Leading with the beat

By Ann Wood

September 11, 2003

Weisman Directs jazz group from behind drum kit

The Bart Weisman Jazz Group is playing from among several thousand jazz standards that the audience may not be able to name but have certainly heard.

“Basically, you know the structure of the song, where it is going and the improvisational part of the song is a language every jazz musician knows,” Weisman says of jazz standards.

“The drummer has to be on top of everything that happens,” Weisman says, adding that as a leader, calling tunes requires that they make sense melodically and musically. “We are creating a mood the whole set which takes us into the last number,” Weisman says. “You realize this is 100 percent improvisation…It will never be the same from night to night, set to set, note to note.”

Weisman eyes the keyboardist, watching where he’s going. Weisman allows the other musicians a lot of freedom and freedom is what jazz is all about. Weisman adds “It’s not about me, it’s about the group.”

Besides being a front-man of his own group, Weisman also works as a sideman for vocalists such as Lea DeLaria. “When you work as a sideman, you have to leave your ego at the door, walk in, play the job…and then walk out again,” he says. He also adds “You have to have really big ears…You have to listen, you have to share.”

He notes that Provincetown has a pretty impressive jazz history. “I didn’t know until a few years ago that the A-House had first name jazz there,” he says, adding that Miles Davis and Billie Holiday played there.

Still, great jazz isn’t what drove Weisman to move from Washington, DC to Provincetown. Rather, it’s the town’s beauty. He said that his wife had been coming to Provincetown since she was a kid, and when he came to pick her up in 1980, “I just immediately fell in love. I took one look and knew that I’d be here one day.”

Back at the restaurant a song is being called. The bassist begins plucking away, his head is nodding in time. The musicians have a look of joyful seriousness on their faces. The audience is unconsciously tapping their toes while eating dinner. The song builds, then ends. The crowd applauds.

“That was great,” Weisman says. “Yeah, man, cookin’, man,” says the keyboardist.

They whisper among themselves. Then, they begin again.