Brubeck Brothers Critique

Although I enjoyed the concert, it was very different than how I normally think of jazz. It sounded as if they're playing could've been improvisatory. Although I know that's not the case, at many parts it felt like there were three musicians playing separate pieces that didn't go together. It felt very free, and possibly purposely made to be unique. As they announced titles, they would indicate where the song comes from. Sometimes, they would indicate one of their band members and sometimes it would their version of someone else's song, such as their song “The Robots.” You can see the personalities of the musicians as they play and in their songs. The drummer, Dave King, wrote one of their songs “Keep the Bugs Off Your Glass and The Bears Off Your Ass” and was the most freestyle player. He seemed to have fun, and looked like he was completely free as he played. After relistening to the songs at a later point, I can confirm that not just his playing, but the entire song wasn’t exactly the same, which leads me to believe they do a lot of freestyle typical in jazz. Specifically, Dave King was very humorous throughout the concert. He would tell jokes the entire time between songs, and told a story about his big dream to give out ice cream at their concerts one day. Out of all of them, his personality and playing shined out the most. The performance showed clear elements of jazz and popular music as they played, using syncopation, freestyle, and melodies to musically communicate with the

My life would be incomplete without performing music. I’ve spent time, in concert bands, in bell choirs, in school and church choirs, and singing, playing in music festivals, and in pit bands trying not to laugh my head off at the actors’ improvisations. But the art that truly speaks to my soul does not lie in creating music, it lies in dancing to it.

I attended the Baylor University Concert Jazz Ensemble directed by Alex Parker on Tuesday, November 10th. This ensemble consisted of saxes, trombones, trumpets, drums, a piano, and bass. The concert showcased many individual talents by including solo’s or duet’s in every song. The program consisted of seven songs with no intermission. The pieces I selected were “Big Dipper” by Thad Jones and “Undecided” by Frank Mantooth.

They never suspected a band would actually attempt to play it. Since that piece is the most intricate and difficult composition Duke Ellington ever wrote, the festival broke their four song rule. That guideline required each band to have three songs ready to perform for the competition portion and a fourth incase the band made the top three. By playing this thirteen minute masterpiece, we only needed to perform that and one other song. Our band director Thara not only selected the most difficult option for us, he made us do it memorized. I remember hearing groups at a caliber I had never experienced, I was sure we had lost.

On September 19, 2016, I attended a live performance at “Villa Elba Lounge” in the Bronx, New York. The group featured was “Felo Swing y su Orquesta” and the main singer was Felo Swing. During the presentation, the eight members of the group played an important role to accomplish their goal, which was entertaining. However, two of them had more than one function: they were part of the choir. But, also each one of them had to play an instrument; one a piano, and the other one a guitar. Most of the time, Felo Swing was featured as a soloist, because he sang most of the songs alone. The remaining five members of the group had also fundamental parts of the presentation: two of them played guitars, one the bongo, one the drum, and the only woman

Ranging from playing pieces by J.S. Bach to pieces by Billy Joel, The Boston Brass is a brass quintet with a french horn, two trumpets, a tuba, and a trombone that recognizes works from many different genres in a concert, including Orchestra, Opera, Ballet, Jazz, Broadway, and more. Their concert Friday night, on September 15th in the Concert hall of the Forbes Center featured a wide variety of music that the group excelled at playing, including concert highlights of “Milonga del Angel” or “Gathering of the Angels” by Astor Piazzolla, a surprise performance of “The Little Feud in G Minor” by J.S. Bach, “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra and “Caravan” by Duke Ellington. The group’s charisma with both the audience and each other made the performance a ‘must-see’ and a wonderful way to spend an evening.

