Module 12: Standards and formLesson 5advanced⏱ 60 min + one session a week

Jam sessions and performance

Session etiquette, how to call tunes and keys, transposing on the spot for singers, playing without a chart, recovering from mistakes, stage presence and building a set.

Why the session is the exam

Everything in this course is tested in one place: a room with musicians you did not choose, a tune you did not pick, in a key that may not be the one you practised, with no chart. The jam session is where jazz musicians have always learned to play with other people, and it is where you find out what you actually know. Players who avoid sessions until they feel ready never feel ready; players who go early, behave well and play within their limits get better faster than any practice routine can make them. This lesson is a field guide: how to behave, how to call a tune, how to survive in an unfamiliar key, how to recover when something goes wrong, and how to put a set together when you are the one running the evening.

Etiquette: the unwritten rules

Every session has a house band, a leader and a way of doing things. The rules below are nearly universal; local variations you learn by watching for twenty minutes before you ask to play.

• Arrive early, listen first. Hear a few tunes before you sign up. Learn the house band's names, the feel of the room and the level.
• Sign up and wait to be called. Do not walk onto the stand. When you are called, be ready: tuned, cable in hand, amp settings known. Guitarists are often asked to share the house guitarist's amp; thank them and do not touch their settings beyond the volume.
• Know the tunes that get called. Sessions run on the common repertoire (repertoire list): blues in F and Bb, rhythm changes in Bb, and the forty or so standards everyone knows. If a tune is called that you do not know, say so and sit out; faking it damages the tune for everyone.
• Play less than you want to. Two solo choruses on a standard, three on a blues, unless the leader signals more. Lay out for part of every tune when there is a pianist (Playing in a group). Do not noodle between tunes or during someone's count-off.
• Volume with the room. You should hear the bass and the ride cymbal clearly at all times. If you cannot, you are too loud.
• Watch the leader. The leader decides solo order, trades and endings. Look up at the end of every chorus.
• No charts on stage at many sessions, and no phone on the music stand at any. If you need a chart, it is a tune you should not be playing there yet.
• One tune, then step off, unless asked to stay. Thank the house band. Stay for the rest of the session; leaving straight after your tune is noticed.
• Be generous with the next player. Applaud, make room, help them set up. Sessions remember kindness longer than they remember solos.

Calling a tune

When it is your turn to call, give the band everything in one breath: title, key, feel, tempo, roadmap. "All of Me, in C, medium swing (snap the tempo), intro I–vi–ii–V twice, solos guitar then piano, trade fours with the drums one chorus, tag ending." Then count it off (Playing in a group covers the count). Choose a tune that the room knows, in its usual session key, at a tempo you can play with authority. The first tune you call at a new session should be something unglamorous and well-known: a blues, a rhythm changes, or a standard from the first-stage list.

Standard session keys are part of the common repertoire: a blues is usually called in F or Bb (C and G at blues-oriented rooms), rhythm changes in Bb, and most horn-era standards in the flat keys of their Real Book charts. Singers change this (next section), and a few tunes have alternative keys everyone knows (Autumn Leaves in G minor or E minor, Summertime in A minor or D minor). If you are not sure of a key, ask; nobody minds. If someone calls a tune in a key you do not know, the method in Learning tunes by ear and from memory is what saves you: the tune lives in your head as numerals, and numerals move.

Transposing for singers

Singers call tunes in the key that suits their voice, which is often a fourth, a fifth or a third away from the instrumental key. The guitar is the easiest instrument to transpose on: every moveable shape keeps its fingering and slides along the neck. What you need is (1) the tune in numerals, (2) the interval between the old key and the new one, and (3) moveable voicings. The example comps a I–vi–ii–V in C with drop-2 shapes on strings 5–4–3–2 and then plays exactly the same shapes three frets higher, which is the same progression in Eb. No open strings, no new fingerings, no thought required beyond "three frets up".

\tempo 120
.
\ts 4 4
:2 (3.5 5.4 4.3 5.2){ch "Cmaj7" txt "in C"} (3.5 5.4 2.3 5.2){ch "Am7"} | (5.5 7.4 5.3 6.2){ch "Dm7"} (5.5 5.4 4.3 6.2){ch "G7"} |
(6.5 8.4 7.3 8.2){ch "Ebmaj7" txt "in Eb: three frets up"} (6.5 8.4 5.3 8.2){ch "Cm7"} | (8.5 10.4 8.3 9.2){ch "Fm7"} (8.5 8.4 7.3 9.2){ch "Bb7"} |

Three practical rules:

1. Transpose by numerals, not chord by chord. "ii–V–I in Eb" is one thought; "Dm7 becomes Fm7, G7 becomes Bb7, Cmaj7 becomes Ebmaj7" is three, and at tempo you will not finish the third.
2. Count the frets once. Work out the interval between the keys (the key-signature table in the previous lesson, or the circle of fifths from The major scale, keys and the circle of fifths), turn it into a number of frets, and move. Up a minor third is three frets; up a fourth is five; down a whole step is two frets down. If a shape runs off the top of the neck, play it twelve frets lower.
3. Never use a capo. Jazz guitarists are expected to transpose; a capo on a session is a declaration that you cannot.

Practise this deliberately: every tune on your list in its session key and in two others, chosen to be the keys singers are likely to ask for (a fourth above and a minor third below are good first choices). The progression tables in Common progressions in standards tell you the chords in every key when you need to check.

