All That Jazz

Daddy Knows a Little Bit About Improv. . . 

Mary and the String Bass Player

Trading Eights

Mary, Karen and the Combo

Mary has been taking jazz piano lessons at MacPhail with Karen Pieper. This is a big deal, it requires someone driving her there because I'm already driving Calvin to his lesson with Paul. We have expensive Mondays around here. But. . . I'm super happy for Mary because she really likes it and I do believe it is very healthy her to have some piano that not driven, literally and figuratively by me.

Karen has a combo workshop at her house now and then and the students get to play with a professional combo. We all chip in to help with the cost. Each students picks a standard and gets to play it with the bass, drums and saxophone.

Improvisation is just good for the soul. I give her space around this, but I did think it was appropriate to listen to her piece, "Dearly Beloved" by Jerome Kern, the night before the combo gig. Bill listened from the sofa and I play some changes and walked a bass line for Mary. Mary is doing a great job, and she's ahead of me at that age, that's for sure.

I forget that I took jazz lessons, played in jazz ensemble and combos for ten years--middle school through college. I was never the star, but I played some great music with some great players. It all comes back pretty easy. In Austin I had more than one student make the All State Jazz Ensemble. I was never the first call player. . . but I guess the heart of a pedagogue goes a long way.

Bill of course is the real jazzer of the family. It's his first love. Before we were married and before he went back to grad school for business he was on the road with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, playing concerts virtually every night of the year for over three years.

So congrats to Mary and we will see where this road leads. She's had her daddy singing Sinatra in her ear at bedtime for over twelve years now. I think that's pretty cool.

Improvisation is good for the heart and good for the soul. It's another dialect of the language of music. Thanks Karen, for a great experience.