Announcing the last month of Jazz Mafia Tuesdays at Coda
Yes, it's true my friends, after much thought and deliberation, we've decided to finish off our year long run of Jazz Mafia Tuesdays at our most recent home, Coda. We have nothing but love for all our friends at Coda, they've always treated us right and have went above and beyond what many other clubs would do and given us a place to call our local spot for the past year. Moving forward, You'll probably see our musicians and bands playing at Coda from time to time, but as far as the weekly residency, it will come to an end once August rolls through.
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For this last month of shows we all invite you to come down to Coda and celebrate with us. We’ll be revisiting some of the music that’s made Jazz Mafia Tuesdays special over the past 10 years. I’m also preparing slide shows that we’ll be projecting at Coda before the show and during the breaks. It would really mean a lot to all the musicians to have all of you who can come through and celebrate one of the longest running weekly live music series in the Country; Jazz Mafia Tuesdays.
After 10 years of doing Jazz Mafia Tuesdays every week, me and the crew have reached a different perspective on the importance of our bands playing a weekly residency in SF. When we first started, our Tuesdays were more of an experimental night forming into our 5 piece band Realistic, with lots of jamming, often 10 or more horn players sitting in, lots of improvised music and experimental tinkerings with electronics, live sampling, looping and more. As Jazz Mafia expanded into more groups I felt the need to feature those groups more and it’s been a great opportunity for our community to get to know us on an up close and personal level that would’ve been much different if we took the traditional approach of just playing one big hometown show every three months like many bands do. Our approach brought us some of the most awesome music-loving fans EVER, people who are so into it that they frequently come out on a weeknight, even though many of them work early in the a.m. Of course having so many opportunities to perform live has helped our bands immensely with premiering new material, trying out different ideas and getting super tight. One of my favorite things we’ve done is bringing in guest bands and featuring them and introducing them to our crowd. Some shows that stand out in my memory are: Kneebody, 2 Mex, The Park (who played many times), Garlando Nonet, Teeko & Mike Boo vs. Jazz Mafia…
I’m the most proud of the level of quality that we’ve managed to keep since the beginning. Me and the crew have never compromised and always put musical integrity, professionalism and passion first. I think most of you probably realize how much work goes into pulling off one concert – the phone calls, emails, writing new material, rehearsals, promotions, load-ins, soundchecks and then of course, the gig itself…well, imagine doing that every week for 10 years AND trying to make each one the best it can be. On top of that, add the dozens of other performances that our bands are involved in every month and you’ve got a challenging situation to say the least. You have to absolutely LOVE it and/or be CRAZY to make something like 10 years of JM Tuesdays work. I’m crazy for sure and I LOVE it.
So what’s going to happen? One thing that seems clear is that having a weekly residency where many of our core bands perform is a little bit of over-saturation and it’s also a little TOO predictable. If people know that they can always just come see Jazz Mafia on Tuesdays, it can become a lower priority and other things take precedence (remember when American Idol was big? haha!) Some of our best shows have been when our Tuesdays were on a brief hiatus in between homes and we were able to focus on one or two big events in one month instead of 6-8. This will allow us to focus on important events rather than making Facebook invites and fliers for a million different shows etc….One of our main goals moving forward is to focus on key events for our bands, make each show especially unique and put on the best night of music we can.
