Tales from MI - Chapter 8

More classes to talk about. Entering the second batch of classes after 6 months, also known as LEVEL 2 (yeah like a character level up you know? add more skills and attributes and pwn more enemies.. I'm getting off topic here), we now have a couple of new classes.

First one is Jazz. Now I've been a jazz fanatic pretty much all my growing up life. I know it's weird for a 10 year old to get into jazz and fall in love with it but I did and I've always loved listening to it. I thought myself pretty darn good at it already and certainly thought I'd ace the class. It was fun to be able to get to play with a live band each class. Basically we got to play a chorus of a standard, have some solos, and then trade 4's or 8's with the soloists. Pretty standard stuff.

It did throw me off guard right away. I've never had the opportunity to play jazz with a live trio before. I've only ever played with tracks that I owned so it was a new experience. I fuddled it up quite a bit here and there.

But then I got myself a new private instructor for my next stint and he was, as they call him, the grease monkey. None other than Jazz guru Tim McIntyre. T-Mac, as he is also known as, also taught the jazz class and so I got a pretty good dose of jazz lessons.

While I may have had the skills and coordination to pull off most of the exercises he gave me, I didn't have the right idea about the sound of jazz. We spent lots of time playing around with the idea of making the thing sound right and having the right feel. And it was a lot of revamping on my part and putting my mind in the right place.

Also spent a lot of time listening to all sorts of material on youtube and from his personal collection. Great stuff.

It's because of this and my affinity with jazz that I started to become the jazz monkey in my batch. Me and a few other guys started nailing it down pretty good. And that helped in the Schroeder ensemble. More on that later.