Beginning this month my quartet will be playing twice a month at Delaney’s and has a new name, “Inside Pocket.”
For the last few years my twice a month gigs at Delaney’s have been split between my quartet and a duo with Doug White. Now Doug is stepping back to focus on other pursuits. That left an opening and the quartet is going to fill it.
Given the expanded role of the quartet I finally decided to change our name. Initially, we went with my name because that is a standard practice for jazz bands, and because coming up with something unique and catchy isn’t easy. But I’ve never felt comfortable with my name out front – it seems to diminish the importance of the rest of the band.
The interesting part of our band naming experience (at least for me) was how we decided on the final name. After several weeks of brainstorming names, making sure they weren’t already taken, and weeding out names with undesirable associations, we had a nice collection but no clear frontrunner. Each of us had a different 1st choice. How to proceed without risking bruised feelings? Enter CIVS, a free, noncommercial, online ranked-choice voting service.
With ranked -choice voting, or Instant-runoff voting (IRV), voters rank their choices and the choice with the most support wins. Using CIVS we were free to rank our choices accurately because the voting is anonymous and IRV voting is resistant to vote splitting and spoilers. It sounds crazy but I found the process fun and exciting; it was hard to know how it would turn out. Fortunately, we all voted quickly and didn’t have to wait long to find out we are now “Inside Pocket.”
“Inside Pocket” was not everyone’s first choice but we all like it, and still like each other! Now we look forward to making “Inside Pocket” a name you’ll remember and associate with good music and good times!
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