Playing in the cold!

As we know, at this time of year many musicians have gigs, mostly at various parties and events. However, it is common to have gigs outside, on a outdoor stage on the main square or other locations throughout the city. What to do when your fingers are freezing and stiff from cold or when you are breathing in cold air and your voice is sore?! It's a tough one. Hopefully you will have heating devices on stage to keep you warm, but a jacket is an obligatory clothing item or you would be shaking too! The problem with these kind of gigs is that you won't sound as you would under normal circumstances and then it's not the best gig you've ever had. Also, the heating is not really helping because in one moment you have heat blowing at you and in another you feel the rush of a cold wind chilling your bones! These changes in temperature are a shock to your organism and makes you sweat and tremble at the same time. Be careful! If you want to avoid getting sick, be sure to wear several layers of clothing and warm up before you go on. If possible, try to move on the stage to keep warm at all times and when you're done get into a warm place. This is all I can tell you.

If you manage to play without problems you probably know more tricks or you're simply not that sensitive! Lucky you! If you get sick after such a gig then I hope you get well quickly to be healthy for Christmas and the New Year!

Christmas gala nights

December is a month full of events, cocktail parties, gala nights, dinners and similar events, all in order to get ready to say goodbye to this year and welcome the new year. Many companies organize parties for their clients, partners, colleagues to celebrate already established partnerships and successful co-operations, as well as to achieve new ones and start new projects. It's a time of joy and celebration, to express our thankfulness for all the good things that came across our path. In the Western world we associate this time with Christmas, as it's a big part of our tradition and it is a good excuse to express our gratitude and give back to the community. Many charities are formed in this period or the ones that already exist use this time to promote the act of giving to the less fortunate.

Taking all this into consideration, this is also a good opportunity for musicians to get gigs! All these events often include live music, in order to entertain businesspeople and create a comfortable and relaxing environment where they can mingle and talk with their associates and potential business partners, which could lead to a better and more successful year. And they do it listening to the mellow sounds in the background coming from a live band playing at such events. Most musicians are fully booked in December, getting paid good money to play in the background. It's not the most rewarding experience, especially if you are a musician that needs recognition, but it is a well paid "rehearsal" and a good opportunity to find more gigs if you're good enough! If you can't handle not being noticed and getting the applause for your remarkable solos and all the energy that you put into your playing, then this is not for you. However, if you are a professional, you simply have to deal with the fact that this is how the business works and go do your thing! It's always a dilemma. Should you do things like that, even if it doesn't inspire you and give you the boost that you might get at a normal gig where people actually come to listen to you? Should you avoid these kind of events and just do gigs that please you? Sure, why not? However, this means - less money. If you want to survive you need to compromise. Another option is - get a regular job to survive and play when you want to for your own pleasure. It's actually quite simple.

Anyway, this is a time for giving, celebrating, spending time with your loved ones, but it is also a commercial time where the public is being encouraged to give back to the community and spend more money in general for things they might not spend it on in "normal" circumstances. It's a time for musicians to get more gigs than they would normally get and earn more money. Sometimes it's good to compromise.

Think of it as a paid rehearsal, have fun and enjoy the salary. :)

To jazz or not to jazz?

The poll showed that many of you have never done jazz but appreciate it. That's cool too! Thanks for participating in the poll and showing me who my readers really are. That way I can adjust the topics accordingly. There were 3 groups making 14% of the poll participants saying that they started doing jazz in their teens, in their twenties and in their thirties! Wow. This only shows that you can start doing jazz whenever you want! It's really never too late. The key to everything is - practice! Practice makes perfection. The more you learn and repeat, the better you know it.

Honestly, I've met people who were retired and decided to study jazz. And they're doing it. They're not professionals or anything like that, but they do it for fun. And enjoying every second of it! That's one example I can give you. You can always learn the basics. If nothing else - learn the Bb blues! :)

Another example I can give you is one woman who had decided while in her 30s to start playing the guitar. Taking in to consideration that she had never played the guitar in her life! She not only learned how to play the guitar but learned how to play various styles, primarily jazz. She now lives from music and plays with various bands!

I can tell you one thing - if you just like jazz and feel you don't need to play it, that's OK too. Learn how to listen to the tunes. Learn how to differentiate one jazz style from another. These are small steps but mean a lot if you really like this genre. Get information about jazz history and how it all began. A good start is this blog maybe, as from time to time I will be posting some interesting stories about historical events in jazz.

