2

I didnt go to the group improvisation meeting this past week, the snow was deep, school was canceled, and I wasnt sure if merrill hall was open. I don't know if Adam and Peter have anything planned for the dancers, hopefuly I'll be able to play along with them. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we play for the dance group tomorrow. I can see how the dancers might base their movements on what they hear. I wonder how their dance will influence the musicians?

1

I've been thinking about what to talk about in my Jam Band presentation. Jam music is a large category, it could encompass a lot of musicians, and is present in other genres of music. I thought it would be good focus on one band and their approach to jamming. I guess jamming is a part of most types of music, and itself is just about synonymous with the word improvising, which happens just about every time music gets played. I was thinking of doing a presentation on Ali Farka Toure, an African blues guitarist I recently started listening to and wondering how to present Farka-toure in a jam-band context, then I thought about Captain Beefheart, another guy I just started listening to, and wondered the same thing, but then I thought "why not talk about the Grateful Dead?" They're a jam band. So that's what I'll do.

I liked what I heard in the Jazz presentations last class. I learned some things about Jazz in general, and about some jazz musicians I hadnt known much about before. I'd never seen Miles Davis on video, it's always interesting to see musicians play their music--he seems very serious. Youtube is a good place to find live performances. I watched the Dave Brubeck quartet do "take five" on the youtube last night, it was good to see four nerdy-looking white guys in suits playing such groovy music.