Tone technique: Sunday Jazz Jam offers musicians a place to hone their skills

Classic jazz lovers have a place to unite during the Sunday Jazz Jam.

The event is organized by the EQNX Jazztet and held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. every Sunday at Flatiron Albuquerque, 6001 San Mateo Blvd. NE.

The EQNX Jazztet, which is pronounced Equinox, was taken over by Michael Metz after his friend left the band to accept a promotion at work. Metz plays trumpet and flügelhorn in the jazztet. The band’s new lineup has been together for about a year now and is made up of Metz, Dan Kelly on saxophone, Vic Romanelli on guitar, Jamie Harrison on piano, Ian Davis on bass and Steve Arbuckle on drums.

Tone technique: Sunday Jazz Jam offers musicians a place to hone their skills

“We’re a jazz ensemble that plays a little bit of everything,” Metz said. “I wouldn’t consider us normal, so to speak, if that makes sense. We do a little bit of everything. We play some originals. We play classic jazz. When I say classic, it’s the music of Duke Ellington, the music of Count Basie, the music of Herbie Hancock, the music of Miles Davis. But, we like to put our own little spin on it.”

Jazz to Metz is a “living and breathing entity” that requires everybody’s input.

“You have two choices in this world, you can create music or you can regurgitate music,” he said.

He added that his philosophy is if people want to hear a song the way it was originally recorded, then they can just put on the record and listen to it.

“So we try to make things different,” Metz explained. “We try to play things differently so that people want to listen to what our interpretation of the music is.”

The EQNX Jazztet wants to share its love of classic jazz with others who embrace the music genre and put together the Sunday Jazz Jam where other musicians could sit in with the jazztet. The EQNX Jazztet performs the first hour of the jam and tries to select jazz tunes that people have not heard or do not hear that often, including originals. After the jazztet wraps up its set, it invites other musicians to the stage.

“It all kind of depends on how many musicians there are,” Metz said. “If I’ve got five drummers who are there waiting to play, well, they’re only going to play maybe two songs. Whereas this last Sunday, I had two drummers, and so they basically split (their time performing). They both played about 30 minutes worth of music. So it all depends on who shows up and what kind of musicians and how many. Last Sunday, I had seven vocalists who wanted to sing. So, it’s a matter of trying to explain to everybody, ‘We’re going to start with one song each, then I will get everybody up again for a second song.’ It’s a balancing act, trying to make sure the musicians are aware of what we do.”

Metz said the jam session is different from an open mic event in that it is not just a singer-songwriter with a guitar playing original music, but an entire band to play along with.

“We try to focus on giving everybody an opportunity to play jazz,” he explained. “That’s the reason why we do it. We are a jazz ensemble. We want to help people learn how to play jazz and just like anything else, if you don’t learn to play with other people, you don’t learn how to improvise”

Metz said the goal of the jam session is to get people of all skill levels to come out and play the music of classic jazz greats and sharpen their playing skills.

“You can go on YouTube and you can find backing tracks, but that doesn’t help with (playing) jazz,” he explained. “Jazz is unique because it’s interaction. If you listen to a lot of jazz, you’ll hear the musicians will interact with each other ... And that’s what we’re trying to facilitate is give people an opportunity to play with musicians they don’t normally play with and learn how to interact.”