Advice to an Unhappy Jazz Piano Accompanist

The following was submitted by a prominent Grammy Award-winning producer/composer/musician who wishes to remain anonymous. It offers novel solutions for the insufferable lounge gigs that an Indian pianist has to endure. — CD

• Every night find a rationale to play, including wild fantasies and vendettas.
• Re-harmonize as much as possible all the time, to the exclusion of the original intent of the song. You are a long way from Tin Pan Alley, so take advantage of the distance. For the singer, this is what is called “the learning curve.” Harmony manipulation is the “secret hand shake” between “those who know and those who don’t” and this device usually is the determinant factor to answer the question if he/she is the enemy or the friend. 
• Insist on having your own mic on a boom stand, not only to clutter the stage but to allow you the opportunity to create a feedback situation on stage. This is a kind of eardrum torture and sure to stop the music dead in its tracks, so wear good earplugs. Only use when you really can’t stand the song any more. A good 5-minute unexplained trip into the excruciating side effects of feedback cannot be underestimated as a groove-breaker.
• The mic is an essential element to your arsenal — the bulkier the boom stand the better — and get a mic that requires a pre-amp and five cables, just so the floor is a hazard.

 

If this does not get you fired after the first set, these other tips will come in handy:

• Extend intros to the point where the singer has no clue when to come in and the dead space is worth the effort. Talk about an awkward moment. All this confused clamor, silence and then “Some Enchanted Eeeeveee-Ning….” Talk about surreal.
• Another fun device is to do the intro 1/2 step below or above the actual key of the arrangement. The transposition below the starting point is especially difficult to navigate.
• Never just end on a chord. Take it out for a few moments so that the mood of the song is all but lost. How do you program a set with Cecil Taylor intros and endings?
• Learn how to play and sleep at the same time.
• Try to play showing no emotion at all, like a robot. Keep your eyes open, no smile, no reactions, turn pages like a machine, think Devo. This will make the audience start looking at you because you are doing nothing. That sums up the direction of vocal/piano duos: the art of nothing.
• Put something that smells really bad on the singer’s microphone — this is a priceless prank that goes way back — and India is the home of things that smell really bad. Just blame it on the karaoke crowd at happy hour, but make sure that the smell is really bad and you do it on the big night after the soundcheck. Make the intro a big buildup, the singer walks on the stage, grabs the mic, begins to sing and then that horrible smell makes the facial expression change from joy to horror in seconds. Concentrated skunk essence is preferred. (The instrument equivalent is alum on mouthpieces and honey on piano keys and the always-good-for-a-laugh rubber-snake-in-the-bass-case).
• Make one note, common to all of the singer’s songs, out of tune on the piano and claim you don’t notice. It will drive him/her crazy.
• Ghost the singer’s notes softly as if there is an echo. Use the mic gently. This will cause some confidence issues.
• Become extremely eccentric on and off the stage: wear funny hats and don’t wear shoes; put things on the keyboard that make no sense, like a Viking helmet with a stuffed crow impaled in one of the horns; put a cow on the guest list every night. After all, it is India.
• Always have sunglasses on, no matter how dark the club, and, to add to the above eccentric behavior, put on two pair of sunglasses, so when people ask you to take off your glasses to see your eyes they get another pair of sunglasses. That gets them out of your hair. This is your only private world and hipness counts.
• If you are working with a male singer, have songs like “The Man I Love,” “Can’t Help Loving That Man,” “Will You Marry Me Bill” and a Clay Aiken medley in the songbook and make sure these are requested every night by questionable members of the audience. Guilt by association. If you are working with a female singer, insist on doing songs about prostitutes. Guilt by association.
• Add vocal harmonies, softly in the background, using the beloved mic, and make sure you use the dissonant intervals to a premium and then say ”It’s a Gil Evans thing.”
• Do facial pantomime as the singer sings, so that the crowd laughs at serious songs to his/her befuddlement.
• Modulate at will and then blame it on the singer’s pitch.
• Pay someone to constantly call the bar so that the phone always rings when the singer is on stage.
• Write his/her home phone number in the men’s room saying “Fun at all times 24/7/365, call….”  This works both ways and you only have to go into one bathroom.
• Leave music books around the singer and make a bet with a friend that he/she will never notice them, then join Accompanists Anonymous®. Mr. H. Danko is the president and founder.

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