I'm just curious, what do you guys consider to be your most rewarding musical experience (I don't mean money-wise)?
Mine was back When I Had Just Graduated from College, and I was doing the String clinic Gig for the local school district,and one of the classes I had to teach was a bunch of hearing-impaired third graders. At first I had no idea what I was going to do, but then I realized that they could feel the vibrations of my bass, so I had them come up and lay their hands on my bass while I played for them, and they just thought it was the greatest thing ever!
I found out years later that one of the kids from that day had gone into research for music for the deaf. Kind of makes it all worthwile,,,,sniff..

I work in a guitar/bass/drums jazz trio that can swing very hard. Every year, we do some gigs for the City of Newark senior citizens. These people would rather listen to Gene Ammons than Coltrane, if you catch my drift. We open with Li'l Suzy, or Freddie Freeloader, and these seniors are up and dancing like you can't imagine. I see a group of women beaming, laughing, pointing at one old guy who's dancing. They call out other people to come and see. It continues. When I get a chance, I ask a staff person what's the deal. Turns out the guy has Alzheimer's and hadn't moved or talked for maybe a year. I told them paying me was unnecessary.

Wow, I guess no one but Don has had a rewarding musical experience.What a Shame....

Originally posted by reedo35
Wow, I guess no one but Don has had a rewarding musical experience.What a Shame....

Well I was going to post about my 4 year old daughter listenning to me practice Bach and as a result having
developed a love for Bach, or about how her name for
jazz is Daddy Music.

But come on, after Don's post... Wait a minute, wasn't
that last week's ABC Million Dollar Movie?

But come on, after Don's post... Wait a minute, wasn't
that last week's ABC Million Dollar Movie? [/B][/QUOTE]

I didn't post the thread for a competition of whose story is better, I'm sure there are are a lot of players out there with inspiring anecdotes to share.

Yea Don and reedo's stories are pretty impressive. Great to hear things like that. As for myself, it is a pretty good feeling to walk into any gig with that giant bag on my back hearing comments like "oh look he is going to play the cello" or "accordian", or "big violin". It is such an impressive instrument that at one particular gig, while the band was just a side show, the bass was the focus of the local news cameras. I REALLY love it when the band breaks into a 50's tune and I get to slapping and dancing with the bass. You can see every face in the crowd light up. The reaction of the older members of the audience... a childhood smile, as you take them back to the great sounds of when rock and roll was an infant and the upright bass was "pop". AHHHHhhh.... what happened to pop?????

Well, maybe this is corny,

But i like the feeling of walking into a room, right before a competition, with that huge piece of wood I call an instrument, and everyone smiles, or says is that heavy or do I need help, or they are impressed. I just like the idea of it cause it isn't something everyone sees everyday... a black girl carrying around an upright.

I've been very lucky - I've had some great experiences:
[list=1]
Playing at the College Band Directors National Association Convention with the North Texas Wind Symphony - receiving a roaring standing ovation for playing your a$$ off from 2,000 people who have an intense and intimate understanding of what goes into a great, precise, passionate, and intense performance.
Playing jazz standards at a local assisted living facility - seeing the simple joy of people remembering their good old days and just having a blast.
University of North Texas - I quit seeing bar lines and my ears got huge (too bad they shrank after I quit music and majored in finance).
Opening for Wilco at a packed club here in Dallas - the crowd showed up for the big touring band, we played great and plenty of folks walked out after we were done.
[/list=1]

Oh, what the hell....hope this isn't too sappy:

This October, I played a gig with the Louisville Orchestra in a jazz trio that was backing clarinet virtuoso Richard Stolzman. I had no idea that my mother would be in the house that night, and she had no idea that I was playing. The set went really well, and the quartet found ourselves taking a very long curtain call just before intermission. It seemed like the applause went on forever. As I was walking around looking for my friends to catch the second half of the concert, this arm shot out and grabbed me as I was passing. Guess who?

