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I wanted to share this story with my friends at the Cafe. Those of you who have played a few gigs can probably relate and share your own less than stellar experiences.
I had a few "interesting" gigs over the years, but one stands out in particular. A local dance band had booked two "wedding" gigs on the same night and called the leader of our jazz quartet and asked if we could sub for his group on that night. No problem. We played a lot of standards, soft rock, and pop tunes so we felt comfortable playing for a wedding dance.
We got there and as we were setting up began to realize the gig was for a for a Greek wedding party and there was a good chance the a** hole who called us to fill in knew exactly what he was doing. The bride's father who hired the band was expecting a Greek Bouzuki Band that would play music to do "traditional dances" to---not a jazz quartet. On top of that, the last minute sub we got to play drums packed his set so quickly, when he opened his snare case it was empty---he had left his snare at home.
We played a couple of slow tunes, but no one got up and danced, and the crowd began to get more hostile the more they drank. The bride was in tears and the father who was a BIG man approached the bandstand with a look of rage on his face. How did we dare to ruin his daughter's special evening! Suddenly the piano player broke into "Never on Sunday", the drummer hitting a tamborine in his lap, and me reaching for my soprano. They began to dance and have a good time, but we had 2 1/2 hours left to play!
We played Never on Sunday again, this time in a different key and it didn't seem to matter as long as they recognized the song and could do their dance to it. This went on for a while, as the piano player racked his brain to think of another song they might like that sounded---well foreign enough. The next seque was into Hava Nagila and they loved it! Over and over again all evening Never on Sunday and Hava Nagila were all that we played. Every word of this is true, you can't make this stuff up.
I had a few "interesting" gigs over the years, but one stands out in particular. A local dance band had booked two "wedding" gigs on the same night and called the leader of our jazz quartet and asked if we could sub for his group on that night. No problem. We played a lot of standards, soft rock, and pop tunes so we felt comfortable playing for a wedding dance.
We got there and as we were setting up began to realize the gig was for a for a Greek wedding party and there was a good chance the a** hole who called us to fill in knew exactly what he was doing. The bride's father who hired the band was expecting a Greek Bouzuki Band that would play music to do "traditional dances" to---not a jazz quartet. On top of that, the last minute sub we got to play drums packed his set so quickly, when he opened his snare case it was empty---he had left his snare at home.
We played a couple of slow tunes, but no one got up and danced, and the crowd began to get more hostile the more they drank. The bride was in tears and the father who was a BIG man approached the bandstand with a look of rage on his face. How did we dare to ruin his daughter's special evening! Suddenly the piano player broke into "Never on Sunday", the drummer hitting a tamborine in his lap, and me reaching for my soprano. They began to dance and have a good time, but we had 2 1/2 hours left to play!
We played Never on Sunday again, this time in a different key and it didn't seem to matter as long as they recognized the song and could do their dance to it. This went on for a while, as the piano player racked his brain to think of another song they might like that sounded---well foreign enough. The next seque was into Hava Nagila and they loved it! Over and over again all evening Never on Sunday and Hava Nagila were all that we played. Every word of this is true, you can't make this stuff up.