Learning Songs on the Bandstand and Other Lessons From My Gig

GOOD FOR

Learn Jazz Standards Instuments
How to Stay Motivated to Practice

Welcome to episode 111 of the LJS Podcast where today Brent changes up the format for today’s show to talk about some lessons from a recent gig. He shares the good, the bad, and the ugly. Find out what he learned and how he used certain tools he has built up for himself. Listen in!

Listen to episode 111

This week I wanted to spend some time sharing with you my experiences at a recent gig. I’ll be honest. It wasn’t my best performance, not in the sense that I played bad, but that I felt like the odd guy out.

This is a gig I’ve been playing every month for around 5 years at a club in New York City called Fat Cat. It’s a great band and I’m honored to play with all of the guys.

But this particular gig had me working overtime. A lot of songs were being called that I didn’t know and I had to rely on my ears to get me through it.

I share with you some lessons I learned from this particular gig. What went well, and what I need to work on. I think by listening to my experience you can take away something for yourself too!

One thing I will say: listening and ear training is important. Being exposed to lots of jazz music really helped me, and also having those fundamentals of ear training down gave me a firm foundation.

If you need to work on some of those fundamentals I would suggest checking out my ear training course How to Play What You Hear. I’ll leave a link below. Enjoy the episode!

Important Links

Fat Cat NYC

How to Play What You Hear

LJS Inner Circle Membership

Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way

[vc_separator]

Read the Transcript

Brent: All right, so today’s episodes a little bit different. I’m going to change up the format a little bit than what I normally would do because today I just felt like I wanted to talk about my gig last night.

I wanted to share some of my experiences that I had and some of my thoughts about what went down. This is a regular gig that I play every single month in New York City at Fat Cat. If you’ve never heard of Fat Cat it’s a great little jazz lounge, it’s a noisy place, smells like booze and it’s loud. But there’s some amazing jazz that happens there every single night and I’m really honored that I get to spend some time playing there every single month.

So, I’m going to talk a little bit about my experience at my gig, some lessons that I learned and just some general thoughts that I think can help you too just by me expressing them. But first, let’s cue the intro music.

Just in case you’ve never listened to this podcast before my name is Brent, I am the jazz musician behind the website learnjazzstandards.com which is a blog, a podcast and videos all geared towards helping you become a better jazz musician and I’m honored every single week to come here and do my best to serve you with the best jazz educational content that I possibly can. Make sure if you aren’t subscribe to this podcast, subscribe on iTunes. If you’re not subscribed on our YouTube channel I also post the podcast as well as other videos on our YouTube channel. That’s youtube.com/learnjazzstandards. Of course make sure that you’re involved in our community. Go to learnjazzstandards.com/join, get on to our newsletter.

I do this every single week. If you’re new to this podcast, that’s who I am, this is what I’m all about. It’s a little bit of a different episode today like I said. So bear with me. But I’d love to talk to you a little bit about my gig at Fat Cat last night. At the time of this recording, we had a big snowstorm here in New York City and so I was trudging out into the snow, I live out in Queens. Fat Cat it is in the West Village, the historic Greenwich Village. So I took the 40, 45 minute train ride down over into the village, got to the gig, I play this once a month with an incredible musician who I really admire.

I’ve been playing this gig for about five years or so. It’s Don Hahn. He’s a trumpeter, he’s played with Maynard Ferguson, he’s played actually with Buddy Rich, he’s played with a lot of other musicians. He’s a good friend of mine. And actually, if you want to go check out him a little bit, you can check him out on Episode 39 of this podcast where I had him on for an interview and just picked his brain and yeah, that was a great interview. After you listen to this, go check out that, episode 39.

I get to Fat Cat. It’s the same old regular now. One thing you have to know about New York and one reason I love playing this gig is that all the band members are really, really top-notch musicians. In New York, there is no shortage of incredible musicians and a lot of people they come from all over the world to New York, it’s a very saturated place to pursue music, to pursue the arts. It’s really an art center of the world and a lot of people come to New York City for that reason.

If you are a big, one of the better jazz players in your local scene but you come to New York, you’re not going to be such a big deal anymore. That’s such the privilege that I have of being in this city is being surrounded by a lot of incredible musicians and particular, this band, a lot of amazing players led by Don Hahn, this guy who has played for a long time and who’s played with amazing musicians.

