The Jazz Workshop had its last Monday evening session for the year on 8/31. It was a slightly strange evening as a number of the regulars were also involved in the Minneapolis Community and Technical College jazz ensemble class which started on Monday evenings a couple weeks ago; those folks arrived late to the Workshop (but troupers they were- playing from 5:00-7:00 at MCTC and then joining us for the last 90 minutes). We started out with a drums-guitar duet with Gene and Tim, playing "When Sunny Gets Blue" and "All Blues" to get started. John arrived about 6:30 and sang several tunes, including "Night and Day" and "'Round Midnight," followed by Norman arriving and getting out the piano to round things out. We even took a stab at Frank Zappa's "Blessed Relief," a jazz waltz recorded on the "Grand Wazoo" album about 40 years ago. Vicki came shortly after this and sang some songs, with Wes (tenor sax) and then Sam (bass and trumpet) arriving after the MCTC ensemble ended. It ended up being a very relaxed and enjoyable evening, if a bit nontraditional in terms of instrumentation at times. Other songs included "Ornithology," "The Nearness of You," "A Foggy Day" and about a dozen others which slip my aging mind.
After Labor Day we will switch back to the Saturday schedule, with instrumentals from 12:00-1:00PM and then with the vocalists from 1:00-4:00PM. We won't meet the weekend of Labor Day and the next Jazz Workshop will be on Saturday 9/12/09. These longer sessions allow us to get through a lot of songs and really help with the development of jazz musicianship. Hope to see you there!
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