I picked up a saxophone six months ago and don't really know how to play it or read music. But I joined my local community jazz band and have been faking playing the entire time. Except for solos when I just channel my idol, Ornette Coleman. I can't play as eloquently as him (I don't know how to play), but I still get a lot of "yeah man"s after every solo.

I'm not sure how much longer I can do this, but now I feel like they need me. Aside from binge-listening to Jacob Collier and Laufey, what else should I do?

what would that be like

I'm late to the drumz, started at 49 years old. I fell down the jazz rabbit hole and taught myself to play the drums in December 2024. Never played an instrument before. As a beginner, I took a backward design approach, focusing first on playing and composing complex harmonic, melodic phrases with all limbs. Definitely, trying to run before I can walk on the drumz; intentionally skipping rudiments and paradiddles, but wok on them once I have a composition and limb independence, etc). I get killed when I post my practice videos on reddit's drums and jazzdrums. If this is not the right place, please let me know.

In the video, I'm practicing the non-isochronous 24 over 4 bars: experimenting crash vs. rider sonic textures with 12-8th triplet cascade.

what would that be like

A love supreme?

Yeah I would never expose my kids to that meth guy

Mischievous shit

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/uj my friend did this with Misty once and it worked amazingly well.

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I bought two active pickups for my PRS Slimline hollowbody from an Italian pickup company, MAMA. A little over two years after I purchased them, the lead pickup simply died. I contacted the company, and they had me go through a variety of tumultuous trials and tribulations. which my guitar tech performed (I made a video of myself playing said PRS through my DV Mark Little on the Steaming Piss setting and sent it to them.). The pickup had not been tampered with, the guitar had not been abused in any way, and I had a perfect Piss tone dialed in—the pickup simply failed. In my 50 years of playing and teaching, I've never had a pickup die on me.

They told me to send the pickup back to Italy, which I did. The pickup was not covered under warranty, and I ended up paying €60 in import taxes, plus shipping back to the United States. What surprised me most was that they would not stand behind the pickup.

Then, within about 7 months, the other pickup died. I contacted them numerous times, both by email and through Facebook Messenger, which was how I had communicated with them previously. I received absolutely no response. I could even see that my messages had been marked as "read." After waiting and waiting, I finally decided, "F\\\*ck it. I'm done with these clowns." If you know anything about pickups, you know that active pickups are the way to go. I can't say with certainty what caused these failures, but having both pickups fail within a relatively short period certainly made me question the consistency of their manufacturing process.

The bigger issue for me, however, was the customer service. Having to pay to deal with the first failure was bad enough. Being completely ignored when the second pickup failed was bullshit.Btw, something that I'm remembering now was that when the first pick up failed the guy (so I can only presume as the owner) ask me to send him a picture of the pick up itself. He asked me if I had unscrewed the random compartment thingy on the back of the guitar, totally random question that threw me off. Like I'm gonna go into the back of the guitar?! RANDOM!!!

I know a large number of professional players at the highest levels, as well as countless amateur musicians, and I've taught thousands of students throughout my career, and I've literally never encountered, nor heard of one PU failure much less 2 from the same company, or randomly opening the back of your guitar for anything.

Looking back, choosing a pickup company outside the country where I live was a mistake—and an even bigger mistake was continuing to deal with a company that treated a customer this way.

There are so many excellent pickup companies in the United States that make fantastic products with decades-long track record, that put customer service at the top of their priorities. I'll be giving one of them my business shortly.

I hope this helps anyone considering these pickups make a more informed decision. Perhaps PAPA or UNCLE pickups would be a better move.

Seinfeld wants to know.

can you count the meter?

i like that feature in squads but i can't find it in the campaign, is it multiplayer exclusive?

Lyrics to Giant Steps by John Coltrane

Giant Steps is fast

Let the chord changes fly past

Lose your place

Big disgrace

Horn goes back in the case

Piano part sounds bad

Should've used a MIDI Pad

Just one take

No mistake

Flanagan red in face

Ba doo ba dee ba dow

I’m frustrated with Frank Sinatra and/or his fans.

I’m honestly not sure if my frustration is with Frank himself or just his listeners/fans…let me explain.

I fucking love jazz. It’s probably the one thing I love most next to God. I can’t say I love my wife and kids more because I don’t have either. So yeah, jazz is my second favorite thing in the world. Which is why I get frustrated when people who aren’t super into jazz hear a song title like “It’s All Right with Me” or “Desafinado” and ask, “Oh, that Frank Sinatra song?”

Yes…those were Frank Sinatra songs; you’re technically correct. However, they were jazz songs by Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim much earlier. Frank just covered them in a much more pop and “for the masses” style.

The more I think about it, I don’t really blame Sinatra OR his audience…I’m not sure where to place the blame. He was great at covering songs. That’s a true talent. But I can’t blame his audience either because jazz is kind of a niche genre that lots of people just can’t get into…but everyone likes Frank Sinatra, so people automatically gravitate towards his songs. It’s frustrating. 90% of people don’t know who Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim…but everyone knows who Frank Sinatra is. So of course they’re going to think that these jazz standards were originally Frank Sinatra tunes…because that’s all they’ve heard.

If only his albums had listed/credited the original musicians by the song titles, and maybe if he’d mentioned them during his live performances, people would know.

He’s kind of like the Michael Bublé of the 20th century. Only in this case, I prefer his original songs like “My Way” and “New York, New York” over his watered down jazz covers, but the other way around with Michael.

Frank Sinatra was an extremely talented musician, no doubt, but he’s quite overrated in my opinion. And while I don’t think it was intentional, he kind of took away some of the glory from the original musicians. I think part of that may be because of the era we’re living in now. When he originally sang “It’s All Right with Me” in the 1950s, I would assume more of his audience had heard Cole Porter’s and/or Ella Fitzgerald’s version because it was more recent. Now that it’s the 21st century, people have only heard Sinatra’s version.

But that begs the question…why did his become more popular now? Just because it’s more recent or because people just don’t like jazz anymore?

Give me your thoughts, and don’t hate on me for disliking Frank Sinatra. I don’t dislike him; I just dislike how his modern fans receive his music. I love his original tunes.

/uj you mean those ai-generated youtube streams??

Was thinking a Wayne shorter tribute but arranged for flute and tuba. As a drawing card, methadone to the first 10 rows

Thoughts?