Anyway keep on listening and reading! :)

Balkan Jazz Times

It seems to me that October/November period is the perfect time for jazz festivals. We have already mentioned London Jazz Festival, Sarajevo Jazz Festival, All that Jazz Festival in the Jazz Club, Zagreb...the cycle continue and we have plenty of things to see until Christmas time! This time I would like to concentrate on the Balkan area where we have plenty of events going on in this period. Recently we have had the opportunity to see many different jazz musicians in the Concert Hall Lisinski in Zagreb during the 17th International Days of Jazz, which took place from 23rd to 26th October. The festival included Geoff Eales Piano Solo (UK), Francesco Cafiso Quartet (Italy), Namaste (France), Dave Stapleton Quintet (UK), Mirokado Kvartet (Croatia), Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band: Mozart Revisited (Austria), Juvavum Brass (Austria) and a special guest - James Morrison (Australia).

More about these musicians (in Croatian): http://jazz.hr/dogadanja/ijd_program.aspx

Next recent event we had the opportunity to enjoy in was the 3rd Jazz ex tempore multicultural jazz project + workshops, which took place from 21st – 27th October 2007 in Opatija, Croatia.

This event gathered distinguished jazz musicians from different countries that spent one week in Opatija making music and composing several songs that have never been performed anywhere! Each artist brought a few of his own songs that were arranged during Jazz ex tempore and performed at the final concert. The highlight of this project was the whole-evening concert which included the pieces composed during this week of working together.

More about Jazz Ex Tempore project - http://www.liburniajazz.hr/extempore_en.htm

Apart from the events in Croatia and the already mentioned festivals, we have to mention two big jazz festivals in the surrounding area!

Yes, we are talking about Strictly Jazz Festival in Belgrade, which is taking place from 24th to 29th October, so hurry up and get your tickets!!! There will be artists from the USA, Mali, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Israel, France, Wales and Serbia taking place in this festival. Some of the names we can mention are: Ravi Coltrane Group, Avishai Cohen Group, Maria João, Dee Dee Bridgewater, etc. Anyway, this is an amazing festival worth seeing.

More about this festival - http://www.belgrade-jazzfest.org/

And finally, we need to mention the Skopje Jazz Festival that had already passes and if you missed it, your loss! There was a Norwegian night including artists from Norway obviously... such as Susana & The Magical Orchestra, Sidsel Endresen and In the country

Then there was also a Flamenco Night which included Juan Carmona Grupo and Miguel Poveda Quartet.

More about Skopje Jazz Festival - http://www.skopjejazzfest.com.mk/schedule.htm

Enjoy the autumn jazzy events!

All that jazz3

This is a quick review of the ongoing jazz festival in Zagreb. Poor marketing brought this event as a surprise and we had no idea what was coming our way! Although not properly announced, we have to say that this festival is a cool event Zagreb needed to break the monotony.

The festival started on the 11th October with Valerija Nikolovska Quartet. Well, honestly, they were pretty good, playing soft, mellow sounds of jazz, a lot of blues and some bossa nova. However, no matter how good, the singer looked pretty uninterested in the whole event and behaved as if she were at home singing for her soul only. She didn't reach out to the audience, she just sat there and didn't give a damn. This is something you might dare to do if you are a huge diva, with all your mood swings, and everybody just adores you cause it's simply the genius you! You have your own concert in a huge concert hall and a standing ovation just because you showed up! I personally like the way Valerija sings but I think most of her audience that night didn't appreciate that attitude and responded with murmurs which made it hard to listen to the concert. The fact was that they weren't in a concert hall and couldn't allow themselves to act that way. Finally the singer's microphone died and the band was struggling to get it working again, on stage for several minutes, while nobody even noticed that the band was having technical difficulties and they weren't playing at all! This shows that not only the organization wasn't professional and didn't care about their performers, but also that the audience didn't take the band seriously. It's a pity because they played well, had a good repertoire, but they simply lacked attitude on stage which was appropriate for this kind of an event and location.

