Welcome to the Jazz Jams Club website.
To register with the club please go to the Kijiji ad then message John.
Current Club Status: (Updated 2026/Apr/11)
After having two successful post COVID jams in April and March of 2024 I shut the club down in September of 2024 to
work on a none musical project. That non musical project is finished now so I am restarting the club in a few phases
where I gradually increase my musical involvement. To put this in perspective, when I first started the club in April 2016
I was practicing guitar 7 to 8 hours a day. Health issues and other projects dropped my practice to zero and I didn't
participate musically in those two 2024 jams. A member comment made me suspect my lack of musical involvement
dropped the participation level. So hopefully by phase #3 below I can consistently get 3 hours practice in a day
(possibly with scat singing being a new big part of it) and with my musical participation I can get others to show up.
During phase #1 (Now),
Obviously I will be organizing the jams. I won't be playing guitar. I won't be bringing any sound equipment. I won't be
providing BIAB to fill in for missing live players. I will be using a metronome to count in songs at the speed that rusty
players practiced at. I will be out front suggesting volume adjustments with a chalk board. Participants will need to
bring their own amps from now on.
During Phase #2 (As soon as I can verify the club will get participants this time around),
The same as Phase #1 except I will also bring my laptop computer running BIAB to provide backing tracks if needed.
This will feed into a new 4 channel mixer which will feed into one of my existing PA speakers. This will allow jams to
continue even if we don't have enough rhythm players or some don't show up at the last minute.
During Phase #3 (September 2026),
I have just started the 3 hour a day practice to be ready by September. This phase is the same as phase #2 except I
play guitar or scat sing or both. If my new scat singing skill is good enough and my vocal range does not require a key
shift I will use vocals to be melody person of last resort otherwise I will do it with guitar as I used to do. I will only initiate
songs for vocals if I do not need to shift keys. Otherwise I will initiate them using guitar. This will reduce the number of
songs needing a key change away from the fake book key. So as stated above in the first paragraph of this update, if
the first two phases don't motivate members to initiate songs this phase might especially if I record it and the recording
sounds reasonable.
As before, these jams will be held the last Sunday of the month except for when that lands on a holiday. In that situation
the jam will be held the 2nd last Sunday. The exact date and time appear on this home page and the Jam Prep Page. I
will make jams available all year except December, January and February as long as one person outside of myself
initiates a song. So starting September of 2026 the smallest jam will have at least two people.
Overview:
This is a Jazz Jams Social Club where both rusty and hot players/singers gather (normally at month end) to
perform/jam at least one song allowing them to also mingle with new and old friends while they watch & listen to others
in the group performing/jamming their songs. Even if 12 members initiated only one song each for the jam they would
most likely be joining in on other songs to play rhythm and/or solos. The web preplanning and its PDF file downloads
allow any set of members in the group to join in on the songs even if they don't have the lead sheet. Website
preplanning also avoids wasting prime jam time on fake book searching. You might want to read all 21 advantages of
Why the club was started:
I started playing at age 13, played (0 to 4 to 12) hours a day for 20 years, did a short stint at the Humber music
program then at age 32 I quit completely for 22 years. During that time I didn't even listen to music. At about age 54 I
connected with an old jamming buddy. He persuaded me for a year to start playing again then finally I picked up the
guitar. Six months later I had most of my skills back. Three of us wanted to jam and tried and tried but it never
happened so I started what is now called the "Jazz Jams Club" to make it happen. It is for fun and socializing mainly
but it is also to help people avoid quitting like I did for 22 years. If this club existed when I was young I would have
joined and never would have quit. I might have kept listening to records and buying them. So an indirect goal of this
club is to help the pros by keeping lesser musicians playing and listening to music and buying the records the pros
create.
The Jams Are Light And Fun:
These are rust relaxed social jams. A few mistakes, getting lost on occasion, and even restarting a song is not a big
deal largely because the room has very few listeners if any. This is a club where members play jazz standards like you
used to hear more often on Jazz FM before they changed their format. It's a club where your practice time is never
wasted because cancelled jams are always made up with the same jam schedule. At the end of the jam I buy a rice
meal as a reward and typically a few participants stick around to chat. As of 2026 we will have Jazz FM playing in the
background while we chat and also new is the possibility that if the jam finishes early due to inability to get 12 songs
we play checkers or chess. I personally have no time to learn chess but I am sure the restaurant owner will not mind 2
chess players buying coffee, listening to Jazz FM and playing chess until they close.
