Background/cocktail bar piano repertoire

[electricsheep]

Hi all! I could do with some of your collective wisdom.

I've been asked to play some background piano music at an event where people will be chatting/drinking over the music. It's an informal event with a relaxed dress code.

I just need some help with what to play! They're looking for some blues/jazz but they couldn't be more specific, I guess they just want something popular and not challenging as background noise! My background is classical at diploma level, so I could do with some help.

I thinking of

Strange Meadow Lark - Dave Brubeck
The man I love - Gershwin
Moon River - Mercer plus some improv
Don't know why - Jesse Harris/Norah Jones piano version (something a bit different but it sounds good!)

Not got much further than that really

I will also improvise around these but taking the main structure from them.

I would welcome any suggestions!

Thanks in advance

[ahinton]

Hi all! I could do with some of your collective wisdom.

I've been asked to play some background piano music at an event where people will be chatting/drinking over the music. It's an informal event with a relaxed dress code.

I just need some help with what to play! They're looking for some blues/jazz but they couldn't be more specific, I guess they just want something popular and not challenging as background noise! My background is classical at diploma level, so I could do with some help.

I thinking of

Strange Meadow Lark - Dave Brubeck
The man I love - Gershwin
Moon River - Mercer plus some improv
Don't know why - Jesse Harris/Norah Jones piano version (something a bit different but it sounds good!)

Not got much further than that really

I will also improvise around these but taking the main structure from them.

I would welcome any suggestions!

Thanks in advance

You could do a lot worse than explore the show tunes of Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers and perhaps especially Porter and also other "jazz standards" of which there is an immense number; that could give you the foundation of what you need to be doing; other popular movie themes, some more up to date, would also be a good idea. You will need indeed to be able to improvise around and with these, though.

Best,

Alistair

[electricsheep]

Thanks Alistair

I've been playing through quite a bit of Gershwin's arrangements of his tunes but struggling a bit with the improvisation, guess it's the handicap of the classical background!

I've got a few months though so hopefully will improve. If not I can at least stick to some of his arrangements with some simple improv.

Do you have any particular favourites from Kern and Rodgers?

[mjames]

True pain is when you hear someone call your music background/bar/salon music. It hurts. I can feel their pain from beyond the grave.

[ahinton]

Thanks Alistair

I've been playing through quite a bit of Gershwin's arrangements of his tunes but struggling a bit with the improvisation, guess it's the handicap of the classical background!

I've got a few months though so hopefully will improve. If not I can at least stick to some of his arrangements with some simple improv.

Do you have any particular favourites from Kern and Rodgers?

No, but there are so many popular tunes, mostly from enduring shows, that have stood the test of time that, as long as you can work your way around and into the mild jazzy improvisation bit, you could hardly go wrong!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

True pain is when you hear someone call your music background/bar/salon music. It hurts. I can feel their pain from beyond the grave.

It needn't be so. Each to his own and each kind of music and its performance to the situation and circumstance in which it's to be found.

Best,

Alistair

[mjames]

Still
True pain

[ahinton]

Still
True pain

To you, perhaps - but anyone pejoratively describing what you play (not "your music" per se, since you won't have written it) as "cocktail lounge music", "bar music" and the like when that's what you're playing because that's what's expected of you in a cocktail lounge is insulting him/herself, not you.

Best,

Alistair

[electricsheep]

I'm sorry mjames I have utmost respect for these composers, Gershwin and Brubeck especially. It is important to realise that the way I will be playing them will be very different than in a concert performance. Also, I am sure that many there may stop and listen at points.

To imply that the only way that music can be appreciated is in a silent room risks turning public performance into and archaic art form. Besides, many of the composers mentioned performed in similar environments.

Anyway, I feel that this discussion is for another place and/or forum! Any more suggestions anyone?

[indianajo]

Get the Real Fake Book from Berkeley college.  It is published commercially now. I understand the later editions replace some expensive copywrited pieces with traditional dreck like There Is A House in New Orleans or Tom Dooley  If you are in a way hurry, organforum.com has in the archive section the django fake book from France, which is not great but is free for download.  
Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Mercer, Some guy who just died who wrote a couple of Sinatra hits.  Pop music  standards from 40's and 50's are not so ear catching now that they inhibit conversation.   Of course there are show tunes from Rogers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Lowe, but the plethora of their records at the resale shops still turns me off. Younger people may not have so much yuck factor on these show tunes overplayed in the sixties and seventies .   Everybody my age did Do-Re-Mi in junior high band/orchestra with all those out of tune fellow students.  
I'm just getting into this genre as it was on the FM radio for 40 years and now has totally dried up.  I didn't know how much I would miss it until it was gone.  There is an AM radio station around 700 kilocycles from Toronto CA that plays this genre from midnight to 5 AM.  their whole playlist is this sort of music.    

[electricsheep]

Hi indianajo thanks for the tips

I'm from the UK so won't be able to listen to the AM station unfortunately. I'll definitely have a look aT the real fake books as they appear to cover most of the jazz standards.

indianajo do you have any particular favourites?

Thanks for the pointers!

