Kris- Glad to hear you 'survived' your trial by fire. That "paper trained" problem is common enough. The problem with it seems to be (well, at least to me) that "classicly trained" people, or people who study with rigid teachers, become brain-washed into believing that they are obligated to play every piece exactly the way it is written. In an orchestral setting, or a large band, I can appreciate the need for everybody to be playing the same thing in the same way, but outside that context, the usual approach is to make the piece your own. That gives you the libertyu to interpret it in whatever way seems appropriate to you. Perhaps more impoprtantly, it gives you the freedom of nat having to worry about every fly-speck on the paper. Mostly a matter of idiom, I suppose, and there are clearly appropriate venues for either or both "habits". With sadness, I have know a number of brilliant "paper trained" musicians who were completely incompetant without the paper.