We aren’t planning on moving JM Tuesdays to another venue at this time. I’m personally interested in some sort of recurring informal “Improv” night similar to our early beginnings at Black Cat 10 years ago; maybe a house band and just tons of guests sitting in. With that said I’m trying to focus on the big picture which for me and our crew right now, is trying to bring Jazz Mafia to the WORLD and it’s harder to do that when we’re spending significant chunks of our time on things like weekly jam sessions etc…So for now, we’ll be focusing on writing music for our new Jazz Mafia Symphony which we’ll be recording for our new album in the Fall. In addition we’ll be performing select shows with Shotgun, Joe Bagale, Spaceheater, Realistic Orchestra and many of our other projects. We’ll definitely be letting you know when and where. Oh and those shows will probably be on weekends, or maybe a Thursday : )
For this last month of shows we all invite you to come down to Coda and celebrate with us. We’ll be revisiting some of the music that’s made Jazz Mafia Tuesdays special over the past 10 years. I’m also preparing slide shows that we’ll be projecting at Coda before the show and during the breaks. It would really mean a lot to all the musicians to have all of you who can come through and celebrate one of the longest running weekly live music series in the Country; Jazz Mafia Tuesdays. After 10 years of doing Jazz Mafia Tuesdays every week, me and the crew have reached a different perspective on the importance of our bands playing a weekly residency in SF. When we first started, our Tuesdays were more of an experimental night forming into our 5 piece band Realistic, with lots of jamming, often 10 or more horn players sitting in, lots of improvised music and experimental tinkerings with electronics, live sampling, looping and more. As Jazz Mafia expanded into more groups I felt the need to feature those groups more and it’s been a great opportunity for our community to get to know us on an up close and personal level that would’ve been much different if we took the traditional approach of just playing one big hometown show every three months like many bands do. Our approach brought us some of the most awesome music-loving fans EVER, people who are so into it that they frequently come out on a weeknight, even though many of them work early in the a.m. Of course having so many opportunities to perform live has helped our bands immensely with premiering new material, trying out different ideas and getting super tight. One of my favorite things we’ve done is bringing in guest bands and featuring them and introducing them to our crowd. Some shows that stand out in my memory are: Kneebody, 2 Mex, The Park (who played many times), Garlando Nonet, Teeko & Mike Boo vs. Jazz Mafia… I’m the most proud of the level of quality that we’ve managed to keep since the beginning. Me and the crew have never compromised and always put musical integrity, professionalism and passion first. I think most of you probably realize how much work goes into pulling off one concert – the phone calls, emails, writing new material, rehearsals, promotions, load-ins, soundchecks and then of course, the gig itself…well, imagine doing that every week for 10 years AND trying to make each one the best it can be. On top of that, add the dozens of other performances that our bands are involved in every month and you’ve got a challenging situation to say the least. You have to absolutely LOVE it and/or be CRAZY to make something like 10 years of JM Tuesdays work. I’m crazy for sure and I LOVE it. So what’s going to happen? One thing that seems clear is that having a weekly residency where many of our core bands perform is a little bit of over-saturation and it’s also a little TOO predictable. If people know that they can always just come see Jazz Mafia on Tuesdays, it can become a lower priority and other things take precedence (remember when American Idol was big? haha!) Some of our best shows have been when our Tuesdays were on a brief hiatus in between homes and we were able to focus on one or two big events in one month instead of 6-8. This will allow us to focus on important events rather than making Facebook invites and fliers for a million different shows etc….One of our main goals moving forward is to focus on key events for our bands, make each show especially unique and put on the best night of music we can. We aren’t planning on moving JM Tuesdays to another venue at this time. I’m personally interested in some sort of recurring informal “Improv” night similar to our early beginnings at Black Cat 10 years ago; maybe a house band and just tons of guests sitting in. With that said I’m trying to focus on the big picture which for me and our crew right now, is trying to bring Jazz Mafia to the WORLD and it’s harder to do that when we’re spending significant chunks of our time on things like weekly jam sessions etc…So for now, we’ll be focusing on writing music for our new Jazz Mafia Symphony which we’ll be recording for our new album in the Fall. In addition we’ll be performing select shows with Shotgun, Joe Bagale, Spaceheater, Realistic Orchestra and many of our other projects. We’ll definitely be letting you know when and where. Oh and those shows will probably be on weekends, or maybe a Thursday : )
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Ah well! JM Tuesdays had to wrap up sometime I suppose. You’re absolutely right on the money in so many ways with this statement though, Adam. I remember being completely blown away the first time I saw Realistic and then Cannonball at the Black Cat, and for a decade the Jazz Mafia bands have only gotten better. Mighty impressive, but it’s true that with the Tuesday residency the saturation thing can set in for even those of us that love the music most. When you’ve got an early work day, and you know that next Tuesday is just around the bend, it can be all too easy to say ‘not tonight, but I’ll catch ‘em next week.’ And I completely understand the challenge that goes into such a grueling schedule from the standpoint of y’all musicians too. Though I’m sad to see Tuesdays go, it is great to know that you’ll all have more flexibility to make all the other gigs that much more awesome. I’ll be out this month to send ya off, and I’ll rally some troops to help. Thanks for all the fun, and here’s to years more ahead!
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Waaaaah!
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