2007-04-24 - Noontime show by my jazz group Excursus

Since my previous post covered the debut of my first steady band, I figured this time I should cover my most recent band. Our name is Excursus, and I'll save you a trip to the dictionary: it's Latin for "a rambling digression" (which seemed apt, because we play jazz). Not jazz in the usual standards/bebop/fusion sense, but rather jazzed-up versions of non-jazz songs. Our current repertoire: a few rock songs, a couple tunes from TV shows, a video game theme, and a couple of my originals. The group consists of me on piano, Josh on bass, Dustin on drums, and Dan on trumpet.

After rehearsing for a couple months, we played our first show on April 10, 2007. That gig was part of a big "Arts Night" that I helped organize at the University of Maine Farmington, where I work and where the others in the band are students. The event featured dozens of performers in multiple venues, with the highlight being a piece performed by a 50-car automobile orchestra.

The sampler format of Arts Night meant our first show was short, so I planned another right after it, to give us a chance to play more songs and stretch out the jams. This second show took place at lunchtime on Tuesday, April 24, in UMF's famed (and haunted) Nordica Auditorium.

The mighty Excursus, left to right: me, Josh, Dustin, and Dan.

We performed all the songs we knew:

1. Heart-Shaped Box. The lead single off Nirvana's last studio album, redone as a swing waltz. (Audio clip below)
2. Apocalypso. A latin-tinged tune I wrote years ago, a theme suitable for a secret agent movie, titled long before Mel Gibson produced a movie with a similar name.
   
3. Tainted Love. Again, me doing 80's songs. It's like I refuse to grow up. This one-hit wonder by Soft Cell is actually one of our more traditional sounding jazz arrangements.
   
4. Linus and Lucy. Better know as "that song from the Snoopy TV specials." Our version is a slow extended jam, with one hypnotic riff repeated throughout. The solo quotes from "Time of the Season" by The Zombies.
   
5. Non Sequitur. Another of my originals, with a groove that we liken to Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice."
   
6. Goldberg Variation. A classical pianist friend had been performing variations on Bach's Golberg Variations at the time, so I figured I'd give it a shot, too.
   
7. Super Mario Brothers Theme. This one always gets a chuckle from the crowd. I see it a fast bossa nova, but the rest of the band calls it creole rock or something.
   
8. Mah-na Mah-na. Most people know this as a Muppet Show song, but its origins are actually more risqué. The original version (sound clip here) interpolates classical and popular songs in the scat singing between refrains, so I thought it would be clever to quote jazz songs instead. Our version includes bits from "Straight No Chaser" and "Well You Needn't" by Thelonious Monk, "So What" and "Israel" by Miles Davis, "The Girl from Ipanema" by Jobim, and "Route 66" by Bobby Troup.
   

I recorded the show with a couple cheap condenser mics on the stage, and I'm glad I did, because the performance was really good. For a taste, here's a clip of "Heart-Shaped Box":



We haven't performed or rehearsed since this show, but we'll likely be playing again in the Fall, and I'll post accordingly.