The other great thing too is that every single month, Don has, I’m part of the house band but Don has special guests come on. So this particular week we had, this particular month we had John Mosca who’s a trombone player and he’s played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He’s these the current co-leader of the Village Vanguard Orchestra which plays every single Monday night in Greenwich Village as well at the Village Vanguard which of course if you know anything about jazz, you know the Village Vanguard is one of the most famous jazz clubs of all time and I try to peek in there every once in a while to go check out some shows and it’s really a magical place.

Anyways, John Mosca was the guest. So, now, there’s a lot of regular repertoire that we have that I’m pretty used to with this band after playing for about five or so years. I actually don’t play with the, and other gigs, I don’t really play with the cast of characters very often, some of the other guys in the band, I don’t necessarily play with them outside of this group. With every single different setting or group even in different cities, there’s different repertoire that exists, right? Some groups you play with might have this certain set of repertoire, another set of groups you play with might have another set of repertoire, you know, some songs that maybe you didn’t play. All this to be said, I’m pretty used to playing in this band.

Now, what happened I think is John Mosca, he was the special guest so we were playing songs that he was calling for most of the night. This is what happened. There was at least four and I’m being open and honest with you guys because I think it’s super important, there’s at least four or five tunes that were called that night that I did not know, that I literally did not know. Most of them I was familiar with but I didn’t actually know, I never actually had worked on them, I had never committed them to memory.

Now, there’s two things about that. Number one, you probably if you’ve played jazz out, you’ve felt that before where someone calls a tune and you wish you knew it. A lot of times it’s okay because there’s somebody else in the band that doesn’t know the tune as well and so you don’t feel so bad because you can’t know all the tunes, right? But in this particular case, every single one of these tunes, everybody else in the band knew it and I would be the only person that didn’t know these songs. That was a terrible feeling and if you’ve ever had this happen to you, you can resonate with it. It’s okay if it’s like one song but then if it’s like another song and that’s what was happening to me, I don’t know what was happening. I was getting my butt kicked. Man, it just didn’t feel good because I just constantly was like okay, well, I’ll surely know the next song. No, I didn’t know the next song either that was being called.

Now, that didn’t fell good. There’s a positive side to all of this and what I was really proud of of myself because every single time you hit up a gig, it’s important to have what Carol Dweck in her book Mindset calls a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. So a fixed mindset says this particular situation sucked and the reason that this happened is because my abilities and talents and all this is limited, where a growth mindset says, this particular situation I’m glad I went through this because now I can learn and get better from this and it’s really a positive outlook. That’s really what a growth mindset is.

And so, the positive side of all of this is that all but one of those songs I was able to play and pick up without having to even look at a piece of music at all. Four of the five songs that I didn’t know I was able to do by ear. Now the reason I could do this is because I was familiar with most of them already because I’ve listened to lots of jazz, I’ve listened to lots of the music.

So, for example, one of the songs that I didn’t really know was Love Walked In which is a great tune by the way. I didn’t really actually know that but I could hear the harmony in my head and I got a piano player with me and so I’m just listening to the piano, I’m listening to the bass and I’m hearing that harmony. And so it only took about a chorus and I knew that song right away, I knew how to play that song. And there are some other harder tunes throughout the night but I was able to ultimately figure out what that harmony was so that by the time it was my turn to take a solo I knew how to navigate those changes.

That’s the positive side is that I’ve trained my ears to be able to do this from just listening and being familiar with lots of the music and also from just diving into some of those fundamentals of ear training, being able to hear intervals, being able to hear chords, being able to hear chord progressions, and all of that has set me up so that when I do get into a situation like that and I don’t know a song it might feel uncomfortable for a second but I can latch on fairly quickly. And sure, if I actually knew the song, if I had actually worked on some of these songs, I could probably play them with more confidence and play them better. But the point is I’ve musically equipped myself with the skills that I need in order to be able to learn a song literally on the fly.

All that being said, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t feel great when time after time a song was being called and I didn’t know it. There’s several times where I felt so confident that I was familiar with the song that I would be able to pick it up by ear that I didn’t say anything. The song was called, I didn’t say I didn’t know it. But there was a few times where I was like, oh, I don’t know that song and but then I was like but I think I’ll be able to get it. It didn’t feel good having to admit that to people and then there’s that one song I literally didn’t even, I didn’t even recognize it at all. I had to look up a chart. That kind of sucked too because none of the other guys are looking at charts, right? Everybody’s got these songs.

