I started going to
Steve's Jam about three years ago. Once a week,
the same 4 or 5 guys meet at Steve’s place. Jeff (guitar) is
a Ph.D. student in Accounting. Paul (bass) installs A/C and
heating units. Rick (sax) teaches Jazz at UT. Steve’s passion is jazz. The second floor of
his house is dedicated to jazz. He has a drum set, keyboard,
music stands… even framed black and white pictures of
great jazz musicians. It’s the perfect set up for a jam.
Each week we’ll
take turns picking the tunes. Sometimes we’ll play the
same tune two weeks in a row, sometimes not. Sometimes we’ll
play a tune that I’ve never heard. Each jam is an exercise
in listening and team work. The team work rarely feels like
work because I jam with great group of guys.
So, how did this
"jam" turn into a CD? We used to record with
cassette tapes. In September 1999, Jeff brought in his mini-disc recording
system. The sound quality was so good we decided never to go
back to cassette. The tunes from October 27, 1999 were
recorded with the mini-disc recording system. After
the October 27 CD, the sessions are all recorded using a Roland
VS-1680.
Each week we record
the whole session. Jeff takes the recording home, mixes it
down and them burns the session to CD. The following week Jeff
hands out the CDs to us. Thus the "jam" becomes a CD!
This is not a
"best of" CD. It is one jam with no second takes.
The tunes on these CDs were picked the same as any jam; a few we’ve
played before, a few we haven’t. The first tune from the November 10,
1999 jam is an
original composition by our guitarist, Jeff Miller. The rest
are Standards. There will be more CDs… some day we will have
a "best of." Until then I hope you enjoy listening
to our jams.