I attended the Brent Wallarab’s Jazz Ensemble’s performance on March 9th located at the Musical Arts Center at Indiana University Bloomington. It started at 8pm and ended around 9:10pm. Since it is a jazz ensemble, there are lots of instruments involve into the music. As always, piano, bass, guitar and drums serve for the rhythm section, but for some particular songs, vibraphone also serves as the rhythm keeper too. For the woodwind part, there are two alto saxophones, two tenor saxophones, one baritone saxophone and one flute. For the brass part, there are five trumpets and four trombones (one of the trombones is a bass trombone). The atmosphere and the environment were all great because there was a jazz combo’s performance right before the

On November 3rd of 2016 I went to listen to Bela Fleck and The Flecktones live at the Quick. The style of music that they play is called jazz fusion and I have even heard of this type of music, so I was interested to see how I would like it. The Flecktones have a variety of different instruments so I thought that would be a cool twist. Some guys that make up the band are of course Bela Fleck, Jeff Coffin, Future Man, Victor Wooten, and many more. The way they set up the stage was unique. They had different colored carpets on the ground and the band was pretty much scattered all over the stage.

Next up is Paul Desmond, who comes in with a cool, catchy alto sax groove that really defines the song and is one of its most prominent aspects. Meanwhile, in the background, we can hear Gene Wright using a two note walking baseline to give the song a little more rhythm. The song has a fast catchy tempo and is played in 5/4 time which is a complex time signature to play at, which just goes to show how uniquely gifted each member of the quartet is. After the songs signature bit, the quartet transitions into Paul Desmond's improv sax solo. This solo is followed by Brubeck's own solo which is utterly wild in the speed in which he plays. Even more impressive is his seamless transition from the solo back into the main section to close off the song. Once Brubeck finishes his solo, the band returns to play the main section out, and round off a great performance of a legendary song. The audience is seen standing up and cheering which most likely led to a standing ovation. I think the most impressive part of this performance was just how seasoned all the band members were with their respective instruments. Joe Morello stood out the most simply because of how skilled he was alongside of him being blind, which was just mind boggling to

The group was a full orchestra, with some extra instruments for certain songs. The instruments include violins, violas, and other instruments in the string family that I’m not completely sure about. The brass section was made up of primarily trombones and trumpets, with a few french horns and one baritone in the ensemble. The woodwinds had a few clarinets, a couple oboes, and some saxophones. In the saxophone section, the majority were tenors, while a few were altos with one being a bari sax. The percussion section was pretty standard, much like what you’d see in any orchestra or wind ensemble. A notable extra instrument I saw was a harp. Many of the pieces had some solos for the harp and violins, otherwise the harp could be heard faintly during

The final act, entitled Songs for a Free World, joined clamorous jazz and expressive dance. By turns, saxophonist Oliver Lake and bassist William Parker, who presented their own compositions, led a big band that comprised vocalist Fay Victor, saxophonist Ras Moshe, trumpeter Vincent Chancey, the honoree pianist Cooper-Moore, and percussionist Hamid Drake, among others.

The first half of the concert was only instrumental. There were two violins, two violas, and two cellos. They sat on stage with the violins one my right, then the violas in the middle, and the cellos on the end. The violins played a few songs solo. The second half of the concert was only the choir and a piano. Their performance started with the song Daybreak. The song Daybreak also had a few girls playing percussion, one of them had a tambourine. Using SHMRG, the Harmony of most of the choirs songs were very homophonic. The Melody of most of the songs were mainly slow, though a couple songs were very fast, and upbeat.

When I took my seat at the table, I had a chance to talk to my tablemates. They were an old couple who were local of Davis but I forgot to ask their names, which was a pity. I asked how they got to know this band. They said actually, they did not know the band before. They bought the membership of the Mondavi center and chose to come to this show because the band played a bit country music, which they loved. Looking around, the local middle-aged people and the elderly made up the majority of the audience, plus some family guests so I thought maybe it reflected that while hip-hop, rock, electrical dance music were more popular among the young generation, traditional American music like jazz, blues or country were more welcome by the older generation.

The interview was an integral aspect of the piece. Instead of simply having a recording of the interview playing in the background of the performance, the dancers of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie

Music is a form of art in which people paint pictures with their words and instruments. On April 19th I attended an amazing performance at Prince George’s Community college that was a prime example of this. The piano concert was a duet performed by Josiah Stocker and Hyeeum Hahm. They performed Vif, Modere and Brasileira by Darius Milhaud; Hoe-down, and Saturday Night Waltz by Aaron Copland; and VII. Waltz, V Rag, and VIII. A la Turk by Dave Brubeck. They played each piece beautifully but the enjoyed the most was VII. Waltz by Dave Brubeck which will be the topic of this report.