Sure, there was also times throughout the night where one of the other musicians didn’t know a song and so I guess they’re in my spot too but I think the thing that kind of damaged my ego a little bit was that it was so many of them and that everybody else knew the songs. It just made me feel like I need to do more homework here. I clearly need to learn some of these tunes.

So I’ll tell you what I’m doing right now though. I didn’t know all these songs, I immediately jotted them down into the notes on my phone and I’m going to learn every single one of the songs. Even the ones I’m familiar with, I’m going to just like dig into them, right? I’m going to like listen to lots of recordings of these just to make sure I even further have solidified that. I’m going to make sure I learn the melody because I’m a guitar player so it’s cool that I was able to figure out the chords but that doesn’t mean I know the song yet. I need to feel confident that I can play the melody on my instrument.

I need to make sure that I really dig deep into these songs so that the next time that they’re called next month at this gig, maybe they will be called, maybe they won’t be called but the point is if someone calls one of those tunes, I’m not going to have to worry about it because I’m going to know that song. That’s where I want to be.

So, the main takeaway from this part of my talk today of my experience that I want you to take away and also to reinforce for myself is that we need to take action. We need to have that growth mindset. When something doesn’t go quite as is planned on a gig or maybe there’s something that makes you feel bad about your performance, then that’s a moment to go aha, I need to take action.

What is the problem that needs to be fixed and now I need to do something about it. So that’s exactly what I have done is I’ve gone out and I’m learning all these tunes and learning meaning I’m completely learning them. And even that song where I had to use a chart, I’m going to have to learn that one from scratch because I’m not even familiar with that song.

I’m going to go out and do my homework and I am doing my homework on these. That’s important because at the end of the day I want to show up to a gig and feel, I want my morale to be high because hey, I know these tunes and I’m not the odd man out who doesn’t know it. So the point there is take action.

I have to say, we’ve all been through this where things don’t go as planned, maybe you just don’t feel like you were playing as well as you wanted to. Sometimes you get a little down on yourself, right?

Between I think it was the second break, I wasn’t feeling, I was like, man, this sucks. I didn’t know all these songs. Don likes to call wicked fast tempo so the songs I didn’t know it was like he was counting them one, two, one, two, three, four and then we were like, he likes to call lots of fast tunes and so I felt if I knew the song then it would be a little easier. All these different things, we all get beat up ourselves sometimes.

The reality was it went a lot way better than it did in my head. I was sitting down in between a break and Don came over and we were just chatting it up like we usually do. He was telling me what’s going on with his week, I was telling him what’s going on with my week. And then 10, 15 minutes later I was like, “Man, I was a little disappointed I didn’t know some of these songs. Can you remind me some of the songs we just did so I can write them down?” He was like, “Oh yeah, yeah, I didn’t know some of them either.”

I stopped for a second. I was like, “Don, I heard you play the melodies on your trumpet. I heard you play all those songs.” He was like, “Oh yeah, but you know.” I was like, “Well, what about like Love Walked In? I didn’t really know that song but I was able to pick it …” He was like, “Yeah, you were able to play all the songs.” I was like, “Yeah, I was able to play them but I didn’t really know them. I was just able to pick them up by ear and get by.” He was like, “Well, me too.” I was like, “Don, you’re 71 years old, you played all the, what are you talking about right now, this is crazy.” And he was like, “Yeah, Love Walked In, I didn’t actually really know that song. I just have heard it so many times I could play the melody and I could just hear what the chord changes were.”

Boom! Mind blown. This guy who’s been playing for a long time, who’s been in the scene, who’s, he’s done his homework. He’s walked the walk. He doesn’t know all the songs. The thing though is like I was talking before he has those tools in place where he can pick up that stuff and he has an even keener ear because no matter what he can play the melody to the songs because he’s heard them before. And he went on to list several more of the songs that I didn’t know that he claims that he didn’t know. Well the truth is he actually did know them, he just had never actually sat down and practiced them, which is I think what we’re talking about here.

I have to say, it made me feel a little bit better. It didn’t change my mind about well, I need to go and I need to do the homework but that was an eye-opening moment for me that even a guy like Don he doesn’t know everything either. He’s equipped himself with those same tools. And so, we all need to be equipping ourself with those tools, right? And how do we do that? Well, exactly what Don said.

