“This is my energy pie. It’s empty.” I told the rest of the band and the manager/producer/”dad of the bass player.” I went on and complained that what we were doing was really what I wanted to use my energy on.

So this morning I’m laying in bed, drinking coffee, blogging and reading the New York Times online in an effort to rest.

I was surprised when the band wanted to begin our session with my tunes. We rehearsed “You must be the animal.” All of the other musicians helped me in the 2010 premier of this entire piece, “Deadman’s Pants” of which this is the final section. It’s not that easy a tune to pick back up, so I suggested we rehearse it and not worry about recording it.

We went on and recorded instrumental versions of “Why did the elephant cross the road?” and “Moneyland.” This again surprised me because I was anticipating (with a bit of dread) having to sing these for the recording.  I told the band that I was grateful not to have to sing but was willing to if that’s what they wanted. Also that I hadn’t anticipated that these tunes would hold up as instrumental pieces. I guess they do. Especially with the added feature of band members improvising on them. I especially liked that.

Then we turned to Jordan’s “Tune for Reilly.” I suggested that we listen to a recording of it he made with his college group. I had listened to this earlier and wondered how we would get from the one line typical lead sheet to the style that he obviously had in mind for it.  Jordan and I briefly discussed the limitations of the notation practices of Jazz musicians. I think he basically agreed that the charts themselves could contain more information which would make their realization more practical.

I think that Jazz has become as codified as Classical Music and it’s practitioners as literate. So why not notate phrases and dynamics? The only reason I can think of for not doing so, is that it might clutter up a clean page used mostly to remind one what the recording(s) of a piece sound like.

After the session we retired to a local restaurant where Keith the dad bought everyone supper. I at least managed to buy this guy a beer. I love having someone else in charge! In very few situations like this have I not been part of the logistical organization.

On the church front yesterday, I got up realizing I had forgotten to email members that the pregame was backed up a half hour to 9:15 AM due to the fact that we began the summer schedule of Eucharist at 10 AM instead of 10:30 AM. I kept expecting people to dribble in but by 9:30 I basically had the group that ended up singing. Afterwards several people skipped the post-service rehearsal.  Ah, the life of the church musician.