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IMHO Playing at a club is not a casual. I would not call my particular gigs casual since they're public affairs. We're scheduled performers and are publicized in advance and people choose to go on their own.

Playing at a private party where you are background music is casual IMHO. The gigs I do actually draw people based on what we will perform. And they sit down and watch.

Weddings are the most lucrative of all casuals I suppose. And a lot of it occur in people's homes.

Why do I care if it's a casual? Expectations on what you play on casuals vary and you have to play what they want to hear (which is a general audience typically). So you've to do pop covers as well.

I don't know if our set list would appeal to a casual gig (Mr PC, All Blues, Canteloupe, Naima, Invitation, Recordame, Footprints, So What, etc.). Notice that Jazz+ sticks to the typical melodic showtunes. I do them too obviously but it would be clear to me that long Coltrane-like solos would not be typical Casual fare.

Jazz+, wow -- you have quick turnarounds. When the vocalist is involved, there's a lot of discussion before every tune.

On the instrumentals, maybe a minute to change leadsheets, and count it down. And we have 3 soloists. Add occasional drum solos and bass solos and each tune is probably 7 minutes including prep.

I guess because we don't rehearse and most of the tunes are new to the group, there's more talk needed among us.

We never rehearse and we don't use vocalists. Our gig book is a 3 ring black binder with the tunes arranged in ordered sets (lead sheets in clear plastic page savers). Takes about 2 seconds to go into the next tune. Been using it on casual$ for years now, love the tunes. It's low stress... getting there and getting set up is stressful enough.

In my particular case, I'm playing regularly at one venue. So the same people tend to listen to us (at least there's a hardcore group that's always there). This means, I will look bad if I play the same tunes all the time. Thus I'm forced to constantly learn something new to keep them happy.

Since most of the players in the group are mercenaries :), we just call the tune on the spot and see how it goes. Fortunately, the screw ups have been minimal (people have the tune in the different keys is the most common problem). But there has to be discussion of it on the spot.

I don't feel bad doing this because I watched Herbie and Wayne Shorter do a major gig with thousands watching and obviously they're just jamming on ths spot, armed with just a "motif" for each tune. LOL.

Fortunately, I now have a collection of 50 tunes that the group has played and so I think we got a lot of the difficult ones covered. I don't think I have to worry about standard stuff like Autumn Leaves/ATTYA, etc.

We take longer to start a tune but the audience doesn't seem to care.

Here's Naima in solo piano -- Sorry about not having a successful recording of the actual gig. It's a little hard keeping time without a rhythm section here and I'm not happy about that.

Naima
http://www.box.net/shared/p0t99huergcno7v0c6av

Nice to hear you play solo JW. I enjoyed listening.
I would love to hear a version with 'no' time; more free.
Your touch is definitely improving!

Thanks Chris. It sounds pretty bad actually. Aside from making mistakes in the changes, I'm not clear yet on how to articulate a tune like this in solo piano. I updated the link with another try.

Anyone on google+ ?
This thing looks awesome, and we can create hangouts and circles.

Let me know if anyone wants to try this. This is the future man!!

this is NOT like facebook. You can decide to separate groups of people. Co-workers do not see music buddies, etc....
Looks like, as usual, google gets it right.

It is in restricted access, so I don't really know how easy it is to get in.

Any takers? I'm thinking of setting up a hangout, where anyone in my circles can see our band play on jam evenings.

Far out!

Not sure about it . . . I'll give a whirl . . though yet another virtual place to keep track of doesn't really make me a happy puppy.
It is possible to create closed groups on FB as well.

>> It is possible to create closed groups on FB as well.
I did not know that. I thought posts went to everyone.

If you get on there, look me up.

When I solo on Naima I usually go double time feel with 8 to the bar. It's as if each bar gets played twice. With pedaling, I would play a modified modern stride pattern, the Root and 5th on beat one and then on the "+ of beat two" either a 3 note or 4 note rootless voicing. Tempo would be around 100. Also, on the "+ of beat four" I would play a single mote Bb (the 5th of Eb) as a pickup to beat one.

| Bb-7/Eb | Bb-7/Eb | etc

Did you figure out all the proper scale associations for Naima? That third bar can be a little misleading.

Jazz+,

I have mostly played Naima to a rhythm section with double time feel. I'm clearly uncomfortable with a pure ballad and even more so solo piano. I'll try the modern stride approach.

