20/10/11

Ensemble Evaluation... think this says everything that needs to be said on the subject.


“An Evening At The Cotton Club”

Our ensemble project has in many ways been a steep learning curve, filled with high and low points, disappointment and also a feeling of achievement. In evaluating the development process and final performance I intend to discuss these above issues and the ways in which they have allowed for professional growth, added to my skill set and also highlighted areas for further developmental improvement.
Initially, as a group, we were aware that we would all like the focus of our ensemble project to be the genre of jazz. Although I, personally, had some experience in playing in this style for some members of the band this was an entirely new experience. However, regardless of previous experience, we were all agreed that focussing on this genre would allow us to research and learn new techniques and performance style and would help us to develop a working knowledge of a genre which, although regarded as ‘popular music’, had yet to be covered within our course work.
At this point we met our first hurdle; from a research point of view, jazz is a vast topic with many different branches of development and technical styles. We had all brought our own ideas of songs that we would like play within the band to the table but in reviewing them it seemed impossible to provide an academic justification for a set that would include songs from so many different sub-genres, even though they were all taken from the jazz genus. Therefore, in order to produce a cohesive set and allow us to produce focussed research rather than a broad over-view, it was necessary to narrow the parameters from within which our songs should be chosen from. I feel we dealt with this well and after exploring many different possibilities we were able to agree upon an interesting topic namely ‘The Cotton Club’ which allowed us to explore a musical era which, although was relatively unfamiliar to all of us and didn’t allow us to incorporate any of the songs we had originally desired to play, we approached with enthusiasm. I believe this helps to demonstrate adaptability and willingness to accept new challenges. However, it did take us longer than we had anticipated to settle on this topic and as a result we found ourselves several weeks into the module before serious rehearsal could commence on the actual set itself. On the other hand I feel that this was in some ways unavoidable in the face of the research constraints and in future projects we will be more aware of the limitations and able to forward plan when choosing a research topic accordingly.
We also had to work against preconceptions of jazz. As a five piece we had the basis of the conventional jazz trio but with the inclusion of two guitarists, which, as was pointed out to us, “was two guitarists too many” from a traditionalist view-point. Much of the musical arrangements we looked at within our research called for either paired down traditional jazz instrumentation with just drums, piano and bass or lush big band orchestration. It was therefore necessary for us to approach our own arrangements from a completely different angle; trying to capture the feel and texture of the music whilst updating the arrangements to suit our own instrumentation. We strongly felt that although we may not have been able to faithfully recreate the music as it would have been heard during the 1920’s and 30’s that this should not negate the playing of this music in a modern day setting. This produced further challenges as we explored ways in which we might best meet our aims and at times led to frustration from all members of the band. Again, regardless of setbacks and minor aggravations I feel we achieved our aims and were able to produce a set that incorporated elements of authenticity (including a well executed swing feel on the tracks that warranted it, strong rhythmic and harmonic elements representing the jungle sound, the inclusion of improvisation, stride-piano technique and even developing new technique; Jack wearing gloves in an attempt to recreate a double-bass feel for example) but presented in an unconventional manner: rather than reproducing a facsimile of performances of the era we succeeded in taking ownership of the music.
We were unable to deliver many of the aspects of the performance that we had hoped to achieve when writing our proposal. Originally, although aware that we were limited in the authenticity of the musical arrangements and instrumentation, we had intended to balance our unorthodox rendition of the music by setting the stage and recreating some of the vaudevillian values and glamour of The Cotton Club. We had set out our intentions to have choreographed dancing and table service, some elements of scenery or stage props and even possibly table service and alcohol licence. None of this came to fruition. I believe that this was due to a number of issues, some of our own making and some beyond our control. Organisationally it was difficult to co-ordinate times when we would be able to rehearse with other performers such as dancers. Having taken so long to produce a concrete proposal for the project we also found ourselves faced with time constraints. I feel that in this way, we were disorganised and had we developed better communication and planning skills along with further developing time management, we would have progressed further towards achieving our original aims. However, the adverse weather conditions which arrived towards the end of November and remained throughout the final weeks of term, leading to several days of college closure and huge travel disruptions definitely contributed to our inability to deliver these elements of the performance as we had originally intended.
I feel that our overall performance on the day was well thought out. We tried to produce a set that took the audience on a journey, starting with high octane numbers ‘Sing, Sing Sing’ and ‘ Minnie The Moocher’ moving though more mellow, blues inflected tracks such as ‘Why Don’t You Do Right’ and then raising the tempo once more for the finale. Each track was selected to highlight a different element of jazz during this period, as explained in my research document. I was disappointed that we failed to produce as many tracks as we had outlined as possibilities in the proposal. This was I feel, again down to poor time-management within our rehearsals; our opening track ‘Sing Sing Sing’ was an ambitious arrangement and we spent far too much time focussing on that, which did not leave us ample time to add further songs to the set. In future projects I would definitely try to take more ownership of the set and push us to achieve more. In saying this, I am also very proud of what we achieved with ‘Sing Sing Sing’. It is a complicated track with a complicated arrangement and I feel that we approached and executed the task at the final performance with energy, confidence and obvious enjoyment. We all made the attempt to capture a 1920’s air in our costumes and I feel Jamie’s song introductions added well to the atmosphere and feeling of entertainment. The one aspect of the performance that I feel really frustrated with was when I ‘froze’ at the very beginning of “Someone To Watch Over Me”. Even after weeks of practice I had completely lost the first line of the song and although I continued to vamp through the opening bars I finally had to be fed the first line from Jamie. After this the song went smoothly but the feeling of sheer panic and also of letting the rest of the band down was horrendous. This is the first time this has ever happened to me and I truly hope that it will be the last.


I feel during this process I have been able to develop my communication skills, learn new techniques and build-upon existing ones. I have also had the opportunity to spend time playing with a group of very talented musicians and I we were able to freely exchange ideas and learn from one another. It has also allowed me to identify areas for personal development such as increasing my organisational and time-management skills and realistic goal-setting. In conclusion, I feel that ensemble has provided me with a very worthwhile and positive experience and highlighted many factors to be considered swhen undertaking projects of this nature in the future.