He’d heard those songs so many times. So, if you’ve listened to some of this repertoire enough, it’s going to be in your ear, it’s going to be sunk in. The more that you learn solos by ear, the more that you learn jazz standards by ear, it’s not just that you’re learning that repertoire, it’s that you’re building your ear to a degree where you can start recognizing chord progressions, right? You can start doing that stuff.

If you work on some of the fundamentals of ear training like hearing intervals, like intervals, a lot of people tell me like well, I don’t understand what intervals are going to do. If I can hear what a major fifth or what a perfect fifth rather sounds ascending or descending, what difference is that going to really make? What they miss is the point that it sets this foundation, this root cornerstone of building your ears up so that you can learn how to hear chords. And if you can hear different qualities of chords then you can move on and you can hear chord progressions.

And then the more repertoire you learn the more you start recognizing patterns in that repertoire so that all of a sudden I can hear immediately for Love Walked In it’s a one, six, dominant two, five, back to the one, that’s how it starts, right? I could I can just hear those chords. I can hear the quality of the chords, I can hear the movement just because I’ve dealt with them so many times.

So, why do we learn jazz standards? Not just because we want to learn more repertoire, right? Because even as we experience with me and Don, he didn’t necessarily know some of those songs. Like he never actually worked on them or it’d been a long time since he actually played them but he could hear them. So, he’s learned so many songs that even the ones he doesn’t know he can know because he can hear it. That is where we want to be my friends, that musical freedom and I can only wish that I can get to this level of confidence that Don has. he’s obviously way more experience than me and so that’s where I aim for and I hope that you aim to be there too.

So, let me summarize all of this and thanks for listening to me guys, I appreciate you letting me tell my story and just to express what I’m feeling about this performance. So thanks for listening, I really do appreciate it. I appreciate you listening every single time if you’re a regular listener, so thanks so much for taking the time.

To sum up some of the lessons that I got here are number one, you’ve got to do your homework. If you find that there is something that went wrong during a gig or that you wish went better, then it’s up to us, it’s up to you to take action to fix that. That’s obvious but I think sometimes we need to be told that, we need someone to say that to us. So, that’s number one. Take action on the things that are giving you trouble.

Number two, if you have given yourself the tools of ear training of great ears then it’s going to save you a lot of problems and you’re going to be able to get by in some tough situations. That’s what I learned and that was the big positive thing that came out for me of that gig that I was like, hey, you know what, I didn’t know some of those songs but I’m proud that I was able to hear a lot of those chord changes, and even some of them that had a little bit trickier changes I was able to latch onto those. That’s the other lesson. Equip yourself with all of that stuff.

Now, number three that I wanted you to take away is you don’t have to know everything. Of course you don’t have to be the best, you never will be the best. You don’t have to know all the tunes. You don’t have to have everything put together in order to get out there and perform as we just learned from Don. Don didn’t know some of the songs, that’s crazy, blew my mind, boom, crazy. You don’t have to know everything and that’s okay as long as you go back to step number one or tip number one rather and you take action on some of those things.

If we can just frame our minds around this growth mindset of progressing gig after gig, which I know is hard, it’s hard guys. Sometimes, when I was in that moment at that gig, I was having a hard time staying positive. I wasn’t feeling like I was up to par with everybody else, everybody else knew the tunes. Everybody else was doing just fine. There I was I was having to figure things out and I felt like I had a disadvantage. If you look at that as a growth thing and that’s what music is, it’s a journey, it’s a big long journey and we’re always growing and if we can look at it that way and really find joy in that, then music is a lot of fun. But if we do the other thing, if we have that fixed mindset, if we kind of look at the glass half full, music becomes not so much fun.

So that’s what I want us all to do. I want us to have fun with music. I want us to embrace it. I want us to keep growing together and that’s why I’m here, that’s why I’m doing this podcast, that’s why I do learnjazzstandards.com is because, it’s not because I have all the answers but it’s because I want to grow with you and I want to help you grow as a musician. Because it means so much more than just playing some notes, right? It can bring joy to your life, it can bring joy to other people’s life. There’s so much history in jazz music specifically and culture. Music is just a powerful thing. I’m humbled, I’m honored, thank you for listening. Thanks for joining me and I just thank you. I can’t thank you enough for being a part of the Learn Jazz Standards community.

