Last night's gig had a twist that I had never experienced before, at least that I can recall. It started as a fairly routine background music situation for a celebration of life. We played some jazzy-commercial stuff, and a few of the family and guests began to sit in with vocals and guitars. By the end of the night, it had morphed into a full- on fiddle jam! I hadn't played some of those tunes in decades, but they're apparently impossible to forget, as I found out. It was actually kind of fun, but an unusual combo of genres. One of the guests I know said,"I didn't know you could play that kind of music". I told her that's what decades of freelancing will teach you.
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Double Bass New to me on the gig
- Thread starter Bruce Calin
- Start date
Bruce, many if not most of the memorials in our bluegrass community are advertised as memorial-jams. They typically have a short spoken word and a potluck meal, then a jam that can go on for hours and have 2 to 4 or more jam groups. Your experience sounds like one of these, so similar in fact that it made me wonder if there were bluegrassers involved in planning this event.
I think this was somewhat the case. The deceased and family are(were) musicians and one daughter is a professional fiddler. This event was more upscale at a fancy hotel, but that spirit definitely took over. The thing that surprised us was nobody told us in advance, so for the jazzyish trio it was unexpected. People had a good time, and it was a great celebration of the deceased, who was a fun loving woman who loved music.
