I haven’t had any chance to play this weekend. Apart from a gig in town. I’m calling some tunes I don’t know that well to try and get some new tunes down. What are you working on?

Still trying to get the whole tone scale into my playing. You might have noticed Iv smushed some of it into our monthly etude on Indiana? Working on this line, getting it into a few keys so I can practise it up every time I get a minute. If you want the full etude, join one of my paid plans (prices going up at the end of the month) https://www.skool.com/jazzviolin/plans

been lately having fun with this thing...relatively easy harmonic progressions but there are definitely a few cool places worth learning and integrating into playing 😉. Wishing a good day to all the jazz warriors 💪

Hey Matt, I saw Pierre Blanchard with the Django Festival Allstars last night. My god, what a show! Blanchard had such an incredible tone. I just loved his amplified sound. Some combination of a pickup and overhead mic combined with a small stage amp and, (of course, a lifetime of experience and huge heart at his fingertips ) but do happen to know what his stage set up is?

Everyone has got one. I'd love to hear yours. The time that you either felt fully out of your depth, someone acted in a way that ruined the vibe or you just didnt know the chords and had to play a solo. Here's mine... I was running a jam in an unnamed major city in the north. No one turned up to jam for the first set, but the room was packed. In the break, a huge dude came up to me and aggressively said, “I’m a singer. I don’t know any tunes and I don’t sing jazz, but this is meant to be a jam so I’m gonna get up and sing what I feel, OK?!” I said, “OK.” We started the first set and played a minor blues. Halfway through the tune the man stood up from his seat in the audience, slowly got up on stage, and started improvising some random stuff on top. I thought it would be a complete car crash, but it actually didn’t turn out too bad. He got a massive round of applause and looked happy. Then he just sat back down in the audience after his solo. It wasn’t great by any standards, but it wasn’t a total nightmare. I was relieved. Just as the next break was coming up, I spotted a local-ish singer known to be a total nightmare. Shouts at her musicians onstage, gets lost and blames the band, extremely difficult person. A great singer but such a difficult presence that she’d been given a nickname (which I obviously can’t share here). My heart sank again when I saw her. She asked to sing in the break and I of course said, “Yes.” She sang Summertime. It was ok, actually pretty good. But halfway through her first round of the melody, the guy stood up again. He crashed onstage this time and tried to find a mic that was on. The only spare mic wasn’t on, so he shouted at the sound engineer until he turned it on. What followed can only be described as a vocal battle. Two singers, with very different levels of skill, basically shouting at each other in A minor. Like two walruses fighting over a rock in the ocean. It was both amazing and terrible at the same time. And it’s both my best and worst jam session story, can you top it?