You may know that I used to play professionally in a jazz combo called Blue Skies Trio from 2004-2006. That was a dream come true for me, but is honestly a subject for another entry. Ever since, I’ve played in various informal groups, usually formed around church musicians who also liked jazz. Our former Pastor Ian is a gifted jazz piano player and arranger, who gave me a binder of excellent church hymn arrangements that I still use today. Another of those church musicians is my friend, Maggie.

Preparing for church gigs used to be a several week affair, going through our resources, making set lists, arranging songs and changing keys as necessary. Although the gigs were successful, the preparation seemed to take a lot of work. When Pastor Ian took a job at another church, we were left without a keyboard player. Switching me back to keys meant we were without a horn player, but the advantage was that we could shrink the combo down to just two people, which made things a lot simpler. Maggie and I decided that, instead of waiting for a gig, and then putting effort into preparing, we should just get together and play/sing on a semi-regular basis, building our repertoire and getting comfortable with it. Then, if a gig opportunity arose, we would not have to put nearly as much effort into preparation.

Earlier this year, Maggie discovered an open mic at The Owl, once a month on the second Monday. So we freshened up on a few songs, and gave it a go. Most of the musicians were acoustic guitarists/singers, using original material, although some did covers. Because our repertoire consists of American jazz standards, all we do are covers, but no one else seemed to be doing songs from that era. We were well received, and invited to do a second set later in the night, and invited back the next month.

Retirement

After a few months of this, I had decided that open mic needed a bass player, and I told Jean, one of the folks organizing open mic, that I would bring my bass next time. She was excited about this. A couple weeks later, she contacted me and asked me if I would play bass at her church for their Christmas music festival. This happened to be the Sunday right before the next open mic Monday, which is the one I promised to bring my bass to. Suddenly, it’s looking like I might become a gigging bass player immediately after retirement! Well, ok, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’d only been retired about a week when this all happened.

I was to play on several tunes, but the one that I was most proud of was a jazz arrangement of What Child is This. Vince Guaraldi did an arrangement of this on his Charlie Brown Christmas album(sound track from the Charlie Brown Christmas special). Jean’s chart was in the same key, with a few interesting changes, and MUCH faster! On top of that, I was asked to walk on it(a note on every downbeat, giving the impression of walking around the fretboard). Anyway, I had to sit down at the piano and work out the chords so I could know what was possible on bass, then practice what I had in mind.

That morning, I went to my church, Trinity Episcopal, played bass and helped with sound and streaming. Then I packed up and went to Jean’s church, St Paul United Church of Christ, and set up there:

The other musicians showed up to practice their songs. Finally, the trumpet player, Joe, showed up and we ran through What Child. We were introduced, and a few seconds later, he started snapping his fingers, one-two-three, GO! Boom, just like that, we were off, and I hung on. Now that we were a full combo(bass, piano, guitar, trumpet), I got to hear the full arrangement, understood why they needed me to walk it, and we sounded great! We got done with the run through, and looked at each other and grinned. This was going to be fun…

The concert started, I played on other tunes, then What Child happened. It was even better than the run through, and when we were done, the audience erupted, and the trumper player gave me a nice compliment. Wow, that was fun! Here is a recording of it. You’ll have to fast forward to 17:30, and you can’t really hear the bass(although in the church it was rocking; they kept asking me to crank it up). But you’ll have a good idea of the speed and the energy:

https://www.facebook.com/StPaulUCCSalineMI/videos/493724806226238/?sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6

During the gig, we played Zat You, Santa Claus? What I didn’t know was that was the tune where Mr and Mrs Claus would show up! In the video, this happens at 53:00. After the gig, we got our picture taken. From left to right: me, Joe Palmer(trumpet), Mrs Claus, Chris Brenner(guitar), Jean Wilson(piano), and Santa. Check out his staff and bells!

So, among the things I want to make more time for during retirement is music, especially getting better at sitting in, either piano or bass. I think that weekend, I got a good taste of what this would be like. I’m hooked.

Merry Christmas!