Fortunately the next day, 12th October, crazy funk band called Starch showed up from Switzerland! Actually, these young boys make a good atmosphere, play like crazy, rap and funk it up, besides looking pretty and seducing all the girls in the audience! :) Yeah, this was a nice treat! Drums, bass, keyboards, trombone, trumpet, sax, vocals,....all very good musicians and nice arrangements. If nothing else, they definitely made contact with the audience, included them in the performance, made the whole club dance and go crazy....it was fun! More about this band - go to their website -www.starchmusic.com

Another band I would like to mention is Denis Razumović Quartet. They also proved to be a high quality band playing their original tunes from "Razz's" new album "In Umbra" as well as some standards, like their own version of Caravan. My only remark would be that I didn't really like the drummer. From what I heard, he had no sense of dynamics and sometimes exaggerated in his drumming when not appropriate, his solos are unarticulated and chaotic without any sense, and not to mention that he obviously plays rock music in his spare time, instead of jazz. I didn't really appreciate it but many people did, so maybe I am wrong. Forgive me but I am sensitive when it comes to drums. Unlike the drummer, Razz kicked ass and I loved his solos! Hope to hear him again!

Anyway, the festival is still happening so come and here some concerts! Here's a list of the following gigs:

16.10. Tortilla Flat Trio (Austria)
17.10. Gyass Gypsy Bend (Serbia)
18.10. Fine Noise feat. Miles Griffith (USA)
19.10. Ivan Tiborcz Quartet (Hungary)
20.10. Johnson 3 (Austria/USA)
21.10. As Bruxas Fatais (Croatia)

And that's it!
Keep on jazzin....

Study and play jazz and Latin music!

It is time to announce yet another workshop! We had many summer workshops where you could study jazz with great teachers in great locations, and now the winter is coming with more interesting workshops to participate in!

This time it is a workshop in a small town called Benicasim in Spain, near Valencia, where you can learn more about jazz and Latin music with amazing teachers from all over the world! It will take place from 5th to 9th December this year and if you apply now you have greater chances in securing your place!

Benicasim is a small, tranquil town on the Mediterranean coast, with citrus trees and pine forest leading down to a lovely beach. After a day of intensive musical study, you can relax with a sauna or one of the many health spa treatments on offer before dinner, then head out to the evening concert and jam session.

The seminar features an international team of outstanding performers and teachers: Barry Green (piano), Julian Argüelles (sax and wind), Jeremy Brown (bass), Stephen Keogh (drums), Guillermo Rozenthuler (voice), Felix Gibbons (percussion) and Dave Mitchell (guitar).

This course aims to to offer high quality, inspiring tuition for instrumentalists and vocalists from all backgrounds, provide a creative environment where musicians can share ideas and learn from each other, develop overall musicianship - with particular emphasis on time, touch, tone and ensemble playing and to deepen one's understanding of Latin music and Jazz...

Learn more about the workshop, the teachers, program and the application procedure at:

Global Music Foundation

It's never too late!

The poll showed that sax is your favorite instrument, although the piano was quite close! Considering that it's my favorite instrument too, I've decided to share a story with you. Something that happened very recently and it was a big thing for me. Some know it, some don't, but actually sax is my secret passion. I started music school when I was 7 years old and I really wanted to learn how to play the piano. After finishing the primary school I wanted to change my instrument and start learning saxophone. However, my parents thought it was too expensive to buy yet another instrument and told me to stick to the piano. Which I did. But the fact is that this was my big wish and until today it remained something that I've always wanted to do but later on thought it was too late to start anything now.

Afterwards I met many people who simply started learning how to play certain instruments for fun. I know plenty of musicians who can play several instruments, with one that is primary of course. I met one Dutch lady, who plays tenor sax but decided to try baritone, just for fun.

I thought - Man, she really has the guts, to start such a thing in her age. Especially such a big instrument which is not easy to play! Then why on earth can't I? Honestly I've already given up on this dream of mine and thought I'd never learn. But this question remains - WHY NOT? It's never too late!

So I decided - I'm going to find a teacher and try it! There was a workshop for sax players recently held by one of the top sax players in Croatia - Sasa Nestorovic - so I decided to check it out. I thought I was going to consult him on some things. Like which sax to buy, which teacher to ask, how to do it, and all those things one has to know when starting. He was thrilled that a girl wants to play the tenor so he invited me on stage in front of everyone to try it! And there I was in a club called SAX (imagine that...), holding a Selmer jazz tenor sax, scared to death that I won't be able to play a sound and he's coaching me how to do it. After many squeaking sounds I managed to get a sound! And everybody clapped and took photos of this historical moment! This was a moment to remember and it made me really proud to know that my dream came true. I will definitely remember this forever!

This is only the beginning. The next step, get a sax and a teacher and kick ass!

So if you're wondering what it would be like to try something you've always wanted to try and never had the guts, TRY IT! You will love it and remember - it's never too late...