Contact Scott about gigs, products, or questions @:
wscottgwinnell@gmail.com
Aretha's Jazz Jam
Aretha's Jazz Cafe
Every Sun. 7-10pm
Free
A necessary skill for every jazz musician is to successfully navigate a jam session. There are social, musical, organic, and fixed components to every jazz jam session. The rules of these jams is fluid, and every jam session offers different goals for the student-musician. Knowing how to use a jam for your current needs is both an art and a science.
I have over 30 years of experience both leading and assisting in jam sessions, from small clubs with few musicians dueling, to jazz festival jam session with a literal line of 40 horn players playing a 25 minute blues tune.
Apologies for this obvious flex; I want to establish to you that this information comes from my life experience and not a rehash of other peoples' work.
Detroit is an amazing city for jazz. Besides being a leader in the Hard-Bop legacy pioneered in the 1950s, it has consistently sent artists to the international scene and provided a scene that allows its musicians to thrive, playing the music we love. In this scene, there are multiple jazz clubs that pepper SE Michigan. Most of these jazz clubs have either official or unofficial jam sessions. There are also sessions at "partial" jazz clubs that feature other styles of music as well as jazz.
I have been privileged and honored, for almost a decade now, to run the jazz jam session at Aretha's Jazz Cafe. Aretha's Jazz Cafe is a jazz club at Music Hall Fine and Performing Arts Center in Downtown Detroit. As Music Hall's Education Director, I created this jam with the purpose of providing guidance and education for the community who participates in it. This community includes both young and mature artists; school and street jazz musicians. All musicians are students and teachers.
The mission of the jam session at Aretha's is to be a music space for everyone to gain stage experience and learn the collaborative tools to express themselves, yet coming together in greater common goal of making a performance where musicians can organically create the song in the moment. These musicians learn as much watching others perform as they do on the stage. It is a supportive, empowering room where musicians can feel safe to take chances. The musicians in the house band offer (and are often taken up on) mentorship and guidance to the musicians who seek it. It is also a great experience for audiences to enjoy dinner and drinks while cheering on jazz musicians of all experiences.
This page contains very helpful information in the form of downloadable materials to guide you. Please check them out, feel free to ask questions, and use in support of your own jam session experience at Aretha's Jazz Jam, another Detroit jam session, or anywhere in the world where jazz is played. If these were a help to you, please send feedback or just a simple thanks. I'm always trying to connect with new musicians everywhere.
Photo of Jazz Education cover - Jeff Dunn
Photo of Music Hall - Helmut Ziewera
DOWNLOADABLE JAZZ JAM MATERIALS
10 Stock Jam Session Intros
This document musically details 10 popular stock (common) jazz jam session intros. Links to origin recordings are provided. I went back to transcribe the originals, trying to avoid the dogma of unproofread internet material.
Often-used Jam Session Endings
Knowing how to end a jam session tune is important. It could have been the best performance ever but if you didn't stick the landing, everyone in the audience knows. Learn these handy methods to deal with tags and choose intros that can be shared by multiple musicians. Even though this was originally written for vocalists at a jam session, this is equally applicable to horn players.
10 Types of Music Rehearsals
Knowing what type of rehearsal you will be participating in or calling is important to communicate to others. There is diversity in types of rehearsals; all 10 have advantages and pitfalls. Learn about these different rehearsals and which one fits your upcoming gig. The PDF explains in more detail what is on the colorful flyer. Arm yourself with knowledge.
20 Tips to Assist Learning Jazz
These are 20 tips, simple and effective to being a more functional, artistic jazz musician.
7 Types of Jam Session Intros
The document to the left deals with specific stock intros. This document details 7 "types" of intros. There is much variation that can go into their creation. See if you can ID some of these intros in your jam session.
50 Often-played Instrumental Tunes, Tips, and Etiquette
These are 50 often played Jam Session tunes in Detroit, categorized into various styles. It also contains jam session etiquette tips. These tips are expounded upon in its accompanying document.
50 Often-played Vocal Jazz Tunes, Tips, and Etiquette
This is the same type of document but lists 50 Vocal Tunes. The etiquette document is the same as the instrumental one.
10 Goals for Jazz Soloists
Like the 10 Types of Rehearsals document, this flyer is adjacent knowledge to jam session information, yet still vital in understanding qualities of jazz improvising at different educational stages. There is no accompanying PDF, only the flyer.
