Music wish

Don't you just love the smarties that come to you asking for music wishes? Yeah, like I know it all! I actually admire those guys who play everything people ask them to. It's incredible how you can have such a vast repertoire and be flexible about it. The other night we played at one fancy banquet and two of the guests came up to us and said that the lady who organized the event had a birthday and they wanted to surprise her with a song. They asked us to play a Tom Jones tune! We say - but we play jazz and bossa nova only! We don't know that kind of stuff! - Uhm. Ok. How about some Billie Holiday tune?
I didn't know what she meant, so I asked - You want one that she herself composed or her interpretation of some tune? I mean, come on! We play jazz standards. Better yet, we play early jazz stuff. She sang those tunes man...

Jazz people, luckily, don't have to take wishes - unless it's a jazz standard of course. But the problem is that people don't really know what jazz standards are. Even jazz cannot be classified as one thing. Jazz varies depending on the time period through which it evolved, so to ask a jazz person to play a tune that you feel like hearing now would be a difficult task. What if the musicians play fusion and you ask them to play Tin Roof Blues? Ok, they might know it but maybe it's just not their thing and they wouldn't want to play it. Every jazzer should know jazz standards but with so many of them, how can you pick a tune? Unless they have a real book or two to play it from! Cause you can't possibly know them all.

I must admit I love the fact that we don't play "covers" and that we are not so flexible. Especially if you are a singer. You can simply say - sorry, it's not in my key. :) If I wanted to be an entertainer who plays all kinds of events (weddings included!) with all sorts of music styles, then I wouldn't be doing jazz.

Anyway, this is the good thing about being a jazz musician.
We don't take wishes - we play jazz! ;)