How I Grab an Audience
Jan 15 '06
The Bottom Line I give them what they want and so I get to do what I want.
As a performer, I know that the goal for the audience for any performance is for the audience to go home happy. While of course, my own goals for performances are to perform meaningful improvised solos, the fact remains that I am only able to do that consistently when the audiences have been satisfied by quality music, often music that they know. Satisfied audiences buy my CD and tell their bookers to hire me again.
There’s more overlap between the goals that you might think. Many jazz standards got that way because they had meaningful melody lines as well as lyrics. An important lyric, delivered with important notes in the chord progression, really grabs people. The great popular songwriters of the 20th Century knew that – and the jazz players know that, too. In fact, Dexter Gordon, one of the all-time greats on tenor sax, learned the lyrics when he was learning songs and would sometimes recite some of them as an introduction to the songs.
There are some songs that have grabbed people so much so that all I have to do is play an opening phrase or two and the heads start turning in a festival or an event where I am providing background music. When I am in concert, the focus is on me, but I use appropriate choice of songs to keep people attentive. For a festival set, generally I’ll only need to put in a couple of these in a one-hour set. For a senior group, up to half of my songs could come from the list below.
So, whatever the context, I’ll find a way to work in a well-known romantic song or two or even more to get the audience’s attention and, hopefully, let them leave happy. I’ll classify some of the songs based on how they can be used:
Always Work
There are two songs that will make any crowd take notice no matter what:
Someday My Price Will Come - Everybody knows this. The little girls will remember it, although they might not remember it came from the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Everybody has seen “The Wizard of Oz” lots of times. However, they remember this song because it is extraordinarily well written.
Younger Audiences
When I’ve got an audience of children for a demonstration or families with a lot of children, all it takes is a nice cross-section of Disney songs. All the little kids know all about “happily ever after”, and their parents know, too, because they rent or buy the videos and often watch them with the kids. Songs that work well for me include the two above that always work and
Beauty and the Beast
Part of My World (from The Little Mermaid)
When You Wish Upon A Star
Can You Feel The Love Tonight (from the Lion King)
Of course other Disney songs figure prominently in such performances. Bear Necessities has great changes for blowing, and there are others, but those are hardly romantic love songs. Still, the little darlings go home happy!
Middle Age and Senior Audiences
I haven’t found a lot of differences between these groups, except that I use a higher percentage of these songs with seniors because they tend to prefer shorted concerts. One would think that the seniors might have a better memory of older tunes, but tunes like Moonglow and It Had To Be You have been in movie soundtracks, thus putting them at the forefront of people’s memories. So, I’ll lead with those two and list others that I have used effectively.
Moonglow
It Had To Be You
Spooky - This 70’s love song has quite an interesting melody. When I first started playing it, I didn’t think people would notice, but they have.
My Funny Valentine
Sinatra Songs - I’ve found that Nice and Easy, Fly Me To The Moon, The Way You Look Tonight and Pennies From Heaven all work well, and there are others. What’s interesting is that men really enjoy My Way, but I don’t view that as a love song.
Michelle, the Beatles classic along with, surprisingly When I’m 64 both work fairly well.
Night and Day by Cole Porter does well, as does Someone To Watch Over Me and They Can’t Take That Away from Me by Gershwin, both classics.
As Time Goes By is another head turner, and The Girl From Ipanema does well.
Then, there’s the dirty little secret of the sax world. He’s not a secret. What’s a secret is that more players do his music than would care to admit it.
Of course I am taking about Kenny G
Kenny has his critics because of style, and I am one of them. However, he’s a solid professional musician and gets a great sound on his instruments independent of style. Plus, Kenny’s good for business. For many people, Kenny is the only sax player they have heard of. So, I will do a Kenny song or two if the client wants it. However, I charge the client double if they ask for Kenny before I quote them a price. Forever in Love is the one song I get requested most often.
I played that song one time when a young woman hired me solo to play for a romantic evening with her boyfriend before he went off to South America for a year. I saw the way they were looking at each other when I completed the Kenny G song. I was done early and they were ready to get started.
At the end of the gig, the audiences go home happy and I’ve been able to improvise to my heart’s content.
Thanks for reading. God bless!
You might enjoy some of my other music and music-related reviews:
My Top Ten Favorite Jazz Albums
Our Favorite Romance Mix
Impressions by the John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy,
Mark Colby (sax) Speaking of Stan album
Joe Henderson (sax) Lush Life album
Dean Evenson (flute) The Tao of Peace album
Sheetmusicplus.com web store
Activemusician.com web store
My worst gig
What music has helped me learn about myself
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