GCNE Meeting, 10-04-2009, "The Loft"

In attendance tonight were Victor McSurely, Glenn Hughes, Chris Paquette, Rick McCarthy, and Brad Hogg, with Dev Ray stalled elsewhere with a thirsty vehicle.

Jumping right in at 7:40, the first subject we touched upon was performance practice, and how an entrance and beginning should run for a performance: the leader leads on, with cable ends conveniently placed on the seat for being able to grab and plug in with one movement. Plug in, and while still standing, look in, look out, and look back in, and then sit. It begins the set, so to speak. At end of the set, stand, look in, look out, look back in, unplug (hopefully the sound guy has it together enough to bring mains down at this point), and leave from whence one came.

While practicing this, upon lead-in and plugging in, Brad managed to get his cable stuck, and took a little bit to remedy the problem. Victor took this opportunity to discuss "when something goes wrong", and the acknowledgement or none of an on-stage issue. Discussion conveniently ended when the cable agreed to work with Brad.

Beginning with a circulation in C Majorish. Out of five people, four will circulate for four bars, with the fifth soloing. The next four bars will be the next person's chance to solo, while the circulation moves around him. This looks like this:







and so on.


This provided some pretty interesting moments, and really seemed to force listening, along with knowing exactly where one (and "one") is. We did this several times, with a few derailments, but also a couple of multiple-time passes.

Leading from this, Glenn presented something he'd been working on: circulating Coltrane's Giant Steps with him blowing on the top. He showed us the first seven chords (Bmaj7, D7, Gmaj7, Bb7, Ebmaj7 twice, Amin7, D7), which we picked up pretty quickly.

This prompted Victor to mention a story that Bob Moses told him, about when a young kid he'd never met before sat in at Wally's Cafe in the '70s (one of the more famous jazz clubs in Boston, and one of the few left over from pre-gentrified Boston). This kid comes up to Bob while they're playing a set, and asks if he can sit in on the next song and play bass. The band agreed, and asked if he knew Giant Steps. The kid had never heard the song, so they handed him a chart. He looks at it for about ten seconds, says, "Okay," and proceeds to nail the song. This was apparently the first time Bob met Jaco Pastorius.

Moving from this, we warmed up a little more with the 16-bar exercise, followed by working with EotN. Twice through, though the first time it crashed, and then limped along. Not the best we've played it, and a little rushed. Second time sounded much better, but it still feels rushed.

3rd Relation: unseated in spots, but the middle section (F#m-Em-C#m-Bm) is starting to sound pretty good, and the dancing rhythms are starting to pop out quite nicely. Victor addresses this, and we play through a second time--the tempo feels better, and the song slots in a bit more.

Thrak: twice through, sounds good both times. At this Rick bids adieu to go home early for family business, and we decide to take a break. Roughly 5 minutes after he leaves, Dev shows up.

Sitting back down, and with Dev expressing some general fatigue, we choose to just circulate, to set our minds. This eventually breaks out of C Major, and starts to explore some other tonal territory--Victor lobs a couple of double-stops at one point that prompt some more outside harmonies to enter in. This eventually ends quite unexpectedly on C Major.

From here, Victor chooses to run some repertoire, which includes Bicycling to Afghanistan (a trio of Chris, Victor, and Glenn), Calliope (Victor and Glenn on leads and Dev and Chris on bass and mirror bass, respectively), Batrachomyomachy (trio again), and possibly something else--Brad sits these ones out and listens. After this, we discuss various self-advertising points, such as telling/inviting friends, posters, facebook adverts, and other methods. The setlist is beginning to germinate in Victor's mind, but he doesn't have anything set in stone, just yet. A couple more minor points are discussed, Victor thanks everyone for staying late, and we call it a night at roughly 10:20 p.m.