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That is awesome!

Kenjazz: Like the title of your blog. I, too, started jazz piano around 50, although I've played piano all my life.

Thanks. Sounds like you are way beyond me if you are playing Emily with the esoteric Bill Evans tricks! I'm glad there are still some of us who love this music. I was heartened to see the thousands that signed up for the Gary Burton Coursera improv course.

jjo - it's amazing you have a jazz teacher with enough students to have an actual jazz recital. About the best I got when I was taking lessons was to have the teacher play on a second piano. So that's the closest I got to a jam session.

But I guess nothing beats failing at a jam session and then learning from that. I remember back at the beginning when I would only play at 25% of my capacity due to self-consciousness and intimidation.

In addition to my gigs, I run a twice a month jam session and since I'm the Jam organizer, no one can challenge me. LOL.

And when one gets to the point of not caring, I think the musicality improves because more of the attention of focused on the melodies rather than what some pianist watching you is thinking about. Even at gigs now, people stare at me as I play. I can actually stare back now. And on occasion have a conversation with a patron.

sorry for the random diversion, but are any of you familiar with David Bennett Thomas and his theory/harmonic analyses on youtube? Boy are some of these cool (at least for the first few seconds while what's going on can actually be comprehended )

It's interesting doing the assignments on the Coursera course.
Assignment this week; 6 scales, nothing else.
http://snd.sc/10ltJEk

jazzwee: I agree that "not caring" in the sense you mean it can be the key to reaching your potential. I play at the recital because it's motivation to learn something out of my comfort zone. But my actual performance is never as good as what I play at gigs, because there is a teacher and a room full of jazz students, so I try intellectually to play clever "proper" jazz stuff. At gigs I just let it rip, probably play some awful stuff, but also play my best stuff.

Wish I had some jam sessions around here! There are a couple every week, run by local pros, but I haven't worked up the nerve to start attending.

Any guidelines given? I see you're improvising on the scales but the important element is what he expects you to do with them.

"Record examples, about 30 to 60 seconds each, playing on each of these six chord scales, demonstrating that you are comfortable with each scale"

any key? I see you chose only 1 key.

Six keys. Also there's these guidelines for the evaluation:
"The material presented should demonstrate a clear and nuanced understanding of the 6 scales. That the scales were played correctly with rhythmic variation, and fluidity was demonstrated as well."
"The melodic, harmonic, and/or rhythmic material presented in the audio was accurate and fitting and represented the correct tonality of the 6 scales."

I just read this on The Bullet-proof musician site that makes sense: "Art and fear. Specifically, that if we want to be taken seriously as an artist, we must look at the score with our own eyes and our own ears and take a stand. Rather than copying others’ ideas or waiting for others to endorse or support our ideas, we must make our own conclusions about what we see in the music and bring our ideas to life boldly, courageously, and without question or apology.

That even if we don’t know what is “right” or “wrong”, we simply must make some decision and commit to it until we come up with a better idea. That abstaining from making a decision is not an option. Nor is delaying our inquiry into the bigger questions while we obsess about intonation and hide behind technique."
http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/the-most-valuable-lesson-i-learned-from-isaac-stern/

First try of Joy Spring. Both for the band and for me and combined with new players. Tough tune to just wing it. But it didn't turn out too bad. Next time though, I have to learn the head.

Joy Spring
https://www.box.com/s/l3aqg2i37ovoibhio14t

--Recorder was on top of my keyboard pointed at the bass so the balance of instruments is off. So just use your imagination

A while ago, I learned the head to Joy Spring, which is a good challenge, and I really like the melody. I have to say, however, it's not my favorite tune to improvise on. The A section is just a series of turn arounds, followed by turn arounds a half step higher. I like the bridge, but then back to the turns arounds. It just doesn't seem to trigger much creativity. Do others enjoy improvising on Joy Spring?

I really enjoyed it. It was the first time I played it (above). But I didn't realize that it's often played really uptempo and that's where the challenge is. I haven't learned the head yet but yesterday at our jam a one year jazz student played the head pretty well so I guess it can't be as hard as Inner Urge

I'm not usually big on bebop tunes but I've liked this one since before. Maybe because the key changes often enough (which I like). The bass player got a little lost though on the changes on his solo though he stuck on the form.

It is generally played quite up. There is an Oscar Peterson version, however, that is medium tempo and really swings. It's with his early trio, bass, guitar and piano. Check this out, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o68IemokVc.

Any of you guys fans of Mulgrew Miller? That was awful that he passed away at only 57. I'm seen him so many times over the years.

He had those Oscar Peterson chops though he played a post-bop style.

Big fan of Mulgrew and saw him several times in Chicago. I've been listening to a lot of his stuff lately (can't recommend Spotify enough if you want to listen to jazz) and find a lot of his playing more modern (in a good way) than I would have expected. One blogger in a write up recommended his solo on Lonnie’s Lament on Joe Lovano’s Quartets Live at the Village Vanguard as one of his best. It is a great solo, and yes, it's available on Spotify.

I like joy spring a lot. I think it's one of those times that plays itself.
I practice the head often to keep it handy. It's technically difficult. It's good to work out the fingering for it.
Perhaps more important for us pianists would be learning the intro.
I thought your guitar player did really well.

How do I learn this?? Honestly, where does one start? Good isn`t it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJGrz8I3JdU