Now when you say, root, are we talking about the pedals Eb and then the Ab? You end up playing the pedals pretty frequently then? I just occasionally hint at it.

Everyone has a different scale in mind for the 3rd bar, I suppose, but my teacher showed me a different scale to play for the A7. (A B C# D# F# G). The one thing he told me to exclude was the C natural. I was originally thinking A Alt and he didn't think it fit. So the scale I'm using is A7(#11)(13).

What do you play on it?

Chord changes for 'Naima':

||: Bb-7/Eb | Eb-7 | Amaj7+5/Eb, Gmaj7+5/Eb | Abmaj7/Eb :||

|| Bmaj7/Bb | Bb7b9 | Bmaj7/Bb | Bb7b9 |

| B-maj7/Bb | Bmaj7/Bb | Abmaj7/Bb | Emaj7 #4 ||

|| Bb-7/Eb | Eb-7 | Amaj7+5/Eb Gmaj7+5/Eb | Abmaj7/Eb ||

Scale associations:

||: Eb Mixolydian | Eb Dorian | F# Melodic Minor, E Melodic Minor | Ab Lydian :||

|| Bb Phrygian | Bb diminished scale (half-whole)| Bb Phrygian | Bb dim. scale |

| Bb7 'alt' (B Melodic Minor) | Bb Phrygian | Bb Mixolydian | E Lydian ||

|| Eb Mixolydian | Eb Dorian | F# Melodic Minor, E Melodic Minor | Ab Lydian ||

Your changes are very differently notated. Where did you get this?

A couple of different sources has this. Minor variation in notation is that the second to the last chord is noted as F-7 in one and AbMaj7 in another.

|Bb-7 | Eb-7 | B7#11 A7#11 | AbMaj7
Pedal Eb

|BMaj7 | Bb7(#11)(b13) |BMaj7 | Bb7(#11)(b13) |
|E7#11 | BMaj7 | AbMaj7 | Gb13 |
Pedal Bb

I got the changes from listening to McCoy Tyner. They are like yours, except for McCoy plays bar 2 and 4 of the bridge as Bb7b9 (dim scale harmony) and bar 8 of the bridge is Emaj7 #4 (Lydian). The changes I wrote are more exact as to what McCoy's left hand played.

It's true that the voicing implied by your changes is very similar to what I'm using.

Just hard to change thinking though once you memorize it a particular way.

I managed to reenter the chords to my iRealBook Iphone App so I can record this in double time feel with a rhythm section. I'll give that a try in the next day or so.

Technique Question for All: What's a good exercise for increasing velocity when soloing?

A linear scale approach doesn't seem to be the best since soloing tends to mixed arpeggios and linear phrases. Obviously scale practice is the best for linear/scalar speed.

But did any of you try something specific to build facility in soloing, speed wise?

My teacher would always promote motions that force my hand to move in leaps to make sure I'm comfortable with intervallic playing. But as you build up speed and start playing at the really fast tempos, I then realize that most of my attention has been on linear (scalar) movement or chromatic movement. It's really impossible for me to think of individual notes at the really fast tempos. So thinking in sets and patterns might help for now.

I'm thinking to start by maybe just doing things like arpeggiating chords by changing inversions but doing it really quickly, like 250bpm in 8ths. And maybe building up speed in chunks. Short bursts.

I suppose some people do licks too but I don't have a good source of pre-organized licks, other than playing heads at a fast tempo (like Donna Lee, Confirmation, etc.).

Anyway, what's best?

Jazzwee. Very interesting question you have here. Your question is about increasing speed in jazz soloing, and that is what we are aiming at. But lets take a look at the basics of playing fast. First: how to use your fingers when playing fast. That is very different from playing slow. Next the technical exercises, and how to use those exercises in the most effective way. This is the common basics for all piano playing. But improvisation, especially in jazz, is something special. I have the following approaches to that: Learning theory is obvious. Picking up licks from the best performers works fine for me, but the best approach is perhaps to do an awful lot of improvisation.
Concerning special techniques, arpeggiated chords is fine, since the speed is only limited by what you can do with control of the rhythm.
"Anyway, what is best?" I think Scott Coletta said something like this: The best thing is to approach the problem in as many ways as possible. Well, that is also my best solution.