Mark Mancini - Blog #3

Published on August 2, 2011 Mark Mancini

Hello Jazz Sudburians! Welcome to my third blog of the Jazz Sudbury season.

Last time, I talked about my personal experience with the Online Talent Search, and why I and others found the submission process of the search to be so rewarding.

What came next for me, and my group, the Viking Five, made the Talent Search even more rewarding.

After the submission of our video, we found out we were one of four finalists in the Festival. Of course, we were nothing short of elated! For a beginner jazz group, with very little experience, we were surprised and excited that the panel of accomplished judges chose our group.

The next challenge was big for a group of teenaged jazz cats---we had to play at the main stage of the Festival on the Friday evening of the Festival. This was an evening that was free for all participants, so a large crowd was expected.

I remember arriving and seeing that the main stage was quite a bit larger than I had anticipated. Our group had practiced hard for this day, but the sizeable stage didn’t make my nerves any less piercing.

We decided to play two selections that evening---our contest entry, “Sugar”, and a personal swing favourite “Just Friends.” I remember going out on stage before we played our first tune. It was fairly warm evening for September, and the stage lights were hot and blinding. I’ve always loved that quality about stage lights, oddly enough!

My performance devil is the microphone. It’s something, for a sax player that isn’t an easy thing to master. After all, the sax is a mobile instrument, and it’s tough to stand still with a consistent wave of sound through the microphone. Throughout our two selections, I knew the microphone wasn’t playing to my advantage---my sound volume was not consistent. That experience, believe it or not, taught me a lot about jazz performance. Performance is something that you learn not out of a book, but on the spot. Much like life in general, every mistake that you make is one more opportunity to learn to do better.  The more mistakes you make now, the less you’ll make in the future. Jazz performance is a lesson best served on the bandstand. It was on the main stage bandstand that I learned at least a bit of how microphones should actually work in jazz!

Musically, I was proud of our group’s performance. Everyone played up to a level becoming of the main stage. While we ended up not receiving the most votes out of all of the four finalists, I would say we were winners that evening.

The Online Talent Search opened up a lot of doors for our group, within the community and musically as well. We took great delight in participating in the Festival and the contest.

Based on my experience, I am truly looking forward to this year’s entries!

Swing on, Sudbury!

Mark

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