I agree with you, but for me -- but not exclusively.

I play some of them as close to the famous recording as possible, including the solo. For example: When doing Santana's version of "Black Magic Woman" I play the guitar solo on the windsynth as close to the original as I am able. I even have a "Carlos" patch on the VL70m synth module. I think Carlos took Peter Green's solo and elevated it.

Others I play as closely as possible but with my own improvised solo. For example: My audience appreciates my wailing on the sax even in a song where there might be no sax solo on the original song.

Some others I do close to the recorded version but with our own twists to it, personalizing it to our desires. For example: We'll put our variations on the melody and/or instead of background vocal call and response, I might play the response on my sax, windsynth or guitar instead.

Yet others I play completely different from the original, and I mean completely. For example: We do Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" in a Cool School era swing style.

I love to play to an audience. I'd rather play than be in the audience. I always watch and feel the audience, paying attention to what works and what doesn't. It's not about playing for the audience, to me, it's playing with the audience. It's a dialog and they are equal partners.

When I was young, before DJs started playing in clubs, the focus of every band was to play the song as close to the original as possible. There were times when you could play your own solo, and times when you needed the famous solo, and that depended on the song. We learned a lot then, it was like taking lessons from the masters. How did he/she do that? Why did he/she change the phrasing of the melody in the middle chorus? And so on. It was ear training and finger training.

During one of my two trials at being 'normal' and taking a day job, I had a Sunday afternoon in a jazz band. The leader/guitarist played with Ira Sullivan before he became a teacher at the University of Miami in the jazz department. Heavyweight artists would occasionally come sit in with us when they were in town, because they all knew the guitarist. Sometimes I felt like I was in over my head, but I'm good at faking things (I was blessed with good ears) so nobody seemed to notice. It was a fun gig, nothing was done exactly the same way twice, nothing was done like 'the record' although some of the heads were similar (you can't do "Tunisia" without playing the Dizzy/Bird head), but a steady Sunday gig would never-ever pay the mortgage.

So when I quit the day job to go back to full-time music, I went back to what I call covers (exact) and semi-covers (songs done not quite like the original, or not at all like the original).

It's fun to do, it pays the bills, and although some people may call that selling out, to me holding a day job, so I can play jazz one day a week is a bigger sell-out. YMMV

To me there is nothing wrong with playing covers. Remember the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Czech Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra are all cover bands.

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Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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