By the way, if you’ve never joined our Facebook community, I want to invite you to do that because there are tens of thousands of listeners and even hundreds of thousands of people who visit Learn Jazz Standards and use the resources and all the stuff. You probably don’t all know each other but in our Facebook community group we have over a thousand members who are all talking together and sharing tips, asking each other questions and meeting each other. That’s such a great thing because that’s what music is about. It’s about community and that’s what Learn Jazz Standards is about too. it’s about helping you become a better jazz musician and one way that I can do that and I can serve you even better is just by letting you guys help each other as well.

So, if you want to get involved in that Facebook group go to learnjazzstandards.com/community, that’ll redirect you to the Facebook group and it’s a closed group so all you have to do is request the invitation to join. Answer some questions I have for you and that just helps me serve you better and then I’ll let you into the group and I’d love to have you. So, learnjazzstandards.com/community.

All right, so I know this was a little bit of a different episode today. It’s not the norm so if this is your first time listening, usually the episodes don’t go down exactly like this. I hope you enjoyed this. And if you did enjoy it let me know. Tweet me or tag me on Facebook, join the group, mention that you enjoyed it or leave a comment at the shows today and that would be super cool.

All right, and one last thing, I always ask this, hey, if you’ve got some value on today’s show, if any of this resonates with you, why don’t you leave a kind rating and review on iTunes. Just helps the podcast out, helps other people find this podcast and I just super appreciate it. I appreciate you, I hope you have a great week and I wish you all the best in your musical endeavors. I’ll see you next week on the LJS Podcast, cheers.

TAKE YOUR JAZZ PLAYING TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

We help musicians of all instruments start improvising confidently over jazz standards in just 30 days without mind-numbing hours of practice or the overwhelm.

TAKE YOUR JAZZ PLAYING TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

We help musicians of all instruments start improvising confidently over jazz standards in as little as 30 days without mind-numbing hours of practice or the overwhelm.

ā€œJazz music is the power of now. There is no script. Itā€™s conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.ā€
WYNTON MARSALIS

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Learn Jazz Standards The Smart Way Ebook Cover

OUR PROVEN PROCESS FOR LEARNING JAZZ STANDARDS LIKE A PRO

A step-by-step guide for how to effectively learn jazz standards so youā€™ll feel confident playing them, and wonā€™t forget them.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Welcome to LearnJazzStandards.com! Weā€™ve created this page so that you (and any visitor to LearnJazzStandards.com) will understand the terms and conditions that govern your use of this website. If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions, which together with our privacy policy comprise our (LearnJazzStandards.comā€™s) entire relationship with you.

Exclusion of Liability

The content found on any page of this website is for your general information and use only, and it is subject to change without notice. Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law. Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements.

Indemnity

By accessing our website, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from all claims, actions, damages, costs and expenses including legal fees arising from or in connection with your use of our website.

Copyright Laws & Intellectual Property

This website contains some material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, the design, layout, look, appearance and graphics. Reproduction is prohibited other than in accordance with the copyright notice, which forms part of these terms and conditions. All logos, trademarks, and other intellectual property found on LearnJazzStandards.com are the property of their respective owners. They do not indicate ownership, affiliation, sponsorship, or any other relationship with LearnJazzStandards.com. In addition, this website may also include links to other websites. These links are provided for your convenience to provide further information. They do not signify that we endorse those websites, and we have no responsibility for the content of those linked websites.

Unauthorized Use

Your use of this website and any dispute arising out of such use of the website is subject to the laws of the United States of America. Any unauthorized use of this website may give rise to a claim for damages and/or be a criminal offense. Thanks, and enjoy LearnJazzStandards.com!

Return Policy for Products

Refund Policy

For play-alongs and eBooks:

Because these are digital downloads, and not returnable, we have a strict no refund policy. All purchases are final and cannot be reversed. Please be sure that you fully understand the product you are purchasing and what is and what is not included. Of course, if you ever have any questions about a product feel free to contact us or visit our FAQ page.

For 30 Days to Better Jazz Playing eCourse

Please make sure you completely understand the product you are buying before purchasing. 14 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee
  • This guarantee lasts 14 days, which completely covers almost half of the course, enough for you to observe itsā€™ effectiveness.
  • We canā€™t guarantee you will be Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane in 2 weeks. Weā€™d be suspicious of anyone who could promise that. Becoming a better jazz musician is a process and it requires work.
  • If youā€™re not happy with the quality of this programā€¦send us an email and showing you did the work. Weā€™ll refund 100% of your money (Weā€™ll even eat the credit-card processing fees) and weā€™ll part as friends. We believe in the power of this course and so weā€™ll take responsibility for it.

