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Double Bass The lost art of the society gig

chicagodoubler

chicagodoubler

Aug 7, 2007
1,379
88
Chicago, that toddling town
Disclosures
Endorsing Artist: Lakland, Genz Benz
#1
Recently I had a high dollar couple complain to me on a gig about a number of specifics regarding our inability to provide for a very specific section of our paying audience. Somehow we've lost the ability to play for dancers. I've posted extensively on this in the past, but feel the need to bring it up again.

Surprisingly few of us came up under great leaders. Even fewer of us learned how to play for "society dance" at any point in time. Dancing with the Stars etc... have created an entirely new generation of dancers hungry for live dance bands. The standing market for this may be dying of attrition, but we are shooting ourselves in the collective feet by not cashing in on this huge trend and the resurgence of what was bread and butter for "jazz" bassists for many, many years.

Some of the problems I see on my regular gigs include:

Lack of knowledge of tempo and style
Tune choice that alienates both casual listener and dancer alike
Shoddy or nonexistent dance floor
Failure in current pedagogy to teach workable skills
Poor stage presence (lack of experience, ego,)
Etc.... we could talk about this all day.

How do you guys feel about this? I personally love playing cha-cha, tango, salsa, foxtrot, REAL WALTZ, jive, and whatnot, and find that a dancing audience is often far more appreciative than a "listening" audience.

Comments and suggestions from people who have experience in these ares, or those who just wish that more people would come to their steadies?

Oh, and ps. There's hot chicks involved.:D:D:D
 
#2
I did play in a large Latin band that was aimed primarily at people dancing - in fact the gigs were often combined with dancing classes, as the singer's sister was a professional dance teacher from Brazil.

I did find some gigs enjoyable and it did give a huge burst of energy, when you saw a big crowd all dancing along to what you were playing! I also noticed that this tended to attract far more attractive women than most Jazz gigs...;)

However - I must also say that as a bass player I found the music that we ended up playing to be boring and stifling - there was a huge amount of D Minor vamps playing tumbao endlessly with no variation. It was hard stuff that required a lot of rehearsal and took up a lot of time and dedication and to be honest I was relieved to get out of it and play music that I really liked with people whose playing I liked, despite the smaller audiences.

I can see that it could be immensely fulfilling and these were by far the best paid gigs I had ever done - but in terms of personal development as a musician and learning more about Jazz, it was a "culdesac" for me..?
 
#3
Bruce,

Was it any more boring than playing Autumn Leaves for the 4,000th time, with a self indulgent sax player taking his 12th chorus?

For me personally, this is a question of economic viability and gig diversity more than anything else. NOT recommending that anyone drop their fun gig for a society hit.... unless they need the money!
 
#4
Actually it doesn't happen that often, but I do find playing Autumn Leaves more interesting than endless 2 bar vamps around Dm7 G7 while the percussionists show off...:p

I'm not typical anyway as I earn my money from a day job and don't need to earn money from music.

I think if you had a variety of gigs then it probably wouldn't have been so boring - but my point was more about the time investment being very high. So - it's not like you can just play tunes from the Real Book - Salsa, has complex horn and percussion arrangements that have to be tight and it was just a case of interminable rehearsals to get it right....:hmm:
 
#5
Great thread, I've contemplated this myself. As musicians we always want to move forward and develop our skills, so we play challenging material and often lean towards the unfirmiliar thus satisfying our creative needs. This would be fantastic if everyone we played to was a musician who could relate to us. Unfortunately, 90% of the performances we're likely to be involved in are going to fall on non-musician's ears, and these people aren't necessarily going to appreciate the progressive nature of some of our more experimental tunes, so it's important to take this into consideration.

I don't actually think this is such a bad thing as it keeps the sympathetic musician from straying too far into self indulgence. Most of us (myself included) have a tendency to skip out on rehearsing the old standard styles (swing, bossa, afro-cuban etc) in any detail once we've got the main vocabulary under our fingers, that way we can spend time on the fun stuff. In fact for a lot of bass players, the last time we really developed our skills in these styles wasn't long after we learned to play them, making a surprisingly large number of us nothing more than experienced rookies if that term makes sense.

