----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 9:34
PM
Subject: Using Jazz Standards to Get Into
a Venue for Looping
Now that summer is drawing to an end here in
Boise, Idaho, USA, some of my recurring, outdoor looping venues are starting
to shut down until spring. I need to start looking for more gigs to fill
my winter nights.
The problem is that Boise is a relatively
conservative and genre-monolithic city, providing ample venues for mainstream
styles like classic rock, modern rock, country, folk, and jazz, but not so
abundant in venues who have owners and cliental who are open to avant-garde
and improvisational looping music.
I have been very fortunate in the last year, in
that I've pushed the limits of my current venues as much as I felt possible -
using as much atonality, experimentalism, lack of time/key signature, and
absence of popular feel that I could get away with without alienating my
listeners or generating glares from the venue owners. I've been
relatively successful in transitioning back and forth between the
abstract/experimental music that I like to play live and listen to, and the
typical ambient/contemporary material that puts smiles on most peoples' faces
and eases their digestion. However, the lack of venues where I can play and
feel comfortable testing the limits is still an issue.
In the past, I've found that a more
venue-friendly first impression/demo can open the door to more artistically
daring music. For instance, several years ago I once provided a demo to
a venue owner that consisted mostly of jazzy, steely-dan like vocal rock…in a
year I was playing Mike Stearn-like jazz fusion.
Moreover, I am thinking of pulling my old jazz
hollow body out of the case getting into some new venues playing traditional
jazz….then slipping some of my loop music into the mix. There are at
least 10 venues that I can get into almost immediately using my jazz chops,
using my jazz demo CD. My jazz style is more in the Pat Martino and John
Abercrombie vein, so the transition between jazz to my loop music should be
easy. I figured I would start by blending a two set gig with 70 minutes of
"standards" jazz and 20 minutes of loop music, then start balancing the two
genres out over time.
Are any of you playing loop music that is on the
abstract side and finding it difficult to get satisfying gigs, especially at
popular pubs and restaurants? What type of venues to you play at? Art
galleries? Coffee shops? Mostly festivals? Coffee shops are starting to
get old for me.
Regards,
Krispen
*********************************
Kris
Hartung
http://www.krispenhartung.com
http://artist.amazon.com/krispenhartung info@krispenhartung.com