Playing without a chart

You will be asked to play tunes you half know. The survival method, in order:

1. Lay out on the first head (or play roots only) and listen: the bass player's downbeats give you the roots, the pianist's voicings give you the qualities, and the form reveals itself. By the end of one chorus you should have the key centres and the families from Common progressions in standards.
2. Comp with guide tones only, 3rds and 7ths, which are enough to be right and small enough to be quiet if you are wrong.
3. Ask for the bridge. "What is the first chord of the bridge?" is a question every session player has asked and nobody minds answering. Between the first chord of the bridge and the families you can usually reconstruct the rest.
4. Keep your solo inside what you know. If the bridge is uncertain, play the A sections with conviction and the bridge with guide tones and space.
5. Learn it properly that week. Add it to the list; the session has told you what to learn next.

Handling mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes at sessions; the difference between an amateur and a professional is what happens in the next two beats. The rules:

• Keep the time. A wrong chord in time is a passing dissonance; a right chord out of time is a train wreck. Never stop, never hesitate, never restart a bar.
• Resolve forward. A wrong chord becomes right at the next chord change if you move to the correct next chord by step. A wrong note becomes an approach note if it resolves by a half step on the next beat.
• Lost in the form: shrink and listen. Drop to roots on beat 1 (the example below), listen for the bass player's turnaround or the drummer's set-up for the bridge, and re-enter at the next landmark from Song forms and roadmaps. Do not guess loudly.
• No faces. Do not grimace, shake your head or apologise mid-tune; it tells the audience something went wrong, and they usually had not noticed.
• Wrong ending: hold the tonic. If the ending collapses, hold the I chord and watch the drummer; stop when they stop.
• Afterwards: one short apology if you derailed someone, then let it go. Write down what happened and practise it.

\tempo 140
.
\ts 4 4
:4 6.6{ch "Bbmaj7" txt "lost: roots on beat 1, listen"} r r r | 3.6{ch "G7"} r r r | 3.5{ch "Cm7"} r r r | 1.6{ch "F7"} r r :8 r (1.5 2.3 3.2){ch "Bbmaj7" txt "found: back in on the top"} | :1 (-.5 -.3 -.2) |

Stage presence

The audience sees you before it hears you. Habits that read as professional:

• Set up quickly and quietly. Know your amp settings; tune silently (a tuner pedal or a muted headstock tuner) and never between someone's phrases.
• Position yourself to see the drummer and the bass player. Eye contact is how cues travel. Stand or sit so that the leader can catch your eye at the end of a chorus.
• Look like you are listening when you are not playing, because you should be. Nod at the end of a good solo. Do not check your phone, retune or practise licks while someone else solos.
• Commit. Play your idea at full volume even if it is simple; a hesitant correct line sounds worse than a confident plain one.
• Acknowledge the band and the room. Say thank you to the house band on and off the stand. When you lead, introduce the players.
• Dress and behave for the room. A session in a bar and a concert in a hall have different expectations; find out which one you are at.

Building a set

When you lead a gig or a session set, the tunes you choose and their order make the evening. A working set of 45–60 minutes is seven to nine tunes. Guidelines:

1. Open with something medium, known and confident: a standard in a comfortable key, not the hardest tune. It settles the band and the room.
2. Vary tempo, feel and key. No two consecutive tunes at the same tempo or in the same key; put a ballad in the middle, a bossa or a waltz somewhere, a blues or rhythm changes near the end.
3. Feature each player once (a bass feature, a drum feature, a piano trio tune while the horns rest).
4. Close up: the last tune is the fastest or the most familiar, often a blues, with a clear ending everyone knows.
5. Write the set list with keys and roadmaps and give a copy to everyone. "Just Friends, F, medium up, tag" is enough.
6. Plan the segues. Two tunes can run together without a break if the ending of the first is turned into an intro for the second: end tune one, turn its tonic into a dominant that points at the new key, and the band is into tune two without a count. The example moves from a tune in F to one in Bb.

\tempo 120
.
\ts 4 4
:1 (1.6 2.4 2.3){ch "Fmaj7" txt "last bar of tune 1 (F)"} | :2 (1.6 2.4 2.3) (1.6 1.4 2.3){ch "F7" txt "V7 of the new key"} | :1 (1.5 2.3 3.2){ch "Bbmaj7" txt "tune 2 (Bb)"} | (1.5 0.3 3.2){ch "Bb6"} |

Tags and endings from the previous lesson transpose to the keys of the set by the same fret-moving rule as everything else. The F tag moved up five frets is a Bb tag, which is the one you need most often at sessions, since so many horn tunes end in Bb.

\tempo 140
.
\ts 4 4
\ro :2 (7.4 7.3 6.2 8.1){ch "Dm7" txt "tag: three times"} (5.4 7.3 6.2 7.1){ch "G7"} | \rc 3 (8.4 8.3 8.2 8.1){ch "Cm7"} (7.4 8.3 6.2 8.1){ch "F7"} | :1 (7.4 7.3 6.2 6.1){ch "Bbmaj7" txt "final"} | (5.4 5.3 6.2 10.1){ch "Bb6/9"} |

Exercises

1. Call it. Practise calling three tunes aloud, each in one breath: title, key, feel, tempo (snapped), roadmap. Then count each one off.
2. Three keys. Take five tunes from your list and play the A section of each in the session key, a fourth higher and a minor third lower, with moveable shapes only.
3. Chartless. Have a friend (or a play-along in a random key) play a tune you half know. Lay out for a chorus, comp with guide tones for a chorus, then full voicings. Score your accuracy against a chart afterwards.
4. Deliberate mistakes. With a play-along, play a wrong chord on purpose once per chorus and resolve it forward without losing time. Then "lose" the form on purpose at the bridge and recover by the roots method.
5. Set list. Write a 50-minute set for a quartet from your repertoire list, with keys, tempos, feels, features and one segue. Check it against the guidelines.
6. Go. Attend one session this week. Listen for twenty minutes, sign up, call a blues or a standard you know in its usual key, and write down afterwards what the house band did that you did not.

Quiz