True as it may be that any passionate musician will always want to continually progress and move into unfirmiliar territory, it ultimately proves detrimental to our careers if we ignore what has gone before. We have to entertain, not just innovate. If we can't entertain a crowd, we can't hold their attention, and if we haven't got their attention then no one will hear our more personal, innovative material. SO, in the interest of your careers learn more about playing the old styles, and go watch some bands that play them, who knows you might enjoy the show.
 
#6
I've been taking a small workload recently anyway because I have two small children and I want to be around to see them grow. I also have a day job, so take my post 'for what it's worth.'

I've ditched all my straight ahead jazz gigs in favor of a salsa group. It is just so much more fulfilling to me as a musician. I can sort of understand wanting to play more changes, but the music is by no means 'boring.' The clave is a whole other world to explore. Trying to tune into it has been an education in and of itself---and I have grown as a musician alot in the last few months.

I've played 'Latin jazz' gigs before, but now I'm really focusing on gaining a deeper understanding of the music. The real satisfaction comes when we get deeper into the music.
 
#7
I've been to many classes on South American rhythms with expert percussionists and this is very interesting - I find the percussion stuff fascinating and love listening to the grooves.

It is amazing to hear hundreds of percussionists play a Brazilian Samba and it is also interesting how subtle a trio of percussionists can be on a Cuban Son. But I tend to feel that bassists get left out a bit and are there to be the solid foundation, which is OK for a while, but makes me long to do something else! ;)
 
#8
My band plays mostly hapa haole hawaiian (The Smokin' Menehunes) and mostly we get hired to play for the over 60 crowd. Lot's of dancing. Not latin, but more like "dream dancing". It's really what the audience wants most of the time. Almost all the songs are slow. They won't dance for the medium or fast tempos. I don't mind, because it is fun to watch them. No one ever compliments the individual members of the band, but the band as a whole gets a lot of compliments! Unlike that sax player, taking the 12th chorus on "autumn leaves" and blowing sheets of notes, we just want to make the audience happy (while also satisfying ourselves musically)
 
#9
Yoghurt speaks immense truth re: "experienced rookies." I'm amazed at the number of drummers who are capable of doing a variety of traditional beats but generally refuse to. Funny how that changes when I'm the one writing their check.

Bruce, clearly the "latin" gig is not for you. Have you explored some of the more advanced Cuban and Puerto Rican bassists? There are cats out there that blow my mind. This is definitely not a music for everyone, but if you're bored imitating guys like Sal Cuevas and Oscar de Leon, the genre might not be the issue. :smug:

There is a subtlety to playing these different dance styles that only comes with a serious time commitment. Many will vibe the sh*t out of these gigs but I personally love them. We're playing for an audience that is broader than the jazz listening audience, there's pretty girls, and we're making people happy. As I often say, we are in the "entertainment" industry, not the "look how important I think I am" industry.
 
#10
chicagodoubler said:
Recently I had a high dollar couple complain to me on a gig about a number of specifics regarding our inability to provide for a very specific section of our paying audience. Somehow we've lost the ability to play for dancers.

I agree with this, though I think the trend has been a long time coming. The "very specific section" of the audience is a generally elderly and well-heeled subset of the adult population. The number of people who know the sorts of dances that are typical of society gigs has been declining since the 1960s, if not earlier, as has the number of such gigs.

Surprisingly few of us came up under great leaders. Even fewer of us learned how to play for "society dance" at any point in time.

Given the demographics of the audience, I don't find this all that surprising. I've been free-lancing in the Washington DC area since the late 1970s. Back then, there were 5 or 6 large booking offices that regularly hired free-lancers for club dates and at least a dozen bandleaders who did so a few times a month. Now there are only a couple, much smaller, booking offices, and maybe 6 occasional bandleaders. By and large, they hire the same people they've been hiring for decades, who are aging along with the audience. I very rarely play with anyone under the age of 35 on society gigs these days. Young musicians just aren't learning the vernacular, for better or worse.

