You’re IN the Band by Cynthia Sayer

Over the years, I’ve suffered a certain number of headaches owing to musicians (and occasionally whole bands) who mounted the bandstand without the merest clue as to how to play together as a group. I believe they were all for the idea of being a jazz band but they could not put the thing into practice. The individual musicians might have some fluency on their instruments of choice, but the cumulative result is almost too much to endure. I’ve been known to surreptitiously record such musical disasters. The term “train wreck” is too kind for the sound I have captured. Revisiting those recordings, I grimace, snort loudly, and wonder if the human race is worth saving. I am inclined to play back those unholy bootlegs to scare the skunks and stray cats out of my yard. (The squirrels, I fear, are immune.) At long last, and none too soon, there may indeed be help for solipsistic soloists who attempt to act as part of non-cohesive whole. A trad-jazz Florence Nightingale has emerged, banjo in hand, to show would-be hot musicians the way. Our particular Lady With the (Jazz) Lamp is none other than Cynthia Sayer, world-renowned music educator and purveyor of the four-stringer. Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and bandleader Cynthia Sayer first gained prominence as a founding member of Woody Allen’s New Orleans Jazz Band, and has explored other musical realms playing with many