Jazz Band Idea...your input please

[Humblerumble]

I Play in a rock/blues band with a little jazz thrown in. We are a six piece and we play everything from Joss Stone to SRV to Rush to Najee. I have an itch to play a little more jazz and my drummer and I were thinking of starting a little jazz thing on the side just for fun. Pick about 30 jazz standards learn them and invite either of our present guitarists to learn them as well as our keyboard player. Look for little coffee house type gigs and just have a three piece play. So whoever was free could come on in and play. Have any of you guys done anything like that and if so how did it go?

[Thor]

The band is not ready yet, but that is the idea.

We have an alto sax, so we added:

Soul Serenade
Stormy Weather
Blue Skies
Summertime
Fever
Moondance
Spooky - that tune really rocked the guys.

I think Stormy Weather and Blue Skies won't make the cut,
but the others seem to have worked out well.

[jweiss]

Sounds very reasonable.

A jazz trio needs to be tight, and everyone (including the bassist) has to carry their weight in terms of improvising interesting solos. If this is an issue at first, consider adding a horn or keyboard player to help fill things out.

30 tunes is a good target to get started. Eventually you want to get to the point where you can open the real book and pick tunes on the fly.

Hopefully you're doing it for fun and not for money Figure $50-150 total for a coffee house gig if you're lucky. And maybe some coffee if you're really lucky

Cheers,

Jeff

[Humblerumble]

Yes it will be for fun as has been most of my music career
I told the drummer my mission statement would be "to play more, grow as a musician and have some fun". The guitarists I play with are seasoned musicians that can pick up anything on the fly and roll with it. I just want to keep it small so we don't have the trouble our full six piece has getting in small venues and schedules etc.