Dancing with the Stars etc... have created an entirely new generation of dancers hungry for live dance bands. The standing market for this may be dying of attrition, but we are shooting ourselves in the collective feet by not cashing in on this huge trend and the resurgence of what was bread and butter for "jazz" bassists for many, many years.

I haven't seen much evidence of this, myself, though things may be different in Chicago than around here. People said similar things about the swing dance fad of 10 years or so ago. The trend turned out not to have legs, apart from a few swing dance organizations that might sponsor a dance monthly or quarterly.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sense that "Dancing with the Stars" is driven more by cultural fascination with celebrity than by a deep urge among the populace to get out and go ballroom dancing.

I personally love playing cha-cha, tango, salsa, foxtrot, REAL WALTZ, jive, and whatnot, and find that a dancing audience is often far more appreciative than a "listening" audience.

This can be true, in my experience. I think what's been lost is the reciprocal interaction between musicians and dancers, in which what's going on on the dance floor directly shapes what goes on on the bandstand (tempos, tune choices, styles, etc.). You could say that, under the society music paradigm, musicians took their cues from the dancers, collectively, almost as much as from the other players on the bandstand.

But then, the decoupling of jazz and related popular music from dancing has been in the works a long time, certainly since the bebop revolution.
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#11
sfmiller55 said:
chicagodoubler said:
Recently I had a high dollar couple complain to me on a gig about a number of specifics regarding our inability to provide for a very specific section of our paying audience. Somehow we've lost the ability to play for dancers.

I agree with this, though I think the trend has been a long time coming. The "very specific section" of the audience is a generally elderly and well-heeled subset of the adult population. The number of people who know the sorts of dances that are typical of society gigs has been declining since the 1960s, if not earlier, as has the number of such gigs.

Surprisingly few of us came up under great leaders. Even fewer of us learned how to play for "society dance" at any point in time.

Given the demographics of the audience, I don't find this all that surprising. I've been free-lancing in the Washington DC area since the late 1970s. Back then, there were 5 or 6 large booking offices that regularly hired free-lancers for club dates and at least a dozen bandleaders who did so a few times a month. Now there are only a couple, much smaller, booking offices, and maybe 6 occasional bandleaders. By and large, they hire the same people they've been hiring for decades, who are aging along with the audience. I very rarely play with anyone under the age of 35 on society gigs these days. Young musicians just aren't learning the vernacular, for better or worse.

Dancing with the Stars etc... have created an entirely new generation of dancers hungry for live dance bands. The standing market for this may be dying of attrition, but we are shooting ourselves in the collective feet by not cashing in on this huge trend and the resurgence of what was bread and butter for "jazz" bassists for many, many years.

I haven't seen much evidence of this, myself, though things may be different in Chicago than around here. People said similar things about the swing dance fad of 10 years or so ago. The trend turned out not to have legs, apart from a few swing dance organizations that might sponsor a dance monthly or quarterly.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sense that "Dancing with the Stars" is driven more by cultural fascination with celebrity than by a deep urge among the populace to get out and go ballroom dancing.

I personally love playing cha-cha, tango, salsa, foxtrot, REAL WALTZ, jive, and whatnot, and find that a dancing audience is often far more appreciative than a "listening" audience.

This can be true, in my experience. I think what's been lost is the reciprocal interaction between musicians and dancers, in which what's going on on the dance floor directly shapes what goes on on the bandstand (tempos, tune choices, styles, etc.). You could say that, under the society music paradigm, musicians took their cues from the dancers, collectively, almost as much as from the other players on the bandstand.

But then, the decoupling of jazz and related popular music from dancing has been in the works a long time, certainly since the bebop revolution.
Click to expand...

Exactly !!.
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#12
Steven,

You nail it right on the head. Dance bands should take tempo and style cues from dancers! ALWAYS! Ever try dancing to bebop? Usually when I see a cat doing so there is some sort of contraband usage involved...

