Jazz Camp, part 2 of 4 − 6 July, 2002
[ Continued from part 1. ]
I left Friday morning, July 5, 2002 and drove from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I stayed overnight. On Saturday, July 6, 2002, only about two more hours of driving put me in Louisville.
Registration for the Jazz Camp was on this day.
There was far, far too much standing in incredibly long lines. I was staying in the dorms during this camp, and had to not only register, but get a room assignment. There was a lot of waiting. Then, after finally getting checked into my room, there was another long line at the main registration area.
I guess my biggest shock were that there were so many kids there. For some reason, I had been expecting adults; instead, adults were in the minority.
Now, back in those days, I wasn't a schoolteacher; I was a research chemist. I had hardly any contact with anyone younger than myself. OK, scratch that, zero, none, no contact at all -- everyone at my lab was older. So I felt a little uncomfortable being around that much controlled chaos.
[ Odd to think that, considering I teach 6th grade now -- but that's after years of experience. ]
Finally, I got through all the long lines and began to face the next challenge, the music theory test and the audition. See, we were placed by ability level, so that we could be put in with a like group of musicians to learn at the camp.
Now, I aced the theory portion. The guitar audition . . . didn't quite go so well. This is where the fact I'd never played with other musicians became apparent.
I should mention another ongoing problem. I'm a vegetarian. I specifically requested vegetarian meals for this event. Instead, I found a one-size-fits-all approach: there was a restaurant across from the university which had a fairly large dining hall, and had evidently been contracted with to provide food.
There was nothing for me to eat except bread. Even the green beans had pork in them -- disgusting.
And so, having only had a roll and some iced tea for lunch (and maybe some anemic leaves of iceberg lettuce for salad), I went into the audition and probably bombed. I'm not sure; certainly it seemed awful to me. They asked me to play a chord progression, and back then, I wasn't as tricky and strange as I am in the modern day, with my bizarre Thelonious Monk-inspired chord voicings (on guitar, yet) and my repertoire of drop-2 and drop-3 stock voicings. No, back then I was fairly basic, and not nearly as fast as I am today -- I had to study a piece of music well in advance to learn to play it.
After this, I went back to my room and cleaned up a bit, practiced even. This is when I met my new roommate.
He was a grownup, like me, and played Saxophone. I remarked on the large proportion of kids and he said "Well, kids are the future." I asked him if he'd been to the jazz camp before; he had.
"There are a lot of us who come back year after year," he said.
"That's good," I replied.
"No," he said, "You don't understand. People come back year after year because this is the only place they can play with other musicians."
That was a watershed moment for me. Here we were, people interested in jazz from all over the United States, sitting at home the rest of the year and playing by ourselves, in our rooms, with play-along records and Band in a Box.
I resolved right then and there that would not be me -- when I got home, I would assemble my own jazz band. (And I did, months later.)
Dinner was more of the same buffet crap at the off campus restaurant, so I left. (Ah, the advantage of age, having one's own car.) I headed straight for the nearest Mexican restaurant I could find. (There's a whole long history of legend and lore behind me and Mexican food, something known in my family as "Burrito Madness.")
There was a jazz concert that night, which was great, and afterward, people were encouraged to form small combos of their own and play into the night a bit. But, after that disastrous audition, I just didn't have it in me. I went back to my dorm, cleaned up, and went to bed.
Continued tomorrow.
I left Friday morning, July 5, 2002 and drove from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I stayed overnight. On Saturday, July 6, 2002, only about two more hours of driving put me in Louisville.
Registration for the Jazz Camp was on this day.
There was far, far too much standing in incredibly long lines. I was staying in the dorms during this camp, and had to not only register, but get a room assignment. There was a lot of waiting. Then, after finally getting checked into my room, there was another long line at the main registration area.
I guess my biggest shock were that there were so many kids there. For some reason, I had been expecting adults; instead, adults were in the minority.
Now, back in those days, I wasn't a schoolteacher; I was a research chemist. I had hardly any contact with anyone younger than myself. OK, scratch that, zero, none, no contact at all -- everyone at my lab was older. So I felt a little uncomfortable being around that much controlled chaos.
[ Odd to think that, considering I teach 6th grade now -- but that's after years of experience. ]
Finally, I got through all the long lines and began to face the next challenge, the music theory test and the audition. See, we were placed by ability level, so that we could be put in with a like group of musicians to learn at the camp.
Now, I aced the theory portion. The guitar audition . . . didn't quite go so well. This is where the fact I'd never played with other musicians became apparent.
I should mention another ongoing problem. I'm a vegetarian. I specifically requested vegetarian meals for this event. Instead, I found a one-size-fits-all approach: there was a restaurant across from the university which had a fairly large dining hall, and had evidently been contracted with to provide food.
There was nothing for me to eat except bread. Even the green beans had pork in them -- disgusting.
And so, having only had a roll and some iced tea for lunch (and maybe some anemic leaves of iceberg lettuce for salad), I went into the audition and probably bombed. I'm not sure; certainly it seemed awful to me. They asked me to play a chord progression, and back then, I wasn't as tricky and strange as I am in the modern day, with my bizarre Thelonious Monk-inspired chord voicings (on guitar, yet) and my repertoire of drop-2 and drop-3 stock voicings. No, back then I was fairly basic, and not nearly as fast as I am today -- I had to study a piece of music well in advance to learn to play it.
After this, I went back to my room and cleaned up a bit, practiced even. This is when I met my new roommate.
He was a grownup, like me, and played Saxophone. I remarked on the large proportion of kids and he said "Well, kids are the future." I asked him if he'd been to the jazz camp before; he had.
"There are a lot of us who come back year after year," he said.
"That's good," I replied.
"No," he said, "You don't understand. People come back year after year because this is the only place they can play with other musicians."
That was a watershed moment for me. Here we were, people interested in jazz from all over the United States, sitting at home the rest of the year and playing by ourselves, in our rooms, with play-along records and Band in a Box.
I resolved right then and there that would not be me -- when I got home, I would assemble my own jazz band. (And I did, months later.)
Dinner was more of the same buffet crap at the off campus restaurant, so I left. (Ah, the advantage of age, having one's own car.) I headed straight for the nearest Mexican restaurant I could find. (There's a whole long history of legend and lore behind me and Mexican food, something known in my family as "Burrito Madness.")
There was a jazz concert that night, which was great, and afterward, people were encouraged to form small combos of their own and play into the night a bit. But, after that disastrous audition, I just didn't have it in me. I went back to my dorm, cleaned up, and went to bed.
Continued tomorrow.
