I only joined season 1 of jazz combo because dance showcase rehearsals are also on Monday lunch, but I found that this year, I have been more confident in my improvising and comping skills, and I used the fairly simple piece All of Me as an opportunity to explore different styles of comping in jazz (LO1). Our combo was a particularly large one, just due to numbers and skill levels within the activity, but we agreed on working with two styles of playing the piece, starting off with a jazz waltz which was fairly slower and easier for me, before I played a solo montuno into a quicker, livelier latin jazz take on the piece.

Working in my combo was very fun, but also required a lot of collaboration and self management (LO5), because a lot of the rhythm section were grade 10s who liked to muck around quite a bit, but knowing how to keep them all under control and manage our time properly was an obstacle we had to face. Eventually, we were able to pull off a good performance.