Laying some truth on your jazz trio

Eight is the layer of hell reserved for the conscious evildoers.  This morning, I'm thinking of the musician who reads from a fakebook the entire gig.

There's nothing heretical about your trio sight-reading Black Orpheus -- as long as you don't take yourself seriously.  That is the great heresy, the conscious fraud.   Because no one else is taking you seriously.  Even if you do attend a conservatory.  There are a few reasons no one claps when you finish your songs.  It's not because no one is listening.  The folks at the bar are listening, and they hear how ragged you sound, and that is why they are thumbing at their iPhones instead of putting their hands together for your dreck.  They may not know about scales and arpeggios, but their ears know when someone is phoning it in.

You're not bad musicians; you're unprepared.  Don't expect a tip jar brimming with Lincolns and Hamiltons.  It's embarrassing for you to hold yourself with that attitude.  Don't counter that on-the-fly that is the central ethos of jazz.  There's a difference between improvisation and sloppiness.  There's a difference between a career musician and a suburban teenager wearing a suit two sizes too big.

Maybe you're just having a bad set.  You're not, though.  This is you.  And in your frustration, you conduct yourself with self-righteous.  You make noises and girate during your vapid solos.  You don't play for the room: when your only friendly listener in the bistro requests "On Green Dolhpin Street," you refuse to do so.

Eventually, though, you'll come to the realization that I came to:  you are not an artist.  There is nothing that elevates you artistically from the straight-edge band down the road playing in a church gym to kids in Hot Topic shirts.  At least the Christ-core band bothers to memorize their tunes.  At least they care about entertaining their audience.

You're an apprentice at best, a hack at worst.   Right now you don't have the chops to warrant any respect.  You're lucky to have this bistro gig, and you're lucky none of the patrons know anything about jazz, other than it makes them feel sophisticated.  Put away the fakebook, or at least have the decency to take requests.  There's nothing wrong with being a sub-par musician, so long as you're dedicated to entertaining your audience.  Learn your music, practice together, transcribe the theme song to the Andy Griffith show.  Play the Oscar Mayer jingle.  Get our attention.  Or spend the rest of your life preparing for the world that awaits you when the proverbial music is over.