[indianajo]

I've sweated out the chords to Autunm Leaves personally, I like it so much, without the Ferrante & Teicher chromatic runs.  Some Gershwin song that Andy Rooney sung, I can't put my finger on the name this minute.  Somebody to care for me?  It was a Very Good Year, Sinatra.  Nature Boy by Nat King Cole has been running through my head all week since I saw it for $4 at Salvation Army (too expensive this week). Nat's other big favorite was Get your Kicks on Route 66. If you cruise old record shops, compilations by Andre Kostalonitz, Peter Nero, Ferrante & Teicher, Lenny Dee have some art to them.  I avoid Mantovani  and Living Strings like the plague.  
AndyG of organforum has a personal website with a lot of standards on it available for download, he is quite skilled on the British seaside ballroom type organ style.  He is the moderator of organforum so his URL appears after his posts on nearly every thread.  

[pianoguy711]

True pain is when you hear someone call your music background/bar/salon music. It hurts. I can feel their pain from beyond the grave.

Weren't some of Chopin's waltzes/nocturnes essentially salon music? Didn't Chopin himself enjoy performing his nocturnes in the more intimate environment of Parisian salons?  In fact this is one of the challenges of performing the nocturnes on the stage: there subtleties can get swallowed up in huge hall.

By the way electricsheep, I love strange meadowlark by Brubeck, good pick!

[theholygideons]

How about some scriabin preludes op.11 in the background?  I mean, they are quite the ethereal and enchanting.

[kaystephaniex]

I don't know much about Jazz/Blues but below are a few of my suggestions comprise of cliché pieces:

- Chopin Waltzes
- Capriccio in F# Minor by Brahms
- River Flows in You by Yiruma
- Kiss The Rain by Yiruma
- Mariage d'Amour by Richard Clayderman
- Clair de Lune by Debussy
- My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion
- Paparazzi by Lady Gaga
- I Believe I Can Fly by R.Kelly
- You Raised Me Up by Westlife

[visitor]

This is great!  I lob this kind of music actually.  I have a book I highly recommend you pick up. It is designed for the classical pianist that doesn't have a lot I experience with making jazz stylings.  It includes a basic frame work if many prices including classical standards and gives breakdown on how the jazz arrangement is worked out the you get a basic version that sounds fine as is or can be improvised on.  Pretty much disgned for your situation.  I'm reading through it right now and especially love a famous Liszt piece that is reworked as a jazz waltz of all things lol
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0943748593?pc_redir=1403510233&robot_redir=1


Also have a look at the Brubeck nocturnes they are essentially intermediate level in terms of difficulty so they are perfect to work into extended sets ad rally lovely overall. The complete
Nocturnes are recorded on a Naxos label album :-)

[stevensk]

1) Misty
2) Body and soul
3) Skylark
4) Dont miss you at all (Norah Jones)
5) Embracable you    (Gershwin/Earl Wild)
6) Rachmaninoff pianoconsert 2 (excerpt) ..please, dont fire me from this forum
7) One flight down  (Norah Jones)

9) Debussy "reflets dans l'eau" (Image)
10) Marc-andré hamelin - valse irritation d'après nokia
11) Satie...?
12) Turn me on   (Norah jones..again)

[mjames]

To you, perhaps - but anyone pejoratively describing what you play (not "your music" per se, since you won't have written it) as "cocktail lounge music", "bar music" and the like when that's what you're playing because that's what's expected of you in a cocktail lounge is insulting him/herself, not you.

Best,

Alistair

I'm too stupid to understand anything you're saying.

[ahinton]

I'm too stupid to understand anything you're saying.

I'm sure that you're not, but what I've written's not so hard to grasp. Anyway, don't worry about it!

Best,

Alistair

[electricsheep]

Thank you all so much for your replies, I really appreciate that you have all taken time to help.

I think I will have to request that I can include some classical as well, I have played all of the Chopin nocturnes (with a couple of exceptions) in concerts before and I think a few of these will be appropriate.

Thanks for the Brubeck nocturnes recommendation, I don't think they are right for this occasion but I've had a listen and will definitely be learning them!

I wonder if anyone can give any more direction on the jazz standards mentioned. Is there any free material online? I will order the real fake book, the professional styling book looks great but is no longer available in the UK, second hand ones are over £50!

[goldentone]

This is great!  I lob this kind of music actually.  I have a book I highly recommend you pick up. It is designed for the classical pianist that doesn't have a lot I experience with making jazz stylings.  It includes a basic frame work if many prices including classical standards and gives breakdown on how the jazz arrangement is worked out the you get a basic version that sounds fine as is or can be improvised on.  Pretty much disgned for your situation.  I'm reading through it right now and especially love a famous Liszt piece that is reworked as a jazz waltz of all things lol

Since you have a jazz interest, I'm curious as to how you judge your jazz hands on the keys.  Like on a scale of 1 a little jazzy, 10 too jazzy.  And also, do you jazz improvise?  

[invictious]

May I suggest listening to the improv I linked in my signature below? If you are doing 'background' music, then there really is no problem making your improv indefinitely long, although switching things up maybe nice.

[visitor]

Since you have a jazz interest, I'm curious as to how you judge your jazz hands on the keys.  Like on a scale of 1 a little jazzy, 10 too jazzy.  And also, do you jazz improvise?  

I'm okay and can manage as part of rhythm piano or rhythm section of jazz ensemble (i.e. comp rhythms with or without drums and bass), and I can hang with ensemble (including vocals) with piano lead sheet (i.e. just chord symbols and maybe vocal melodic lines).  But solo improv, meh, not so much as my experience has mainly been in jazz band, pop or contemp group, but solo jazzy stuff i stick to realized scores for now (though once a piece is firmly in my hands i find it easier go stray from score and then do my own thing).