Last Wednesday evening my trio took the stage at Bennetts Lane Jazz Club under its own steam for the first time in quite some years. We’ve played there once or twice annually as part of the program of the Melbourne Jazz Co-operative, and we’ve been enormously grateful for the Co-op’s support, but this was a gig entirely of our own. I had two things in particular I wanted to do at this performance: firstly, to distribute set lists so that the audience could know what was going on, and secondly to give the final performance of ‘Dances with Jimmy’, a piece included on Scare quotes. Although we’d normally organise the set list before going onstage, it might be subject to revision as the performance went on, and certainly we’d not have done it sufficiently in advance to permit anyone else being let in on the secret.
Because ‘Dances with Jimmy’ carried a certain amount of weight, I wanted it to be at the end of the first set, and to be un-applauded. Having resolved to aim for this, it seemed a small step to organise the remainder of the playlist and then to print it off for sharing. If you were there, it might be that my website’s URL was provided as well that has brought you here. I can’t know. In any case, it’s something I’m planning to continue with. I know I speak quickly, and that some of my tunes’ titles are slightly obscure, so perhaps having them written out makes things easier. And of course if there’s one you like, you can run along and look it up on iTunes or whatever.
We’ll be back at Bennetts this coming Wednesday, and I’m looking forward to it no end. This week’s set list goes as follows:
Three’s a quorum
Our little systems
Esj’
Prologue-like
No tickle-pushes on the big girl swing
Opinion-fear
The unmistaken
Must be
Affec
The Armstrong chair
Two secrets
Rufus redux
Mr Leckett’s etiquette
Recessional
The thing about having released four albums, as we have, is that there are quite a few tunes from which to choose. So between last week and this week there are only three repeats, and two of them are the two that haven’t been recorded as yet. (This week has more of the hits, too.)
24/ii/2013