MEDIA: Cocktail Party Messages

Archtop Eddy

If someone asked you, "What is Gypsy jazz?" You'd have an answer, right?

Now consider this. You're talking to a club manager. He's hired a lot of rock, reggae and jazz acts. He asks you the same question and you have one shot at giving him an answer that will land you--or lose--you the gig.

Now, what's your answer? "What's Gypsy jazz?"

From players just starting out to fellas playing since Fapy had sideburns, from promoters to aficionados, each of us have heard that question. How do you come up with a catchy collection of words that brings that, "humm, tell me more look" on their faces.

With this thread, I wish to start the first of Media ideas, tips, and lessons. The purpose here is to become better communicators: about Gypsy jazz, our bands, ourselves, when dealing with bars, the public, promoters, and most importantly, the media itself -- both print and electronic.

Media should not be confused with promo products. While promo products serve an undeniable role in giving our publics a taste of what we do, Media is about communications: "What" to say, and "How" to say it.

There are basic communications tools available for getting out what you want to say. In short, these tools are the "Hows" of Media skills. I plan to cover these tools in another thread, but first...

Before you can use the "Hows", you need to first nail down "What" you want to say. This is the root of all your efforts; this is the "right-hand" technique of your verbal skills. Do this right, and all else will fall in place.

For the purposes of this thread, I will call these Cocktail Party messages (kinda like something that someone might jot down on a card to carry around at a cocktail party).

These messages can be insightful, clever, inspiring, thought-provoking, even at times challenging and passionate. Most of all, they have to capture the interest of the party hearing the message, enticing him to say "Humm, tell me more..."

So, back to the question: "What is Gypsy Jazz?"

If the $$'s on the line, and it's you or the Reggae band getting the gig, what's your best Cocktail Party message?

A.E.

(After I have a few good responses, I'll go to the communications tools portion and explain "How" to get messages across and keep them on track -- especially, when talking to the media!)

dennis

from a $$$ point of view, i'd answer, it's swing/dance music with a gypsy flavor... then i'd go on about how we're much more efficient than a reggae band since all we really need are mics , no amps... no effects pedals, no marshall fullstacks or whatever.... clean and simple for the soundman... and we can work as a trio (2 guitars + bass) or even a duet (2 guitars) if the booker is only going to pay us peanuts... whereas reggae, well i'm not familiar with reggae but i have a feeling it comes with a lot of luggage and a lot of personnel....

BUH BYE reggae band...

Jack

To borrow from Dennis, you must include the word swing...when most hosts/promoters hear 'jazz' these days I find they tend to think of a few other musicians sitting around criticizing the band.

For promotional purposes, you could describe gypsy jazz as simply Hot Acoustic Swing. Should you want to be more honest (and you should!), you can always invoke Django; he's much better known than we think. In fact, we just landed a gig based on the Name. Should worse become worst, you can also mention 'Sweet and Lowdown' as a reference.

Best,
Jack.

V-dub

dennis wrote:

... whereas reggae, well i'm not familiar with reggae but i have a feeling it comes with a lot of luggage and a lot of personnel....

BUH BYE reggae band...

Funny you should mention, I play guitar in a reggae group as my main project. Its probably an equal passion of mine to gypsy jazz.

And yes, soundmen hate us. I don't blame them, when you show up with a hammond organ, leslie speaker, motif 7 keyboard, horn section, three vocalists, in addition to the standard rhythm section (and a particularly picky drummer) you can't expect them to be terribly excited about setting you up.

Edit: To be fair, we are not exactly a reggae band, we do more traditional ska and rocksteady from the 1960s era, but like with gypsy jazz you have to make some compromises to describe your music to the ignorant.

djangology

For the purposes of this thread, I will call these Cocktail Party messages

Hey Archtop, I would like to suggest that we call answers to these common questions "cocktail party bullets" . One sentence answers to tough questions that anyone can understand.

Off the top of my head, the best bullet I can come up with is:

"Gypsy jazz is a music inspired by gypsies who migrated across Europe and then discovered American swing jazz in the 1930's."

Can anyone else come up with a better one? Archtop is right... we all should be able to give good answers to these questions.

dennis

djangology wrote:

For the purposes of this thread, I will call these Cocktail Party messages

Hey
"Gypsy jazz is a music inspired by gypsies who migrated across Europe and then discovered American swing jazz in the 1930's."

.

I don't know about that , I don't hear much direct gypsy influence when i listen to django...

in fact when i first discovered this music i didn't know it was "gypsy", it was a unique form of jazz that i loved for numerous reasons:

1) it's guitar music so it's always a bonus as a guitarist
2) there are elements of jazz (improvisation, blues)
3) elements of classical music
4) it swwwiiiings!

that's all that really mattered to me, and when you listen to most django recordings, that 's what you hear; the gypsy musical influence is not directly obvious and django himself didn't think that way.

but of course , like V-dub, you gotta make some compromises to describe the music to the ignorant, and the term stuck around, so i guess we kinda have to use it...

Ando

Definition can take different forms. Usually the form is genus + distinguishing characteristics, e.g., "a hedgehog is a mammal with four legs, covered with short quills, etc."

In case you're wondering, all your hedgehog information needs can be met, at least in English, at:

http://hedgehogcentral.com/

But there are other ways of defining things, if "defining" is defined loosely: by association, by analogy, by negatives (what it's not), by history, by what something does, or what it's used for. So we might consider replying to Archtop's question with other forms. For example:

- Gypsy jazz will have everyone in here tapping their feet and feeling good.
- Gypsy jazzers don't use drums, synthesizers, pianos, or saxophones.
- Gypsy jazz will have everyone feeling like they're in Paris of the 1930's.
- Gypsy jazz is Fred Astaire unloosening his tie and having a stiff drink.
etc.

Cheers,
Ando

Chad

I did a search and here were no recipes listed...
Harumph!

Ando

Chad LOL

That was the first thing I looked for, too! Can you imagine their trauma if we asked that question in the guestbook?

In fact, I googled "edible hedgehog," and there were two (2) results -- in over 8 billion pages! The two results were wikipedia entries about how the Romans ate hedgehogs by clay-bake method. So perhaps the Rom picked up the recipe on their way through Italy?

Taking recipes from Italians is a good way to improve one's standard of living, IMHO. Whatever the era.

Sorry Archtop about this digression, but the word "cocktail party" WAS in your original post, and I'm in the middle of making horse doovers for Mardi Gras...

*ducking*
Ando

marciero

When booking my folk/bluegrass/jazz-on-flattops trio I used to call it "acoustic string music" It's probably not specific enough here but it does apply and I like the way it sounds! I think the phrase evokes a degree of refinement, or something... so I will probably throw it in somewhere when booking GJ. I will also use some ideas from this thread. I like "Hot acoustic swing" for example.

One other thing is that you should have at the ready examples of two or three composers and three or four songs that they have heard of-they always ask. The danger is that you mention a tune with a cheezy version that they are familiar with.

Mike

Josh Hegg

A good song to mention is Nature Boy as it was one of the opening songs on that movie Moulin Rouge. Alot of people have seen that one. It might be a good conversation opener. On marciero's note: I was talking to a guy about "what kind of music do you play?" and I named off some songs and he says "oh I think Kenny G did that one" MAN!? I wanted to slap him... but I didn't

Cheers