Friday Night Jam

Know about the book -

Friday Night Jam is written by Nowick Gray and published by Cougar WebWorks. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0981143121 (ISBN 10) and 9780981143125 (ISBN 13).

Friday Night Jam is an anecdotal, instructional how-to (and sometimes painful how-not-to) guide to group improvisation, based on the firsthand learning experiences of author and African drummer Nowick Gray in a weekly open jam in rural British Columbia, in the early 1990s. African drumming was booming in popularity then but not well integrated into conventional Western music mixes. This chronicle conveys the challenge of merging diverse musical instruments, genres and personalities; of attempting to produce quality music in a venue that welcomes relative beginners, lifelong amateurs, and random drop-ins for the night. The book offers experiential advice to beginning drummers, or to longtime musicians who have not yet had the opportunity or courage to attempt improvisational collaboration with others. At the core of the journey is the learning of the limited individual ego, with its unique talents and limitations, to negotiate the free and structured spaces with others, to merge in the greater group striving for excellence and beyond, ecstatic union. Nowick offers an overview of the confluence and conflict of different musical styles and expectations: acoustic/electric, world beat/rock, drummers/guitarists, perfectionists/amateurs, safe/risk, stoned/straight, standards/improvisation, men/women, fifties/sixties, tight/free. In rendering this spirit and process, the words too speak for themselves, players in the mix, jamming on the universal pulse.