I’m going to play with a clarinet and a tenor sax. I usually play with the person who plays clarinet once a month. She also plays tenor sax; when we play together, we play a mix of clarinets and saxophones. I love it when we do that. She plays with a guy who plays the tenor sax, and we have decided to play together to see if it would work. I chose some big band arrangements with backing tracks that we could play.

The guy was not thrilled. He wants to play the melody all the time and doesn’t want to practice the skill of playing in a big band. I respect that, but I think it would be beneficial for him to play with backing tracks because he doesn’t respect the pauses. He always plays too early because he doesn’t want to wait, which is noticeable when he plays the melody.

It was a great couple of hours, and I would do it again, but the guy didn’t want to repeat it. He said he plays too much already, so he couldn’t find the time. Instead, the woman and I have agreed that we want to play more frequently - I’m looking forward to it.