I thought she was gonna bust the buttons on her outfit, and I realized that no matter how many ups and downs we've had over the years, at that PRECISE MOMENT she was really really proud to be my mother. I almost lost it.

Sorry if that was horribly maudlin, but it really happened. Blame reedo...He started this!

I'm a psychologist at a state residential facility for profoundly mentally retarded adults. Music is a big deal to these folks. Myself and some other guys who work in my area have a band and we have dances and shows for the residents. It's always rewarding every time we play for them, but a couple particular highlights: 1) a resident requesting and singing 'Amazing Grace' with us (most of our residents have no verbal ability), and 2) a severely autistic man with few social skills slow-dancing with one of his favorite staff members.

Being a jazz musician in a typical SQUARESVILLE city, I'm used to playing before a crowd that isn't paying any attention, and being hired just for the image. However, my quartet got hired by a black church to do a little get together for their adults. They had built this dance club adjacent to the church for teen outreach, but this Friday was for the adults. They had cooked soul food (fried chicken, bar-b-que, greens, etc.) and were charging $5 cover to pay us, with a guaranteed minimum. The place was packed, and we were blowing and swinging as hard as we could. It didn't matter if it was 'Trane's Lonnie's Lament , Mingus' Remember Rockefeller at Attica , or our version of Monk's I Mean You , they were way into it and going nuts. A couple of ladies later got up and read poetry over a background, and that was much hipper than I have ever seen it done. We ended up playing an hour extra we were having such a great time. They treated us like royalty, and we made about triple our minimum in tips. One of the ladies threw in a check for $50, which I know was a sacrifice. When we did my jazz arrangement of the gospel tune 'Tis So Sweet (To Trust in Jesus) loosely based on the changes of Bernie's Tune , they absolutely loved it. We have done that gig two other times (they don't like to do much to interfere with the dance club), but it was never quite as electric as that night.

Monte

Originally posted by Ed Fuqua

Oh, the drummer was Leon Parker.

You lucky @#%&^$(. I love Leon Parker's playing. That release on Criss Cross calling themselves MTB entitled "Consenting adults" is un-real. Leon Parker (d) Larry Grenadier (b) Brad Mehldau (p) Peter Bernstein (g) and Mark Turner (t. sax)

Check it out sometime.

Monte

Yeah, at one time I wanted to live there very badly and see what I was made of. However, for some strange reason, my wife didn't want to teach and strugle to eat up there. I've had a few friends go there and struggle, and their comment was that there were some (a few) players in Oklahoma that could cut it there, but the main difference is that every musician in the group was killer, not one good musician surrounded by 3 mediocre ones.

My friend Dave Bowen stayed up there for a few years, just moving back last year. He played drums with Essiet O. Essiet's group, but he was struggling to make ends meet, and took a cruise ship gig.

Keep your eye out for my friend Shirrell Cassity, a pretty decent alto sax player. We used to play in a quintet together, and she moved to Boston and eventually NYC, and is playing around some last I heard.


Monte

Originally posted by Chris Fitzgerald
Blame reedo...He started this!

You know, I just checked, and I started this thread over a year ago. I guess it just took a while to catch on..:)

Reedo, you are just light years above everyone else. You da MAN!!!!!!!!!

At my fortieth birthday concert/party, I got my ten-year-old tenor-playing son up to play St. Thomas. That was the whole deal for me, folks. If it had stopped right there, I would have been ok.

I've played some pretty fun gigs with my canoe paddle. I've had some good times with the crowd at some of the gigs, and at others seen the pride from my parents, but I tell you, one day I was at my local Junior College with a friend, (pianist/vocalist) who asked me to come down and play bass on a couple of tracks he would use for his voice class. Well, in the corner of the room we were recording in, (the jazz room), I noticed the string bass.

I grabbed it, and looked at my friend. He said "blues in G." I played for five minutes. My hand was raw and my wrist was sore. My fingers felt like they were swelled to the size of cucumbers.

It just felt so good. This instrument just breathes, not the way my canoe paddle does. It's just more alive.