Life of a Lonely Jazz Singer

Obama won and I'm dancing for joy! Thank goodness. "The times they are a changin'". Do you realize he will be president in the year 2012, the end of the Myan calender?? Interesting.
Anyway...
I found the cutest little guitar player! I'm not going to name him because I want him all to my self. Musically speaking that is. Young and sweet, no rehearsal, he was totally there. I have my older guys that I love but they have so much baggage. Unlike me, free as a bird to travel anywhere.
I'm also cautiously optimistic having called a guy who could possible help me get the girls in the big band where I'd like them to be. I realized the other day that this singing caper is not all about the audience. Not nearly as much as I thought. When I was little I wanted my six brothers and sister and my six cousins all to be in my plays. I didn't really care if the grownups saw it I just wanted everybody to play with me! And it's like that now. If the the guys and girls are musically stimulated and having fun, that's really enough for me. I guess it's because I'm a lonely jazz singer! I love the group situation even if it's difficult to manage egos sometimes. On Sunday at the East Malvern RSL here in Melbourne Australia, I threw a new original at the boys and I thought they did pretty well. I need to set up recording time with all the different configurations of muso's and see which one actually works the best. I wore a really deep royal purply blue Pilgrim dress with my Kenneth Cole fab yellow shoes that I got at the outlet store in Ventura. Love , love, love!

Aren't the boys just the cutest???

Life of a Lonely Jazz Singer

Merimbula Jazz Festival (Wheelers Oyster Bar & Restaurant)
Dress by Cue/Shoes by Nine West

Sometimes nice things happen when you need them to most. Just little things but they keep you going. Well, they keep you wondering! I got sent a whole slew of great photos that were taken at the Merimbula Jazz Festival in NSW by the bass players wife. The festival is in June and I didn't even remember she had a camera so I was really pleased and surprised when they landed in my email. I love a good photo mostly to remember what I was wearing! Then, a casting agent rang out of the blue and asked me come and film a scene. I was flabbergasted. I mean, yes, I did used to act and had some really good roles, but the singing took over and I didn't think anyone remembered me. I'll ask her when I see her why she thought of me. I've learned the scene already, I was nervous about that, but I guess it's no different than learning new songs which I do a lot of.
I'll let you know how it goes. As of today, 6 people have looked at my blog but nobody has commented. So far my experiment is failing. Then again, my genre is for the discerning. So that's OK. I didn't mention that the dress in the large pic is also Cue. I've only ever bought two dresses from them but both great. I wish I could figure out how to put a photo in the middle of this blog but it doesn't seem to allow that. I'm usually pretty good with computer stuff but this program has me beat. Never mind. I'll let you know how my casting goes!

The Life of a Lonely Jazz Singer

(That's my boyfriend and jazz slave)

Hi, My name is Connie Lansberg and this is my first blog.
I feel it's time to reach out and make new friends because all I ever do is learn new songs, break in new piano players (who don't seem to know what a chord is) deal with my new all girl Big Band, Connie Lansberg & the Sister of Sass, all 20 of us, write songs and fantasize about new shoes and dresses. I firmly believe that the singer should always look better than the audience. It's part of the show! many "jazz"singers here in Melbourne do not agree with me. I love fashion and if I didn't have such a huge desire to sing I would have a fantastic dress shop and search the world for wearable art.
Still, I know the audience likes to see what I'm wearing week after week and I always get comments on my shoes. I remember a booker coming to see me and I was wearing a great dress at the gig, but the venue she was booking for was grungy so I wore jeans at the gig and she never gave us another gig!
I admit my one stroke of luck is that my lovely boyfriend is my drummer and my jazz slave. He knows so much about jazz and I just like to sing. He's taught me everything I know and always has helpful critiques for me. I admit I only started learning these tunes a few years ago but so many of them are melodic and lyric genius.
Anyway, the lovely boy sets everything up and takes it all down before and after every gig as well as carting the whole drum kit around. he never complains and loves his drums so much! His musical knowledge is vast and I'm trying to convince him to be a reviewer!
So.......
I need to figure out if we can ever get beyond this level of notoriety . We have a pretty good album and about to do an original one with my jazz guys (I guess it'll be pop/jazz), we do a lot of gigs but we're not well known outside the 300 people who come to our shows. (Mind you, they never show up all at once. I wish!) I'm told it all depends on the Internet but I'm convinced someone manipulates results and wants us to believe that people really can be discovered online. I guess this will be my own experiment. Is there such a thing as 100th monkey syndrome?: http://www.hundrethmonkeysyndrome.co.uk/

I'm willing to find out. To hear our music and comment you can either google me or go to the website. And then let me know what you think???

This is a montage of a couple of original tunes
done live if you like visuals. Sound is a little rough as it was recorded straight through the video camera.