As my own group has shifted our focus to danceable tunes (involving a bit of education for the couple jazz purists) we've noticed more and more people on the dance floor. Requests in the last few months have included Viennese Waltz, Rhumba, Jive, Uptempo swing, and of course, high school slow dance. Anyone can do the slow dance bit, and often just telling the audience you're going to play a slow tune and encouraging them to grab someone special will get a few couples on the floor.... even on a jazz club hit.

It's quite possible we'd get a lot of our gigs back if we universally realized we aren't too good for dancers. They seem to be coming out of the wood work here lately, and I'd much rather they be at our gigs than dancing to a DJ! Their money also spends just as well as a listening audience's does... often even better.
 
#13
I worked a lot of Society gigs on guitar in the late '70's through the late '80's in New York City. I remember Emory Davis having guys like Candido show up on Congas to spruce up what generally speaking was a very dry rhythm section with 3 horns and a singer. He (Candido) usually was pissed and mumbling in spanish because the time was messed up and often threw sticks or whatever was close by, at whoever was ****ing up. You often could feel a stick tapping on your shoulder. At 18, I was terrified and not only had to worry about Emory calling what I thought were obscure tunes but also was deflecting flying objects from Candido at me and whoever was on piano and bass.

EDIT: As usual, I assume everyone knows who and what I'm referring to. Sorry to the folks who do know. Emory is the son of Meyer Davis and Candido..... well..... here is a link:

Invalid Link Removed
 
#14
Whilst I've never had anything thrown at me by a member of the band, after I got the "two fingered salute" (ie. keep it two in a bar!!) from the Bandleader a few times as I eased into a walk after the head of a slow foxtot, I learned that playing for Ballroom Dancing requires a different mindset to playing anything else.


I started playing professionally in the mid 1970s and my (paying) gigs were generally backing singers and/or production shows and playing for dancing the rest of the time.

In those days there was still a requirement to play strict tempo ballroom dancing tunes (along with the latest chart hits as well) so even if I was given "Wake me up before you go go" as a sight reading test at an audition I would also be asked to busk "Moon River" in "C" - this tested three things :

1. I knew how to play a waltz and therefore (hopefully) could manage a Quickstep/Slow fox/Cha Cha/Rumba/Tango as well.

2. He knew that if asked "do you know any waltzes"? by a memeber of the audience, I wouldn't say anything sarcastic or abusive that might get us fired!!.

3. He knew that I knew the "Real" Chords to standards (not just the pub piano/sheet music ones), so if we did get to do some Jazz I could keep up.

Finally, this Wiki entry is worth a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballroom_dancing
 
#15
I've been primarily a dance band musician (society, top 40, corporate etc) for most of my professional life. Although I've done lots of tours with songwriters etc, most of my money has come from playing in dance bands. They've definitely changed since the late 70s early 80s.

When I first moved to NYC most of the older cats who had mortgages etc did a lot of society gigs. I had a few friends that worked for Lester Lanin, Emory and a bunch of other bandleaders whose names I can't remember. The work was pretty plentiful as I remember. I had a couple friends who were the "rock" specialists as the bandleaders called them. They would hang out most of the night until it was their time to play/sing some Credence, Brown Eyed Girl, whatever. They pretty much hated it but it was good bread and allowed them to do their own music.
A lot seemed to change in the late 80s and most of my work moved to wedding corporate bands that played standards as well as everything current. It basically became top 40 with a lot of the old standards thrown in. Most, if not all the guys I know who used to do society gigs don't do them at all anymore. It seems a lot of those old bandleaders died out or retired.
 
#16
I guess it's Ok to come up playing society gigs. I never wanted to do that nor do I want to do it now. Certainly there is some skill involved as there is for any craft but what satisfaction can you take from playing this stuff?

I was lucky. I never had to do these kind of gigs. I got to tour with stars and make records, as well as record some TV music, commercials and some movie music.

