The flute club

Today marked the commencement of the Jazz Orchestra Workshop portion of the proceedings in Banff. The first couple of hours was the official welcome to Banff by Hugh and various members of the Banff staff. Most enjoyable was Myra Davies' "Tick Talk". Apparently ticks are coming out in force this time of the year and being an artist herself, she had a very theatrical presention on the life of these little buggers. At least it was different from the same basic presentation in earlier years.

We started off with the traditional welcoming exercise which was the communal African clapping and singing piece. It got progressively harder until most of us couldn't sing, move and clap the rhythms that your basic African rugrat can do. It's a great leveller of musicians' egos. I got to play the bell pattern on my salsa bell, but although I am much better at playing the pattern than before, the moment I add singing to it, I am toast. It makes you a bit humble, but the energy generated through this exercise is palpable. We went inside and applied the same concepts to our instruments, resulting in about a 40-minute piece (or so it seemed) where everyone got to introduce themselves by way of soloing. There are about 24 people in the band, so there were a lot of players to work through. The trumpet section made an immediate impression as being particularly hot this year.

After lunch, we got down to reading some repertoire, sometimes a bit of an organizational challenge since there are 8 saxophones, 2 flautists, and lots of extra trombones and trumpets. Maybe I should get a better count tomorrow. There will be some rotation of players, but also some pieces where everyone plays together.

I'm one of three tenor players. I got to play most of the doubling parts, on soprano sax or flute. In fact I got to play a lot of flute. In advance of coming up here, I practiced one piece, Chucho's Mambo Influenciado. I was expecting to play it on sax, but Hugh asked me to play flute. He is planning on taking it way faster than previous years, or rather he expects Chucho to do so, and it's up very high in the flute's range, two things that I don't usually do well on flute. But being Banff, I went for it and actually did quite well in rehearsal. I think with some work, I'll be able to do it justice. Jeremy Price is going to give a master class later this week, so I may come home being a much better flute player, though that may not be saying too much.

A couple of days ago one of the composers here mentioned at the dinner table about going to a gig recently at the Chicago Flute Club. This sent us into fits of laughter thinking about a bunch of effete gangbangers defending their turf with hissy fits, or else a bunch of people climbing up to the alpine meadows to pick flowers and playing trills. I know it's pretty sophomoric, but the vibe starts getting a little wierd up here after a couple of days. But ironically now, I appear to be in the Banff Flute Club.

I spent the evening in the practice room, alternately practising, trying to get my laptop to run better and avoiding working on my next composition. I did look at my pre-Banff notes on the piece and tossed them away. I think I have to start all over again. I made some draft sketches for a graphic score, but they look suspiciously like something Barry Guy did, so I may have to start yet again. I have a few days to pull something together.

Excuse me while I work on my trills...