Hello all! It's taken awhile but the band I've been playing with finally had our first gig last week. We play Cure songs but in a jazzy way. This is from the Cure's first album and an interesting one to try and take an early new wave, indie song and try and make it jazzy. There's no way I could have ever attempted to arrange a song like this, let alone try and play it without everything I've learned doing JGA and getting feedback and advice from everyone on here, and of course especially from @Coach Marc-Andre Seguin ! https://youtu.be/2ZFoj59F6J8

Comes out different every time … here I am today 🤷🏻‍♂️

Dear JGA friends, I have been absent for a few months, although I have been following some of the recorded videos of Marc-André's Q&A and Gabriel's Workshop. I have been participating in recent months in a combo formed at the Barcelona "Taller de Músics" (senior space) with whom I have just played my first gig (I am, in the dark, the third one starting from the left). It has been a formidable experience that I could not have done without everything I have learned in these two years here at JGA with Marc-André and many of you who have guided me. Thank you very much! We have played two pieces: Killer Joe (Benny Golman) and Watermelon Man (Herbie Hancock). For being the first time (after fifty years!) that I have played with a group, I am quite satisfied. And this will continue... And I hope to get back to the classes and live meetings with you when the European schedules allow me!

Last step before a final recording - working on comping (included as pdf with tab). At this point, I've done guide tones, arpeggios, scales and a chord melody. In the next couple of days, I do a final version, and see if the work translates into a solid improv. In the first half of comping, I attempted to only use staple and rootless chords from our toolbox. In the second half (at 2 minute mark) anything goes, I reharmonized the diminished as Dom7b9 chords. So C dim became B7b9 and E diminshed became A7b9 - in both cases with the root on the highest note. I made a few other changes as well - most of this was based on an earlier submission of this song - but I had failed to write down what I did, so I needed to transcribe myself!

Guess it's time to post something. We just finished a session of writing and performing our own compositions. We each did 2. A 16 bar blues and a Rhythm Changes progression in Bb. Yah I'll post something very soon