The Old Rashomon Effect

Discussing last Friday night's gig with my bass player, I was reminded how much perceptions can differ. He thought it was a crappy night, I thought it was an exceptional one. After some time talking about this, it seemed that his feelings were based on two tunes, one that the drummer (who is still lacking confidence in his grasp of the material, having only played four gigs with us) rushed and one that he dragged (after having been told that he'd rushed the previous tune). The bassist had trouble getting past that and spent the rest of the night feeling as if he had to ride herd on the drummer, thus creating his impression of a crappy night.

I was aware of those minor tempo issues on those two numbers, but managed to stay relaxed and just go with it. I thought that overall, we had a very good night and found some interesting places to go. I suppose one of the challenges with highly improvisational music is that since the structure is flexible, whether or not a mistake is made is an individual decision by each musician, as there's nothing you can point to and say "See, right here in the 4th chorus? That's where we screwed up." Aside from the fact that my experience is that mistakes can lead to some of the more compelling musical moments, I'm undecided as to whether this is a good thing or not. The only solid conclusion I have is that we need to get a few more gigs with this drummer under our belts to see if we can loosen him up a bit.

More fun than a barrel of giant monkeys

Saturday, to celebrate the opening of Peter Jackson's new movie, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood is screening the original versions of Mighty Joe Young and King Kong back to back. Of the two, I think I like Mighty Joe Young more (although it is a close call). Phew, I'm just glad that they're NOT screening the Dino DeLaurentis remake of Kong, although someone should remake that starring a giant turkey.