We had a couple of great gig’s with the Cecil’s Jazz Orchestra over the past week. We played last Friday Night as a special weekend performance. It was great playing to a packed house. Having played many Mondays to a small audience, it was really a pleasure to play for such a packed, appreciative house. Everyone made an extra effort to play our best. A couple of guys who’ve been playing the book for a while took it home to fine tune some of the difficult passages. The band really rose to the occasion, playing great solos and swinging even harder than usual. A bunch of friends came down down, including Matt King, the brilliant West Orange pianist and Mike Karn, a beautiful saxophonist and now bassist! Also in the house was TS Monk, the legendary drummer and son of Thelonius.
I expected a little let down on our usual Monday gig, but it was far from the case as the Montclair State University Jazz Band led by Jeff Kunkel opened up for us and then hung around to check out our first set. They sounded great. I saw a lot friends in the band who have helped out the Summer Jazz Workshop that I teach at every August that is held on the campus of Montclair State. They also featured their wonderful faculty saxophonist and an old friend of mine – David Bixler. Then they invited me up to blow a blues with them. Our band came up right after them and welcomed a couple of new faces subbing in the band. Tommy Colao, a tremendous alto player and member of the Richie Cecere’s Orchestra subbed in the band for the first time, playing the book almost flawlessly (I would know, he was sitting right next to me) and Pat Smith, a student at William Paterson University, tore it up playing lead trumpet. That’s no small task, to come in and virtually sight read the lead book of a veteran band of guys.
I’ve gotta acknowledge two guys who come out to hear the band every Monday. All we need is about 50 fans this committed and we’ll take it to a new level. Howard and Mike are awesome in their commitment to the band. I wish I could say its only been a couple of times that we’ve played for only them and the bar tender!
The band has really reached a new level of cohesiveness and precision. I’m very proud of the accomplishment of having gotten these top shelf musicians to commit to making a regular Monday Night hang and to have created the musical environment in which top rate musicians are willing to sub in when somebody needs to take off. This was the first of my goals. Now I plan to add to the book to keep us playing different music each week and start really locking in the identifiable sound of the band. I’m glad that we play about 85% original music – charts written by the members of the band. I think the next couple of months will see more original music added (hopefully a few from the leader!). Also, I plan to get this band playing more gigs. We’re so fortunate to have a place like Cecil’s to nurture our music and our sound, I hope we live up to the opportunity that’s been given us.