For Inner Circle Membership

Please make sure you completely understand the product you are buying before purchasing. 30 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee
  • This guarantee lasts 30 days, which is enough for you to observe the membership’s effectiveness.
  • We canā€™t guarantee you will be Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane in 30 days. Weā€™d be suspicious of anyone who could promise that. Becoming a better jazz musician is a process and it requires work.
  • If youā€™re not happy with the quality of this programā€¦send us an email and showing you did the work. Weā€™ll refund 100% of your money (Weā€™ll even eat the credit-card processing fees) and weā€™ll part as friends. We believe in the power of this course and so weā€™ll take responsibility for it.

Rights of use

All digital products are for the use of the individual customer only. Redistribution or reselling of our digital products is strictly prohibited and a violation of United States and New York State law.

PRIVACY POLICY

At Learn Jazz Standards LLC, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important.

Here are the types of personal information we may collect when you use and visit LearnJazzStandards.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We may use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to log in to some of our features, such as forums. We collect this information to help send you only pertinent content that we believe you are interested in and will benefit from.

We also use third party advertisements on LearnJazzStandards.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed.

This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies

We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Googleā€™s DoubleClick service, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements).

This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (“interest based targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey).

DART uses ā€œnon personally identifiable information.” It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

Email Addresses

If you share your email address with LearnJazzStandards.com via the contact page, we will only use it to contact you, and will NOT add you to any lists or newsletters without your consent.

In addition, if you sign up for the free newsletter, your email address will only be used to send special offers and updates from LearnJazzStandards.com. Addresses are recorded and kept secure through MailChimp, which we use to distribute information to our subscribers. Neither MailChimp nor LearnJazzStandards.com will give or sell your address to any third party, nor will you be added to any additional lists.

Right to Be Forgotten

If at any point you wish to be completely deleted from our databases, whether it be as a newsletter subscriber or an account holder on learnjazzstandards.com, you have the complete right to do so.

Contact us, and we will ensure your data is cleared from our system.

Data Control Contact

If you ever wish to reach out to us regarding the use of your data, we are reachable at [email protected]. Additionally, you can use our contact page, to reach out any time.

In short, your information is safe with us, and we greatly value your trust.

Thanks for using Learn Jazz Standards!

Terms of Use

Welcome to LearnJazzStandards.com!

We’ve created this page so that you (and any visitor to LearnJazzStandards.com) will understand the terms and conditions that govern your use of this website.

If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions, which together with our privacy policy comprise our (LearnJazzStandards.com’s) entire relationship with you.

Exclusion of Liability

The content found on any page of this website is for your general information and use only, and it is subject to change without notice.

Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose.

You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements.

Indemnity

By accessing our website, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from all claims, actions, damages, costs and expenses including legal fees arising from or in connection with your use of our website.

Copyright Laws & Intellectual Property

This website contains some material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, the design, layout, look, appearance and graphics. Reproduction is prohibited other than in accordance with the copyright notice, which forms part of these terms and conditions.

All logos, trademarks, and other intellectual property found on LearnJazzStandards.com are the property of their respective owners. They do not indicate ownership, affiliation, sponsorship, or any other relationship with LearnJazzStandards.com.

In addition, this website may also include links to other websites. These links are provided for your convenience to provide further information. They do not signify that we endorse those websites, and we have no responsibility for the content of those linked websites.

Unauthorized Use

Your use of this website and any dispute arising out of such use of the website is subject to the laws of the United States of America. Any unauthorized use of this website may give rise to a claim for damages and/or be a criminal offense.

Thanks, and enjoy LearnJazzStandards.com!

Return Policy for Products

Refund Policy

For play-alongs and eBooks:

Because these are digital downloads, and not returnable, we have a strict no refund policy. All purchases are final and cannot be reversed. Please be sure that you fully understand the product you are purchasing and what is and what is not included. Of course, if you ever have any questions about a product feel free to contact usor visit our FAQ page.

For 30 Days to Better Jazz Playing eCourse

Please make sure you completely understand the product you are buying before purchasing.

14 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee

  • This guarantee lasts 14 days, which completely covers almost half of the course, enough for you to observe its’ effectiveness.
  • We canā€™t guarantee you will be Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane in 2 weeks. We’d be suspicious of anyone who could promise that. Becoming a better jazz musician is a process and it requires work.
  • If youā€™re not happy with the quality of this programā€¦send us an email and showing you did the work. We’ll refund 100% of your money (We’ll even eat the credit-card processing fees) and weā€™ll part as friends. We believe in the power of this course and so we’ll take responsibility for it.

