I GROW AS A MUSICIAN

I GROW AS A MUSICIAN

At the beginning way back, I would feel nervous. I’ve been in front of people so long that…only times I felt nervous was when I thought I was going to play like shit. That’s kind of what musicians go through. Sometimes you feel like you played great and sometimes you feel like you played like shit.

You might be playing good, everybody knew you’re playing great but you didn’t know. Hearing recordings of myself, it sounds pretty good. I say “That’s me?”. I’ve conquered it in certain ways that even when I feel it, I don’t feel it. I guess it’s like a fighter—he knows he’s good and he has some kind of anxiety, but it doesn’t dominate you anymore.

I went to play at Rose Gale’s for First Monday Jazz to learn to play better on the changes. That terrified me but I went there to learn to play on the changes. My start had been in jazz but I didn’t really consider myself a jazz player.

Jazz players have a thousand different chords going through different keys. Blues players have 3 chords. You’re on the C chord then you have the F chord then you go back to the C chord then you go to the G chord, the V then the IV then the I. Almost every blues song is basically that.

 

So when I got the gig at Pips in 2017, I was nervous on that gig, because of where it was, with a more upscale audience. I thought I had to play soft and not show up with the blues funk. Then after a few times playing there I found that they loved that. So then I cut loose.

One night Stevie Wonder came in there, also that actor you always saw on TV. When you’re there anybody can walk in there, it was a black elite club. I was used to playing in rowdier places, The French Quarter, Babe and Ricky’s, Lucy’s. A good solid year at Pip’s, I was playing better but I couldn’t tell. I did that gig for 3 or 4 years.