How the jams are organized: (Updated 2026/Apr/11)
One or two days after the last live jam, I email all members asking them to initiate one song only. When the first person
initiates a song I send a 2nd email to the group letting them know we have a jam at the specified date and asking
others to initiate 1 song each within a 3 day deadline. From this point on up until the actual jam, appropriate members
can join in without initiating a song because the 1 song limit at the beginning eliminates any chance of claw back later
on. After the 3 days I know how many are initiating songs so I ask the current song initiators to initiate an equal number
of extra songs to bring us up to 12 songs for the jam. First Come First Serve is used to deal with unequal issues or I
may initiate some songs. Once we have 12 songs, if we are missing rhythm section instrumentalists I email members
of the group who play those instruments hoping we can ewliminate the need for using BIAB. So in summary during
months that a jam is initiated, members who are not participating get two emails a month and desired rhythm section
instrumentalists who are not participating get a 3rd email. During months that no jams are initiated members get one
email a month and sometimes these emails contain general status updates. Members who are participating get extra
emails as required for jam preparation.
Jam Sharing:
All members are fair minded and share evenly. This applies in four areas.
Song Initiation: How this is done is explained in the prior section.
Solos: Most solo choruses are 32+ bars and each soloist gets one chorus. For shorter chorus songs we increase the
number of solo choruses to reach the minimum 32 bars. In this situation it is easy to lose one's place so eye contact is
used for transition and we do not get upset if someone loses track and goes a bit over their allotted solo chorus count.
Large Instruments: Drums, Piano, Organ & Stand-Up Bass are sometimes shared.
Stage Slots: We have room for 5 (6 gets a bit cozy). If more than 6 are participating they swap in/out across songs.
Learning the "Jam Prep Page" is easy now: (updated 2026/Apr/11)
Club members want to play at a jam rather than wasting prime jamming time doing the administrative work of
searching fake books for common songs we can play together. Clearly jam audience members (which at times are the
members themselves) prefer a fairly small gap between songs. The good news is that the web site "Jam Prep Page"
allows you to do the planning work before the jam. At first glance it scares some people but I have resolved this issue
by encouraging new members to join me in a "Google-Meeting Screen-Share" learning session where I take them
through the "Jam Prep Page" and it's text quick start guide. If you don't have a webcam a hands free speaker phone
meeting can act as a substitute. Within 30 minutes you will have mastered the basics of sending me your jam
participation info easily. An alternative slightly harder way to learn the Jam Prep Page is to use the "ONE PIC QUICK
Quickly keeping track of coming jam status:
To see if a jam is scheduled for the month see the "Jam Information Table" which appears at the bottom of this "Home
Page". If one of the rows in the "Jam Date" column has a future jam date that means someone has initiated a jam at
that location. To get more information about that jam than is available on that row, click the "Jam Prep Page" button. A
2nd browser tab will appear to display the "Jam Prep Page". Immediately check the information in the top right area to
verify the jam date matches the date you just saw on the "Jam Information Table" of the "Home Page". On very rare
occasions I will update the "Jam Prep Page" and forget to update the "Home Page" so the "Home Page" could show
out of date information. So just to be sure it might be a good idea to check the "Jam Prep Page" regardless. If the
"Jam Prep Page" shows "Needs People" the jam did not get any participants or it has been cancelled. Please check
this just before you leave for the jam. The jam at the bottom of the "Jam Information Table" with title "York Region
Fingerstyle Guitar Assn" is run by a different person who maintains the schedule for that jam. I only show it on my home
page just in case one of our members wants to attend that jam and hopes another member of this club will join them
there to do a jazz duet performance. So far that has never happened.
The Jam Information Table
In the table below you see summary info about four different Jam Prep Pages. The first row is for the restaurant and the
other three rows are for jam schedules at different locations. Clicking the "Jam_Prep_Page" button which you see in
the table takes you to the version of the Jam Prep Page that does not allow you to send me emails. You get a warning
popup about this so you do not waste time filling in your jam participation info. When you become a member each
email you receive from me will have a link to the version of the Jam Prep Page which does allow you to email me your
jam participation information.