This is a sidebar from the discussion on “lip-synching” at a Senior Care place.

Now I may not appear to be, but I’m a pure purist when it comes to music….playing it, practicing it, performing, equipment, business, etc

So I went to watch this 5 piece band doing a town-sponsored concert in the park. I had seen them years ago. Nice sound, nice appearance, smoothly integrated band members, average to good female vocalist, palatable music presentation (good cross-section of standards), and more. I had a really enjoyable time listening to them

This time…..what happened????

Appearance: dressed like they were cleaning out their garage just before they came and didn’t bother to change. Whatever happened to dressing in unison and wearing matching outfits like they did up to around the 60’s-70‘s?

Female vocalist: bland singing…looked up at the sky most of the time (between songs) and never faced or spoke to the audience….drinking from a water bottle after each song (water or vodka?) and once spilling it all over herself….dressed neat but wearing every day street clothes

Saxophone player: performed 100% throughout every song (behind the singing, between her phrases, on the “ride”….never took a breath between notes, one constant line (good melody is in the space BETWEEN the notes)….played an alto sax (not a good idea behind a female singer…you begin to beg for the pianist to come in at that point playing in the lower registers)…played nothing but “notes,“ with no direction where he was going with those notes

Pianist: great pianist playing a Casio (nice sound too)….so what’s wrong here? He’s playing low-key jazz (but good jazz!) and not following the personality of the song the rest of the band is doing. They’re “swinging” (if you want to call it that) and when it’s his turn, he’s playing well but he’s playing for himself and NOT complimenting the music the band is actually playing. The momentum of the song was interrupted when he took his solo.

Everyone was reading off of sheet music…even with a no-brainer like “Kansas City!” Between songs the vocalist and the sax player exchanged quips and laughed while he had his hand over the mike and the audience was focused on them wondering what they were saying.

It gets worse….the audience was applauding and 3 couples were even dancing. Sure, music is subjective but I’ve been around enough good bands to know when I’m being “moved” by music. The people I was with felt the same way, and we all got up to leave at the same time.

Now THIS is what irritates me………..not so much “lip-synching” in a Senior place! What on earth happened to professionalism and playing ability in the whole darn music field? Why did I spend thousands of hours learning my craft when these “weekend warriors” come in and further lower the musical intellect of an audience to even lower standards and expectations? It’s actually nerve-wracking to see folks enjoying a musical performance that only a few years ago would have seen a band like that spending their time collecting unemployment benefits. Ruined my darn evening!

Diki….this right up your alley, but I’d really like to hear other comments too. Either that or it’s “stop going to park concerts” for me!

Lucky