2024/Apr/28: (16th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
This was our first time with a Standup Bass player in any of the jams. Robert filled that slot and his friend Wayne played sax on most of the songs. John played piano.
Augusto played drums. I used my software to help run the jam and I focused on the pa mix. The parking at Supreme has become difficult to find. If these jams get more
busy we may need to find a new location.
2024/Mar/24: (15th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
After COVID first showed in December 2019 and everything was shut down in 2020 it has been 4 years since the 14th jam. After issues with my right ankle and also
moving to the basement in my house in December 2023 a new member finally inspired me to restart the live jams. John on piano, James on organ and Augusto on
drums participated. Because of my ankle I was limited to organizing the jam, calling out the songs and providing a count in with the metronome set to the correct speed.
Not having my full PA system and BIAB to provide backing tracks I was not sure how the jam would go but I was pleasantly surprised. It was the most lively and happy jam
of all of them so far. A new member named Robert (a bassist) attended with his friend Wayne (a Saxophonist). A guitarist jazz fan form pickering attended as well. There
was more excitement and clapping during this jam than ever before. Even the two waitresses were clapping. There was lots of socializing afterwards as well.
2019/Sep/22: (14th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
This was our forth 3-Song-Guarantee Jam-Sharing-Procedure jam. John and James shared the jam on John's piano. Jay played bass. Keith on drums had to cancel so
we used BIAB for drums. Everyone stayed right to the end to participate-in or listen-to the 13 songs. So obviously we were having a lot of fun.
2019/May/26: (13th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
This was our third 3-Song-Guarantee Jam-Sharing-Procedure jam. However there was no jam sharing as James had to cancel so John was able to play piano on all 11
songs. Jay on guitar and Kevin on guitar were able to play at the same time on songs sharing light comping or fill in functions. Joseph had to cancel so we used a Band In
A Box bass backing track as well as drum backing track. Jay and Kevin had to leave a bit early so I used a rhythm guitar backing track on the last two songs. I knocked
the new disk drive over so it had recording issues on about 5 songs. I reformatted it and that brought it up to high speed again so hopefully that fixes it. I will be setting it
on the table flat from now on to avoid that issue. If it continues to give problems I will replace it with a faster solid state drive. The jam was a lot of fun. Kevin said it was the
most fun he had all day.
2019/Apr/29: (12th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
This was our second 3-Song-Guarantee Jam-Sharing-Procedure jam. John and James shared John's piano. Jay on guitar and Joseph on bass joined me to fill out the
attendance. Tony and Tom had to cancel. The recording issues were fixed with a new disk drive. I switched to Audacity to mix down the recording due to issues with
Realband. That works out surprisingly well. The playing was very good. It was a lot of fun. We had a small audience of four people who I think enjoyed the background
music since Frank (the owner of Supreme) seemed to be happy.
2019/Mar/31: (11th Jam) - Supreme Resturant and Bar
This was our first 3-Song-Guarantee Jam-Sharing-Procedure jam. It started out being scheduled with 2 piano players and 2 bass players sharing for a total of 8
members playing/singing. Tom on bass could not attend and William on guitar also could not attend. So we matched out highest attendance of 6. Tony on vocals, Joseph
on bass, Jay on guitar, James on piano, John on piano and myself participated. It was a lot of fun as proven by the fact that everyone scheduled for the next jam within two
days except Joseph who wanted to come but he was on call at his work that day. Clearly the 3-Song-Guarantee Jam-Sharing-Procedure is a big hit. Never before as
another jam been so quickly scheduled with so many repeat members. The jam started 12 minutes late and was a bit chaotic as well but it didn't matter. Members getting
a break from singing/playing to listen and socialize is important and the results show it is true. This approach is clearly a keeper.
2018/Nov/25: (10th Jam) - Bistro Manila
Jay on bass and John on keyboard came out to join me for this jam with BIAB filling in for drums. BIAB did rhythm guitar on many of the songs too. It was a very quiet
night with an almost none existent audience possibly because of Black Friday spending and a sports event. There was no loud Karaoke. I arrived a bit earlier and had 30
minutes to warm up so I was playing a bit better although my recent right hand position change was still causing some errors. It will take about 6 to 12 months for that to
iron out. Overall the playing was pretty good and as always it was a fun jam. I used my checklist properly and recorded all the songs. However there is a programming
issue and some of the songs did not appear in the actual times list.
2018/Nov/11: (9th Jam) - Bistro Manila
This is the first jam where we had Drums. Keith on drums, John on keyboards, Jay on guitar and Joseph on bass joined me for the jam. The Bistro Manila has a riser and
Keith enjoyed that :-)
Being the first jam at this location there were some surprises causing delay. Specifically dancercize going on when I arrived, needing to figure out my setup on the other
side of the musicians, finding power, dealing with very loud vocal karaoke for 1.5 hoours (I bought ear plugs for next time). I also had some mixer input issues delaying
things. Being late and not warmed up I was nervous even before I started playing. This caused some playing issues on the first few songs. I decided to try and skip using
my computer checklist hoping it would help me catch up. It was wishful thinking. It created bigger than normal gaps between the songs and the actual times table did not
get produced properly. The one entry that did appear in the table showed we started at 19:36 (36 minutes late). We skipped our after jam chat.
