Learning Traditional Jazz is like Planning Wedding Music

Thanks in advance for reading this article. I appreciate your interest and hope you get a few good ideas. I'd love to hear what you liked. Please write me a little COMMENT below. Start a conversation. Tell me what you think, and I'll reply. Promise.
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Learning Traditional Jazz is best done by combining two familiar methods.  The same ones you probably use in your own projects every day.

The first method is informal — by working “on-the-job” with more experienced musicians.  The second is formal — by attending school and taking lessons to develop musical technique.

In your own life, you can adapt these two methods to any project you tackle.  This same balance of “real-world” experience and technical study helps everywhere:

• Learning practically anything.
• Solving a problem.
• Managing your next project.
• Raising your children.
• You name it.  Even planning your wedding music.

The challenge is to strike the proper informal vs formal balance.  Each approach brings important advantages.

For the informal side, you can listen to the voice of experience — professional wedding planners, or wedding musicians, or even married friends — who have first-hand experience at planning wedding music.  At least once.

Searching just a little, you can easily find more formal, structured guides in workshops, webinars, seminars, wedding magazines, wedding websites, chapters in wedding books, and even sessions in training programs to become a certified wedding coordinator.

Now, what about learning traditional jazz?  Here’s what I know about how people learn to be musicians.

Many musicians learn their art with mentors, through relationships with experts.  Here they learn not only technical skills but also the “big picture” of musicianship and how to get around in the world of music.

Most of my formal musical training came in my elementary and high school years.  There’s always been much I don’t know about music, and I’ve been “filling in the blanks” most of my life.  But I’m getting there.

How did I learn about traditional jazz, New Orleans music, and the Popular Standards?  Not from any formal relationship with a mentor, but instead mainly from working at weddings and parties, talking and playing with many friends here in California and in New Orleans.  I’ve always been fortunate to work with friends who were much better musicians than I was.

For about a dozen years back in the 1970s and 80s, my wife and I visited New Orleans several times a year.  We spent much of that time with many of the old veteran jazzmen.  In all, I’ve had LOTS of informal mentors.  They taught me a lot about traditional jazz, New Orleans music, working in a band, and entertaining people.  And in most cases, this was how THEY learned years ago, when they were my age.

Here is a photo of me with Chester Zardis, one of my favorite New Orleans bassists. (Photo from the late 1970s, in William Carter’s 1991 book, Preservation Hall.)

There were countless hours talking with Chester and with dozens of those old timers, occasionally sitting in with them at Preservation Hall and parading with New Orleans brass bands, and watching and listening to them in action for all those years.  Chester was my main inspiration during those early years, and I still think of his powerful, buoyant, driving rhythm every time I play.

Here is a photo of Chester in the mid 1960s, with one of the early versions of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  This was about 10 years before I met him.  George Lewis, the clarinetist, used to call Chester his very favorite bassist.

Born around the turn of the century, Chester Zardis was one of New Orleans’ premier bassists for over 70 years.  Here is an old photo of young Chester (from about 1916 or so) playing in the popular band led by trumpeter Buddie Petit.

Petit was another legendary trumpeter who left no recorded legacy, but all the old-timers say he was one of the best.  Just imagine what Chester must have learned while working with him!

Now, let me tell you a little story.  Recently, I heard one veteran musician praise another, saying something like, “I knew he was a good player, but for the longest time I regarded him mainly as a competitor. Now, in recent years, I’ve been listening to his remarkable music more closely, and I’m always learning something new.  Now I wish I’d started listening to him years earlier.”

See what I mean?  Much of what we know we learn either formally from experts willing to teach us, or from being with experts informally, talking with them, watching and listening to them in action.

So if you’re planning wedding music, here’s a tip:  Balance formal and informal advice.  Seek formal information — spoken, written, or “in the classroom”.  And surround yourself with experts you admire and learn from the examples they set. 

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Meanwhile, the Magnolia Jazz Band entertains at weddings and parties throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. If you are ever nearby, you’ll love catching us in action, seeing and hearing us create a great mood.

How can I help you? Call 408-245-9120 or use [email protected]. Planning a celebration? Ask about our availability.

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