Rights of use

All digital products are for the use of the individual customer only. Redistribution or reselling of our digital products is strictly prohibited and a violation of United States and New York State law.

Learn Jazz Standards Messaging Terms & Conditions

Effective Date:

This SMS message program is a service of Learn Jazz Standards. By providing your cell phone number, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional and personalized marketing text messages (e.g., SMS/MMS cart reminders, sale notices, etc) from Learn Jazz Standards. These messages include text messages that may be sent using an automatic telephone dialing system, to the mobile telephone number you provided when signing up or any other number that you designate. You give Learn Jazz Standards permission to send text messages to the enrolled cell phone number through your wireless phone carrier, unless and until you end permission per these Terms & Conditions. Consent to receive automated marketing text messages is not a condition of any purchase. Message & data rates may apply.

Message frequency may vary. Learn Jazz Standards reserves the right to alter the frequency of messages sent at any time, so as to increase or decrease the total number of sent messages. Learn Jazz Standards also reserves the right to change the short code or phone number from which messages are sent and we will notify you if we do so.

Not all mobile devices or handsets may be supported and our messages may not be deliverable in all areas. Learn Jazz Standards, its service providers and the mobile carriers supported by the program are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

By enrolling in the Learn Jazz Standards messaging program, you also agree to these messaging terms & conditions (ā€œMessaging Termsā€), our Learn Jazz Standards Terms of Use and Learn Jazz Standards Privacy Policy.

Cancellation

Text the keyword STOP, STOPALL, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT to the telephone number, long code, or short code that sends you our initial confirmation message to cancel. After texting STOP, STOPALL, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT to the telephone number, long code, or short code that sends you our initial confirmation message you will receive one additional message confirming that your request has been processed. If you change your preferences, it may take up to 48 hours for it to take effect. You acknowledge that our text message platform may not recognize and respond to unsubscribe requests that do not include the STOP, STOPALL, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT keyword commands and agree that Learn Jazz Standards and its service providers will have no liability for failing to honor such requests. If you unsubscribe from one of our text message programs, you may continue to receive text messages from Learn Jazz Standards through any other programs you have joined until you separately unsubscribe from those programs.

Help or Support

Text the keyword HELP to the telephone number, long code, or short code that sends you our initial confirmation message to receive a text with information on how to unsubscribe.

No Warranty

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THE MESSAGING PROGRAM IS PROVIDED ON AN ā€œAS ISā€ AND ā€œAS AVAILABLEā€ BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.

Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YOU AGREE THAT IN NO EVENT SHALL EITHER OF Learn Jazz Standards OR ANY PARTY ACTING ON BEHALF OF Learn Jazz Standards BE LIABLE FOR: (A) ANY CLAIMS, PROCEEDINGS, LIABILITIES, OBLIGATIONS, DAMAGES, LOSSES OR COSTS IN AN AGGREGATE AMOUNT EXCEEDING THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO Learn Jazz Standards HEREUNDER OR $100.00; OR (B) ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE OR ANY OTHER DAMAGES. YOU AGREE EVEN IF Learn Jazz Standards HAS BEEN TOLD OF POSSIBLE DAMAGE OR LOSS ARISING OR RESULTING FROM OR IN ANY WAY RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE Learn Jazz Standards MESSAGING PROGRAM. Learn Jazz Standards AND ITS REPRESENTATIVES ARE NOT LIABLE FOR THE ACTS OR OMISSIONS OF THIRD PARTIES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DELAYS OR NON-DELIVERY IN THE TRANSMISSION OF MESSAGES.

Indemnity

To the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, you agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Learn Jazz Standards, its directors, officers, employees, servants, agents, representatives, independent contractors and affiliates from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, actions, causes of action, costs, expenses, including reasonable attorneysā€™ fees, judgments or penalties of any kind or nature arising from or in relation to the these Messaging Terms or your receipt of text messages from Learn Jazz Standards or its service providers.

