I’m bumping this to the top of the queue on general principle and because the next edition of Howard’s jam is coming up this May 17th. You might want to check out this earlier post: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (at Howard’s Party).
Jamming has come up over at Morton’s joint, so I thought I’d say a little more about how things work at Howard’s Annual Birthday Bash and All-Hoboken Jam Session.
First let me reiterate that Howard’s been living in Hoboken for some time, 25 or more years I believe. He’s been active in the Hoboken music scene for at least that long. He knows a lot of people and, wouldn’t you know, many of them are musicians. Thus the people who attend this bash know one another, some better than others, naturally.
For the past three or four years Howard and a few others have had a jam session that would met every two or three weeks, usually at Howard’s place. That group has been fairly stable. Howard plays guitar and sings. So does Pete. Doug – who’s played with Howard longer than anyone else in the current group – plays bass; he sings as well. Pavel plays drums and is a Russian working in the USA and living here with his family. Vinnie plays harp (that is, harmonica), though he wasn’t able to make it to the party. I play trumpet and bells (cowbell, agogo).
We perform every once in awhile, but mostly we just jam. Over the years we’ve developed a repertoire of most rock and folk tunes, including a few turns written by members of the jam (Howard, Pete, me). While we do have routines on tunes we play regularly, they aren’t particularly rigid. And there are tunes were the idea is take the jam wherever the moment leads us. These tend to be Grateful Dead tunes; Fire on the Mountain is a favorite. And sometimes stuff just happens.
That’s how things began last Saturday, the night of the party. The front room on the first floor had been designated and set up as the music room. There was a drum set, microphones and speakers, amplifiers, and a keyboard. Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 PM us core jammers were all there, as were other people, milling about. Howard started playing a simple two-chord riff on his guitar. Pete and Doug joined in – I forget in which order. Nor do I remember when Pavel started in on drums.
But there they were, noodling away. People were entering through the front door, walking through the room to the kitchen (& the food and the liquor). Talking, munching, milling. And I was sitting on the couch in the front room, oiling the valves on my trumpet, setting out my bells.
Are they just messing around? Is that a tune they’re playing? Sounds like SOMETHING but I don’t recognize it. What should I do?
I joined in. Just made up something that seemed to fit. And we played whatever it was for awhile and then stopped. Then, I believe, we played one of the tunes we’d been working on. But I forget which one.
And then another. More people came in. Some of them had their instruments. Which they got out, one by one. Got ‘em out, set ‘em up. Joined in. Pretty soon we were playing this or that song that wasn’t part of the regular repertoire. But someone knew it, otherwise we wouldn’t have been playing it, right?
The crucial thing is that WE was no longer the core jam group, the five guys I mentioned up there in the third paragraph. Other people were playing – guitar, keyboard, electric fiddle, and various shakers and rattlers – and singing. Oh yes, the singing.
Somewhere in there three women sitting on a wide bench started doing routines – synchronized hand gestures, leaning this way and that, just like Motown groups did. Who planned that? No one.
That’s how these things go. Here and there around the room other people were playing bells and rattles. Lots of things happen. No one plans anything. Well, not much.
Pretty soon the women started doing simple kicks, while remaining seated. Of course. Before you knew it, Guitar Dave (that’s how I think of him) was wailing away on his acoustic and joined them in their kicks. About this time I was into some kind of trumpet solo, and I – from my seat on the couch – also join up with the kick brigade. Which was ‘kinda awkward, and must have looked ridiculous. But who cares?
It was fun.
Somewhere each and everyone of us from the core group put down our instruments, went into the kitchen, and got some food, and some liquor. And other people filled in on the music. We weren’t actually necessary since there were many musicians in the crowd. They really didn’t need us. The real point, I suppose, is that there is no firm distinction between “they” and “us.”
Somewhere during the evening, this happened (I’m copying a note that Doug had posted to Facebook):
Group mind can be used for good. For ex: late Sat. @ Howard’s. The trumpet player (you) were playing repeating sixteenths on A. I picked it up on bass. Then - then we got on the same page and walked it up the progression, driving the previously listless vamp up a notch. The jam took off. All of us listening and hearing and doing: group mind - used for good. Another reason to adore making music.
You listen, you follow along, you play, someone follows you, and so it went. All night long. It worked because we were comfortable with one another. And because we shared a wide repertoire of songs and riffs. Whatever happened, you could somehow fit in and go with that particular flow.
As for that opening piece that we did, it turns out it wasn’t a tune that anyone knew. When Howard started playing that riff, he was just playing that riff. Getting the fingers loosened up. Checking the feel of the guitar, the sound of the room. We jammed it into, well, a tune.
Now, can we reconstruct what we did, and do it again? Who knows? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. Something from nothing.
* * * * *
That guy in that picture up there. That’s Howard, though not on this occasion. That was last summer and an outdoor concert by a group he plays in, The Gordy’s. This guy here, that’s Guitar Dave:
And the people in the next photo, they’re members of The Gordys too. And they’re doing something silly. I bet they didn’t plan that routine:
As the concert moved along, people got up and started dancing. Like this:
The blonde in front is Howard’s mother. The woman behind her is Howard’s wife. Howard’s somewhere off to the left, playing his guitar.
For the next photo I think I was standing more or less behind the band and looking into the audience. But how do you draw a line between the band and the audience?
See that red-haired woman to the left of center? She was at the party Saturday night. She was one of the women doing the Motown routines.
These guys are Howard’s sons:
And that’s the moon over Manhattan:
