Playing At Jazz Club, What to play Options

[Pudding]

Daughter is playing at a famous Jazz Club in London in November. She has not done any Jazz before. She is grade 6 Piano and needs a good flashy piece but nothing overly too complicated. It is a very important event. Any ideas please?

[TSax]

If she's not done any jazz before I'm guessing she wants something notated rather than something improvised. If it's improvised pretty much anything can be as flashy as the performer wishes to make it even where the head (or tune) is fairly simple. A straightforward blues would be a good place to start.

At a guess transcriptions of the piano greats performances will be well in excess of grade 6, so that would leave you with a piano piece in a jazz style. I'm no pianist, but if no-one comes along here to offer advice it might be worth reposting in Viva Piano.

[Mad Tom]

There is a very nice arrangement of Ain't Misbehavin' in

Great Piano Solos: The Black Book


If that is too difficult at Grade 6, then the same volume also has a fairly authentic sounding version of

My Baby Just Cares For Me

that is a lot easier and should be doable (especially with from now to November to practice)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/piano.gif) <-- Do .... Be Do ..... Be Do .... Be Do Beeeee Do

[nickjones8]

There is a very nice arrangement of Ain't Misbehavin' in

Great Piano Solos: The Black Book


If that is too difficult at Grade 6, then the same volume also has a fairly authentic sounding version of

My Baby Just Cares For Me

that is a lot easier and should be doable (especially with from now to November to practice)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/piano.gif) <-- Do .... Be Do ..... Be Do .... Be Do Beeeee Do

Depends whether she is playing jazz or not ... and whether she is playing with other people.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but if it is a jazz gig, then some improvisation will be almost inevitable, and if she is playing with others she'll probably be comping chords rather than playing a tune. Why not learn and practice improvising on a standard - Autumn Leaves is easy, or take something from the ABRSM fake book.

If on the other hand she just needs to play a solo that sounds jazzy, then there are loads of transcriptions, and not all of them will be that hard. The Jazzwise site might be a good bet for ideas.

nick

[Ayshah]

Daughter is playing at a famous Jazz Club in London in November.

oooh where? when?

[pianoboe]

I think it depends what sort of Jazz you want?

Pick a standard and mess about with it...as nickjones8 suggested, autumn leaves is a good one, though it's been played to death...but if you browse youtube on classic jazz stuff you're sure to find something you like...maybe take the ABRSM grade books - a few of the pieces are pretty good stuff, so you could go with those and funk it up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (I'm loving I wish I knew how it would feel to be free at the moment, and there are lots of versions of that floating about - so pick and mix and take ideas from those?)

Christopher Norton has some pretty nice jazzy stuff if you want that sort of thing? But that's a bit more...lesson type jazz?

[Violinia]

Yes, if it's a jazz club shouldn't she be doing at least a bit of improvisation? Could you be a bit more specific? Also as the performance isn't till November why not find her a jazz piano teacher? As she has Grade 6 piano already she could easily learn a fair bit of real jazz by then as well as get some ideas of what to play.