Overall the playing was fairly good. My playing got better as I settled down. Rick, Henry and a friend of theirs came out to watch. It was a very fun night. Keith and Jay
wanted to do it every other week. My calendar of available days is set to 8 available Sundays starting after a 2 weeks delay since the previous jam. Keith must have read
my mind :-)
2018/Sep/23: (Cancelled Jam) - Supreme Restaruant and Bar
This jam which we prepared for was cancelled because a Card Gambling Club was scheduled instead. It filled Supreme and Frank made more money with them.
2018/Mar/25: (8th Jam) - Supreme Restaruant and Bar
Cameron on guitar and myself on guitar came out to jam 6 songs. Rick and Henry came to watch. Rick brought his guitar and sat in on two addtional songs.
I finally got the idea to turn the restaurat table I use for (the BIAB computer and mixing board) toward the other members so we can communicate better. That worked out
pretty well.
Henry was watching listening and taking pictures. I put one picture up there which showed all three of us playing. You can view it at this FaceBook link.
It was pretty obvious everyone including myself were having a lot of fun playing and socializing even though both Cameron and I were complaning we were not playing as
well as we normally do. But these are rusty relaxed social jams and that is to be expected from time to time.
2018/Jan/14: (7th Jam) - Supreme Restaruant and Bar
Jessie on sax, Rick on guitar, Joseph on bass and myself on guitar came out. Keith on drums could not make it due to an injured finger.
people who work at the restaurant said they enjoyed the music and didn't hear any mistakes. After listening to the songs on sound cloud I realized all the songs were
performed fairly well. I had a weakness in my jam operation checklist leading to an error in my running BIAB on one song. The checklist is fixed now.
I am not yet that skilled with my camera but I did manage to get one picture out :-) You can see it at this FaceBook link. I will get better. I need a better camera :-)
I finally got the schedule filled out. We actually played 1 additional song (All Blues) which did not show up for some reason. The calculations show a reasonable gap
between songs. I had filler music and everyone enjoyed that rather than the silence. As you can see from the start times we started a bit late.
2017/Dec/19: (6th Jam) - Supreme Restaurant and Bar
This was the first jam at the Supreme Restaurant and Bar with great food and very friendly people. As usual the jam was fun and a good social night out. The owner of the
restaurant would love to have us back. This is not surprising since every member and every guest had a meal and I heard no complaints about the food.
We had the biggest turnout so far with 6 players. We had two piano players and two bass players so we finally had some switching where some players could be
socializing and listening while others played.
We had a special guest piano player from Austrailia named Kay Cai. She is very studied and played great. You can visit her website here. I made her a member and
scheduled the jam as usual such that I scheduled about 20 songs and she scheduled 20 songs. We had way more songs than needed so I scheduled the songs such that
the songs with rhythm section players came first or simply by preference amoung the charts we had. In the next jam my list of songs to play will be sorted by the number of
rhythm section players making it easy for me to quickly find the next song to play that involves the most people working down the list until only the intiators and myself are
2017/Jan: (5th Jam) - Local's Sport Pub and Grill
Steve, a vocalist friend of his and I got together with BIAB on piano and drums. Steve and his friend sang very well. Unfortunately this is the jam where I allowed us to go
too long between the songs and we lost the location as a result.
2016/Dec: (4th Jam) - Local's Sport Pub and Grill
Steve, Jay, Adam, Alex and I got together to jam without BIAB. When we were not using BIAB we had an an issue with speeding up. I put BIAB in for the rest of the night
and after that none of the songs sped up. I decided to use BIAB from that point on. However in 2018 I decided to loosen this up a bit by using BIAB to count us in with an
all instruments mute starting at Bar #1 so I could see if we were speeding up on a song. If we were able to hold a consistent speed I would do the same on each
subsequent song. If we sped up on a song I would go back to allowing at least one BIAB instrument to play as a way to prevent speeding up.
2016/June: (3th Jam) - John's Home
Adam and I got together with BIAB on drums and piano to do some of the demo recordings.
2016/June: (2rd Jam) - John's Home
Brian, Richie and I got together with BIAB on drums and piano to do some of the demo recordings.
2016/April: (1st Jam) Kobi's Home
Kobi, Narayan, Errol and I got together with BIAB on drums to do some of the demo recordings.
2015/Dec/24: The night I got the "Jazz Karaoke Jams" idea.
I had shut down my origianal www.YourCommonSongJams.com website and while watching a Public Vocal Karaoke I got the idea to set up "Jazz Karaoke Jams" which
in late 2018 I renamed "Jazz Jams Club".