Dispute Resolution

  1. General. Any dispute or claim arising out of or in any way related to these Messaging Terms or your receipt of text messages from Learn Jazz Standards or its service providers whether based in contract, tort, statute, fraud, misrepresentation, or any other legal theory, and regardless of when a dispute or claim arises will be resolved by binding arbitration. YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT, BY AGREEING TO THESE MESSAGING TERMS, YOU AND Learn Jazz Standards ARE EACH WAIVING THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY OR TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION AND THAT THESE MESSAGING TERMS SHALL BE SUBJECT TO AND GOVERNED BY ARBITRATION.
  2. Exceptions. Notwithstanding subsection (a) above, nothing in these Messaging Terms will be deemed to waive, preclude, or otherwise limit the right of you or Learn Jazz Standards to: (i) bring an individual action in small claims court; (ii) pursue an enforcement action through the applicable federal, state, or local agency if that action is available; (iii) seek injunctive relief in aid of arbitration from a court of competent jurisdiction; or (iv) file suit in a court of law to address an intellectual property infringement claim.
  3. Arbitrator. Any arbitration between you and Learn Jazz Standards will be governed by the JAMS, under the Optional Expedited Arbitration Procedures then in effect for JAMS, except as provided herein. JAMS may be contacted at www.jamsadr.com. The arbitrator has exclusive authority to resolve any dispute relating to the interpretation, applicability, or enforceability of this binding arbitration agreement.
  4. No Class Actions. YOU AND Learn Jazz Standards AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. Further, unless both you and Learn Jazz Standards agree otherwise in a signed writing, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims, and may not otherwise preside over any form of a representative or class proceeding. You agree that, by agreeing to these Messaging Terms, you and Learn Jazz Standards are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action, collective action, private attorney general action, or other representative proceeding of any kind.
  5. No Class Actions. YOU AND Learn Jazz Standards AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. Further, unless both you and Learn Jazz Standards agree otherwise in a signed writing, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims, and may not otherwise preside over any form of a representative or class proceeding.
  6. Modifications to this Arbitration Provision. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in these Messaging Terms, if Learn Jazz Standards makes any future change to this arbitration provision, you may reject the change by sending us written notice within 30 days of the change to Learn Jazz Standardsā€™s contact information provided in the ā€œContact Usā€ section below, in which case this arbitration provision, as in effect immediately prior to the changes you rejected, will continue to govern any disputes between you and Learn Jazz Standards.
  7. Enforceability. If any provision of these Messaging Terms is found to be unenforceable, the applicable provision shall be deemed stricken and the remainder of these Messaging Terms shall remain in full force and effect.

Changes to the Messaging Terms

We reserve the right to change these Messaging Terms or cancel the messaging program at any time. By using and accepting messages from Learn Jazz Standards after we make changes to the Messaging Terms, you are accepting the Messaging Terms with those changes. Please check these Messaging Terms regularly.

Entire Agreement/Severability

These Messaging Terms, together with any amendments and any additional agreements you may enter into with us in connection herewith, will constitute the entire agreement between you and Learn Jazz Standards concerning the Messaging Program.

Contact

Please contact us with any inquiries or concerns at [email protected]

OUR PROVEN PROCESS FOR LEARNING JAZZ STANDARDS LIKE A PRO

Get our FREE eGuide ā€œLearn Jazz Standards the Smart Wayā€ and follow the 5 simple steps for crushing it with jazz standards.

Learn Jazz Standards The Smart Way Cover

OUR PROVEN PROCESS FOR IMPROVISING JAZZ SOLOS LIKE A PRO

Get our FREE ā€œJazz Improv Made Easy Fast Track Guideā€ and follow the 3 simple steps for improvising amazing jazz solos.

Jazz Improv Made Easy Fast Track Guide Ebook Cover

OUR PROVEN PROCESS FOR LEARNING JAZZ THEORY LIKE A PRO

Get our FREE “Jazz Theory Made Easy Fast Track Guideā€ and follow the 4 simple steps that make learning jazz theory easy.

Jazz Theory Made Easy Fast Track Guide Ebook Cover

DOWNLOAD THIS CHORD CHART

Get our FREE "Learning Songs on the Bandstand and Other Lessons From My Gig" chord chart and our entire library of 200+ jazz standards!

Chord Chart

DOWNLOAD THIS CHORD CHART

Get our FREE "Learning Songs on the Bandstand and Other Lessons From My Gig" chord chart and our entire library of 200+ jazz standards!

Chord Chart

DOWNLOAD THIS CHORD CHART

Get our FREE "Learning Songs on the Bandstand and Other Lessons From My Gig" chord chart and our entire library of 200+ jazz standards!

Chord Chart