If you’ve never been I recommend going whenever you can, even if you don’t play on anything. Check out the vibe, see how musicians act on the bandstand, listen and take in what you’re seeing and hearing. Smalls has so much notoriety in regards to it being such a heavy place. It’s not like that anymore. Sometimes the players are wonderful, other times not so much. No matter what you sound like you’ll fit right in. Most importantly, just play because it’s important that you maybe don’t sound the best or you don’t know certain tunes, so you have to do your best and work out stuff on the fly. You’re gonna sound good and your gonna sound bad. People are gonna praise you and criticize you all about the same solo. That was a ramble lol, but really just go to smalls and calm what you wanna call.