable but no one knew them. In the piano bar the songs they all knew were songs that could not be sung by a group (especially in their condition).

Poetic.

Don

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