Personally, if playing society gigs were some sort of goal, I would rather sell insurance or Amway. At least then I wouldn't feel that I'd prostituted myself.

Currently I do not make my living solely from music and I couldn't be happier. I don't have to take a touring job just to pay the mortgage. I don't have to play with people I don't want to play with and I don't have to play tunes I don't want to play.

Guess it really comes down to how you view music and what you want to accomplish with it. Are you striving for some kind of artistic statement or are you using whatever you've learned musically to just make a living no matter what kind of drek you have to play? :cool::hiding::cool:
 
#17
Treyzer said:
Guess it really comes down to how you view music and what you want to accomplish with it. Are you striving for some kind of artistic statement or are you using whatever you've learned musically to just make a living no matter what kind of drek you have to play? :cool::hiding::cool:
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I agree that this is the crux of the matter - so I have great respect for those who do the latter as musicians, but it never occurred to me until I started reading TB that music was anything but the first option...:eyebrow:

So - I grew up viewing music as "Art" and that whatever you did was an artistic statement that defined who you were...?

As I got into my 20s and 30s, I suppose I must have been aware of musicians who viewed what they did simply as a job - but I guess I just ignored that kind of thing, as music always seemed more important to me?

So when I listen to a Mahler Symphony it feels like I am being told something about the human condition that can only be expressed in this way. When I listen to Coltrane on A Love Supreme, I hear somebody who has to do that and express those feelings..?

I suppose now it's a big issue for me, as I wonder if I would have been happier if I had taken the risk to become a full-time musician, rather than having a comfortable living through other things?

Maybe the attitude I am talking about, precludes me from being a professional musician and dooms me to be forever, just a "fan"...?
 
#18
May I quote a post I made on a thread related to the proverbial Music stands yes or no issue:

That's the skill of the professional - making it sound convincing when you're seeing it for the first time ever or making it sound fresh when you've played the chart so many times that you're sick of the sight and sound of it :-).

... or if you've had a bad day, or are p*****d off with life in general, or the music you're playing is garbage, and/or the band you're playing with sucks, and/or and the audience don't care anyway.....

You're a professional, so smile and carry on.. ^_^.
 
#19
I agree with Artie-not too many society jobs anymore. Of course there's not too many guys around anymore who can play a 4 hour dance job with an assumed repertoire of 1500-2000 songs. Not too many rhythm sections can play a convincing foxtrot, much less old style rumba, chacha, mambo, paso doble, merengue, peabody, etc.

The first society job I ever did in NYC was with a 17 piece big band. Four hours, no charts, two choruses at the most on each song with the exception of the 15-20 big band standards, which you were expected to know cold, top to bottom.

I'm real happy for Treyzer that he's never had to lower himself to learning the art and craft of the clubdate. I guess it just doesn't take that much skill to show up on a gig with 5-15 players who have never met and make it sound like you've been together for years.

BTW, I do a lot of other stuff, too, as anyone who knows me can attest. If you want to survive in NYC, you have to be open, flexible, and know the tunes.
 
#20
Treyzer said:
I guess it's Ok to come up playing society gigs. I never wanted to do that nor do I want to do it now. Certainly there is some skill involved as there is for any craft but what satisfaction can you take from playing this stuff?

I was lucky. I never had to do these kind of gigs. I got to tour with stars and make records, as well as record some TV music, commercials and some movie music.

What satisfaction can you take from playing this stuff? The same sort of satisfaction you take from playing on jingles, I suppose. ;) Nobody would call either one High Art, and neither would be the highest aspiration for most of us. But both can be done more or less well, with greater or lesser degrees of skill and conviction and professionalism. And the money earned from both spends the same.

Guess it really comes down to how you view music and what you want to accomplish with it. Are you striving for some kind of artistic statement or are you using whatever you've learned musically to just make a living no matter what kind of drek you have to play? :cool::hiding::cool:

I think this is a false dichotomy. Most of us who rely on music for all or a significant part of our livelihood make our choices somewhere along the continuum between the two poles.
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