Wandered into the Gold Street Gossip Shop at the unappointed hour, listening to the early birds warbling their way through a toon or three. Settled into a comfortable spot, as near the bar as possible, and as far from the noise as I could decently get, without appearing unduly disinterested. Several of the regulars appeared to be in fine form, and one could go so far as to say that one or two of them were even playing in tune, although I would not hazard a guess as to with what.
In time, I got up to play and a pleasant old mess it was. We trotted out some old toons, some new, and to Colonel T’s disgust, no Coltrane, at least for a while. He worries about that sort of thing, but the truth is, we regularly play Coltrane tunes – he just doesn’t recognise them, and fair enough too.
It must be said that, given there were only 15 or so combatants on the day, this was one of the quietest jams for some time; and the standard of playing did not, mercifully, reach the heights to which the last few jams have left us accustomed.
All of which means two things:
(a) We didn’t scare off any tyro. Indeed one pianist from the Sedergreen stable got up and made a pretty good job of Blue Bossa. Hopefully, inculcated with the S Sedergreen philosophy of “learning on the gig”, he will return.
(b) You can pretty much bet the sheep station on the Jams arcing through another great series of musical adeptness any day now. We are nothing if not consistently inconsistent.
Meanwhile, this Jam left us mystified – played, had fun, never really hit the heights.. the reason?
Not a clue!
The Sunday Jam, every week at the Leinster Arms, Gold Street, Colliwobble, from 4.00pm until we knock off around 7.30.
TW
Humphrey B Bear, Pluto, Kylie Minogue and Mike Hirsh on drums…All names have been changed to protect the innocent…
Melbourne Jazz Jammers 