First Gig of Our Jazz Quintet: "Moment's Notice" -- Lessons Learned

Fusion Blue at the GVA Cafe

Yesterday our jazz quintet, "Moment's Notice" played its first gig at the GVA Cafe in Morgan Hill, California.  We only played five tunes, in conjunction with a jazz fusion group of friends.  Basically, we opened for their band "Fusion Blue (see pic)."

It went well.  Not perfect, but you must adapt to unexpected twists and turns.  I forgot my sheet music to "It Had to be You," and was forced to adlib the song.  When we started to play "Fly Me to the Moon," our singer started off on the wrong note, forcing me to switch to the key he was singing in, instead of the key on the sheet music.  Still, it came out all right.  Lesson learned:  always start a song with an instrumental piece to set the key for the singer.  We need to practice our beginnings a lot more.

I recorded the gig with my Handy H5 Zoom recorder, but had the volume up too high and there is distortion in the recordings.  My bad.  So I won't post them here.  Another lesson learned.  I should have anticipated this because of the small stage and volume, and turned the recorder power down a bit.

Our guitar player came up with the name for the band, "Moment's Notice."  It's the title of a jazz tune by John Coltrane, and we don't even play the song, yet.  It wouldn't be my first choice, but it's better than nothing.  At least now I can start a FaceBook page for the band and start promoting it.

The big band that I play with, the Cats Jazz Band of Los Gatos, has a few weeks off, and will resume practice on September 7.  That's great, it gives me a chance to polish up our repertoire with the extra practice time.